Introduction and Mindset

From Coder to Architect

Welcome to System Design: Zero to Hero.

Most software engineers spend their days writing functions, fixing bugs, and optimizing loops. This is Micro-optimization. System Design is Macro-optimization. It’s not about how fast your for loop runs; it’s about what happens when 100,000 users run that loop at the exact same second.

In this first module, we will strip away the code and focus on the Mindset.

The Roadmap: Module 01

🌱
Philosophy
Scale Cube & Trade-offs
⚖️
Requirements
CAP, PACELC, SLOs
🧮
Estimation
Capacity Planning
🎤
Interview
The PEDALS Framework

What you will master in Module 01

  1. The Scale Cube: How to scale from 1 server to 10,000 servers.
  2. Trade-offs: Why “Fast, Cheap, and Good” is impossible (CAP Theorem).
  3. Estimation: How to calculate storage for Instagram on a napkin in 3 minutes.
  4. The Framework: How to pass the 45-minute System Design Interview using the PEDALS method.

Who is this for?

  • Junior/Mid Engineers looking to break into Senior roles.
  • Senior Engineers preparing for MAANG (Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) interviews.
  • Anyone tired of building systems that crash when they go viral.

Module Chapters