How do I install the System Design Academy skill?

Run npx skillmds@latest add mahmoud20138/system-design-academy in your terminal (requires Node.js), paste this page's agent-chat prompt into Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-connected agent, or download the SKILL.md file and copy it into your agent's skills directory.

Is System Design Academy safe to use?

This skill has not completed SkillMD's automated safety review yet. SkillMD never runs a skill's scripts for you; review the SKILL.md before installing.

Which AI agents work with System Design Academy?

This skill is tagged as working with Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex. SKILL.md is an open format, so most agents that read a skills directory can load it too.

Is System Design Academy free to use?

Yes. Installing skills from SkillMD is free, and the skill stays under its author's original license.

Who published System Design Academy?

mahmoud20138 (@mahmoud20138) published this skill. Their other Agent Skills are listed on their SkillMD profile.

System Design Academy by mahmoud20138

Name: System Design Academy
Author: mahmoud20138

System Design Academy

Real-world system design case studies from 40+ major tech companies + 114 concepts. USE FOR: system design, design Twitter, design YouTube, design Uber, design Netflix, design WhatsApp, design Slack, design Instagram, URL shortener, payment system, distributed systems, scalability, microservices, caching patterns, consistent hashing, rate limiting, system design interview, architecture patterns, database scaling.

mahmoud20138 Updated Sep 17, 2026

File contents

System Design Academy

Case studies from 40+ companies + 114 system design concepts.

Company Case Studies

Company	Topics
Amazon / AWS	S3 architecture, Prime Video microservices, scaling
Netflix	Microservices, chaos engineering
Uber	ETA computation, nearby drivers, payments
WhatsApp	Messaging at billions scale
Slack	Messaging architecture
Stripe	Rate limiting, idempotent APIs
Instagram	Infrastructure scaling to billions
YouTube	Scalability, Vitess MySQL
Google	Search engine, Docs real-time editing
Discord	Performance optimization, messaging
Figma	PostgreSQL scaling
Shopify	Flash sales handling
Zoom	Video conferencing
Facebook	Live video streaming
Tinder	Swipe architecture
LinkedIn	Scalability patterns
Reddit	Architecture
Dropbox	File sync and growth
Canva	Real-time collaboration
Stripe / Razorpay / PayPal	Payment gateways
Zapier	Automation platform
Bluesky	Decentralized social network
Disney+ Hotstar	25M concurrent users, emoji delivery

Core Concepts (114 total)

Concept	Key Points
API Gateway	Auth, routing, rate limiting, aggregation
Caching	Write-through, write-behind, cache-aside, eviction
Consistent Hashing	Virtual nodes, minimal rehashing on scale
Load Balancing	Round-robin, least-connections, IP-hash
Rate Limiting	Token bucket, sliding window, fixed window
Message Queues	Kafka, RabbitMQ, pub/sub patterns
DB Scaling	Sharding, replication, SQL vs NoSQL trade-offs
CDN	Edge caching, origin pull vs push
Bloom Filters	Probabilistic membership, space efficient
Gossip Protocol	Distributed state propagation
Cell Architecture	Blast radius isolation
Chaos Engineering	Netflix Simian Army approach
Actor Model	Concurrent, message-passing systems
Real-time	WebSocket vs SSE vs long-polling

Back-of-Envelope Numbers

1M req/day = ~12 req/sec
1B req/day = ~12,000 req/sec
MySQL write ~1,000 QPS; Redis read ~100,000 QPS
Typical read:write ratio = 10:1 to 100:1

7 Interview Failure Patterns

Not clarifying requirements first
Skipping scale estimation
Ignoring failure modes
Not discussing trade-offs
Over-engineering for current scale
Missing data consistency requirements
Forgetting monitoring and observability

---name: system-design-academydescription: Real-world system design case studies from 40+ major tech companies + 114 concepts. USE FOR: system design, design Twitter, design YouTube, design Uber, design Netflix, design WhatsApp, design Slack, design Instagram, URL shortener, payment system, distributed systems, scalability, microservices, caching patterns, consistent hashing, rate limiting, system design interview, architecture patterns, database scaling.---# System Design Academy> Case studies from 40+ companies + 114 system design concepts.## Company Case Studies| Company | Topics ||---------|--------|| Amazon / AWS | S3 architecture, Prime Video microservices, scaling || Netflix | Microservices, chaos engineering || Uber | ETA computation, nearby drivers, payments || WhatsApp | Messaging at billions scale || Slack | Messaging architecture || Stripe | Rate limiting, idempotent APIs || Instagram | Infrastructure scaling to billions || YouTube | Scalability, Vitess MySQL || Google | Search engine, Docs real-time editing || Discord | Performance optimization, messaging || Figma | PostgreSQL scaling || Shopify | Flash sales handling || Zoom | Video conferencing || Facebook | Live video streaming || Tinder | Swipe architecture || LinkedIn | Scalability patterns || Reddit | Architecture || Dropbox | File sync and growth || Canva | Real-time collaboration || Stripe / Razorpay / PayPal | Payment gateways || Zapier | Automation platform || Bluesky | Decentralized social network || Disney+ Hotstar | 25M concurrent users, emoji delivery |## Core Concepts (114 total)| Concept | Key Points ||---------|-----------|| API Gateway | Auth, routing, rate limiting, aggregation || Caching | Write-through, write-behind, cache-aside, eviction || Consistent Hashing | Virtual nodes, minimal rehashing on scale || Load Balancing | Round-robin, least-connections, IP-hash || Rate Limiting | Token bucket, sliding window, fixed window || Message Queues | Kafka, RabbitMQ, pub/sub patterns || DB Scaling | Sharding, replication, SQL vs NoSQL trade-offs || CDN | Edge caching, origin pull vs push || Bloom Filters | Probabilistic membership, space efficient || Gossip Protocol | Distributed state propagation || Cell Architecture | Blast radius isolation || Chaos Engineering | Netflix Simian Army approach || Actor Model | Concurrent, message-passing systems || Real-time | WebSocket vs SSE vs long-polling |## Back-of-Envelope Numbers- 1M req/day = ~12 req/sec- 1B req/day = ~12,000 req/sec- MySQL write ~1,000 QPS; Redis read ~100,000 QPS- Typical read:write ratio = 10:1 to 100:1## 7 Interview Failure Patterns1. Not clarifying requirements first2. Skipping scale estimation3. Ignoring failure modes4. Not discussing trade-offs5. Over-engineering for current scale6. Missing data consistency requirements7. Forgetting monitoring and observability

Frequently asked questions

System Design Academy

File contents

System Design Academy

Company Case Studies

Core Concepts (114 total)

Back-of-Envelope Numbers

7 Interview Failure Patterns

Related skills

Frequently asked questions

How do I install the System Design Academy skill?

What does the System Design Academy skill do?

Is System Design Academy safe to use?

Which AI agents work with System Design Academy?

Is System Design Academy free to use?

Who published System Design Academy?