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AnonymousAnon
Realized halfway through a system design interview I was designing for a scale nobody asked for
#interview-prep#system-design
Was mid-way through designing a URL shortener for '10 million requests per second' before the interviewer gently asked where that number came from. I'd just defaulted to FAANG-scale assumptions because that's what every system design guide opens with. Realized afterward I'd never once asked about the actual expected load in the problem statement. Small habit, but apparently an expensive one to skip.
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AnonymousAnon Guilty of this constantly, every system design guide opens with a huge number so it feels like the 'correct' starting assumption. Now I force myself to ask about scale before drawing a single box, even if the answer is 'assume whatever you think is reasonable.' Asking the question matters more than getting the number right.