Category: General

Stateful vs Stateless Architecture: A Comparative Analysis

Introduction Stateful and stateless architectures represent two distinct paradigms in system design, each with significant implications for scalability, complexity, and operational efficiency. Stateful architecture maintains client session data or application state on the server, while stateless architecture treats each request independently, storing no session-specific information on the server. This document provides a detailed comparison of

Client-Server Architecture Explained: Fundamentals and Applications

Introduction Client-server architecture is a foundational model in distributed computing, underpinning the design of modern software systems, including web applications, enterprise solutions, and networked services. This architecture delineates the roles of clients and servers, where clients initiate requests, and servers respond with the requested services or data. Understanding this model is critical for system design

What’s an API?

Introduction Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are fundamental building blocks in modern software architecture, serving as the conduits for communication between different system components. In the context of system design interviews, understanding APIs is essential, as they often form the backbone of scalable, distributed systems. APIs enable seamless integration, data exchange, and functionality reuse, allowing developers

How Interviewers Evaluate System Design Answers

Introduction System design interviews are a pivotal component of the hiring process for software architect and senior engineering roles, testing a candidate’s ability to architect scalable, reliable, and efficient systems under complex constraints. Unlike coding interviews, which focus on algorithmic precision, system design interviews evaluate a broader skill set: the ability to translate ambiguous requirements

What is System Design and Why it Matters in Interviews

Introduction System design is a cornerstone of modern software engineering, encompassing the art and science of architecting scalable, reliable, and efficient systems to solve complex problems. In the context of technical interviews, particularly for software architect or senior engineering roles, system design questions evaluate a candidate’s ability to translate requirements into robust architectures. These questions
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