System Design is a comprehensive assessment of problem-solving skills on a larger scale. In System Design Twitter X interview questions, you’ll be presented with a problem, requiring you to acquire insights into the system and ultimately suggest the most optimal solution.
System Design Twitter X: Are you a software engineer preparing for an upcoming system design interview? Feeling overwhelmed and uncertain about what to expect? Whether you are a recent graduate just starting your career or a veteran developer brushing up on your skills, building confidence in the system design domain is essential. Fortunately, we have the perfect resource to help: System Design Twitter X!Â
In this blog post, we’ll discuss how this platform can assist you with impressing your interviewer by providing easy-to-follow guidance on everything from breaking down questions into core components to setting up frameworks for successful data structures.Â
As such, rather than feeling stressed and unprepared for your upcoming interview, through System Design Twitter X’s comprehensive insights you can now confidently forge ahead — read on to find out more!
System design questions are complex and can be daunting. But with the proper preparation, tools, and resources like System Design by Physics Wallah, you can develop a good understanding of these interview problems. Upgrading your skills in system design makes you more desirable to employers who have large-scale projects that require this knowledge and experience.
Also read:Â Understanding System Design Whatsapp & Architecture
How To Design the System of Twitter?
When confronted with how to design Twitter in a technical interview, it’s crucial to resist the urge to dive into specific tools and frameworks. Instead, focus on presenting high-level ideas about problem definition, solution design, and step-by-step analysis. Remember, the interviewer is interested in understanding your approach to solving the problem, not just the technologies you would use.
1. Core Features Discussion:
Begin by dissecting the system into core components and addressing fundamental features. For the minimum viable product (MVP) of Twitter, consider elements such as:
- Quick tweet creation.
- Tweet timelines are categorized into user, home, and search timelines.
- User following functionality.
- Efficient handling of tweets for users with millions of followers.
2. Limitations and Characteristics:
Examine the limitations of the Naive solution, emphasizing the heavy-read nature of Twitter and the need for eventual consistency. Understand Twitter’s characteristics, such as 300 million daily active users, 6,000 tweets per second, and 600,000 queries per second for timelines.
3. High-Level Solution:
Propose a high-level solution by introducing Redis for faster read access and horizontal scalability. Outline the architecture, featuring three tables – User Table, Tweet Table, and Followers Table. Utilize Redis for caching to optimize data retrieval speed.
4. Naive Solution (Synchronous DB Queries):
Discuss a basic solution, often referred to as the Naive solution. This involves data modeling using a relational database like MySQL, where user and tweet information is stored. To serve feeds, a large select statement retrieves tweets for a specific user’s timeline. However, highlight the limitation – the potential bottleneck created by querying a large tweet table.
5. User Timeline Architecture:
Detail the architecture for the user timeline, explaining the process of fetching tweets from Redis and using in-memory timelines for faster access.
Also read:Â A Detailed Guide on Cracking System Design Interviews in 2023!
6. Home Timeline Architecture:
Discuss the architecture for the home timeline, emphasizing a fanout approach to distribute tweets to followers. Address the weakness related to celebrities with millions of followers and propose a mixed strategy for efficiency.
7. Searching:
Explore Twitter’s search mechanism using Earlybird, a real-time reverse index based on Lucene. Clarify the distributed approach involving multiple servers or data centers for handling thousands of tweets per second. In addition to the core features, delve into other components like Trends, notifications, and advertisement incorporation.Â
Conclude by highlighting the importance of a solid understanding of system design concepts for individuals aiming to secure roles as Software Developers or Engineers at leading tech companies. Mastery of system design provides a distinct advantage in navigating tech interviews and career progression. Operating at a scale where it handles thousands of tweets per second, Twitter employs a distributed approach rather than relying on a single monolithic system or table. Using the scatter and gather strategy, Twitter establishes multiple servers and data centers to facilitate indexing.Â
When a query such as this is initiated, Twitter dispatches the query to all servers or data centers, querying each Early Bird shard. Matching results from all Early Bird shards are retrieved, sorted, merged, and reranked based on metrics like retweets, replies, and overall tweet popularity.
Exploring Twitter’s core features is essential to delving into additional components. Noteworthy topics include Trends and Trending, often managed through frameworks like Apache Storm and Heron. Furthermore, discussions can extend to the intricacies of managing notifications and integrating advertisement mechanisms within the platform.
For those aspiring to secure roles as Software Developers or Engineers at leading tech companies or aiming for a seamless transition from SDE I to SDE II or Senior Developer profiles, a deep dive into the world of System Design is imperative. A robust understanding of System Design concepts becomes a crucial asset, particularly for working professionals, providing a significant edge during technical interviews and career advancements.
If you ever feel stuck or overwhelmed by the immense complexity involved in system design, rest assured there are effective solutions. Some students find it very helpful in almost any situation to reference relevant examples that they can use to construct their answers more quickly and effectively.Â
At the same time, courses like System Design by Physics Wallah provide expert guidance on these topics that may prove invaluable in such an environment. There is no substitute for education and experience when it comes to understanding various concepts related to system design.
Also read:Â An In-Depth 10-Day System Design Workshop!
FAQs
What are the core features of Twitter X?
Twitter X focuses on essential features such as seamless tweeting, a user-centric timeline, and efficient search functionality. It enhances the user experience with optimized timelines, real-time notifications, and a robust recommendation system.
How does Twitter X handle many tweets and user queries?
Twitter X employs a distributed approach, utilizing scatter as a gathering strategy. Multiple servers and data centers are set up to handle indexing, ensuring the efficient handling of thousands of tweets per second.
What is the significance of the scatter and gather strategy in Twitter X?
The scatter and gather strategy involves distributing queries across servers or data centers, querying each Early Bird shard. The results are then collected, sorted, merged, and reranked based on retweets, replies, and tweet popularity.
How is the user timeline architecture designed in Twitter X?
The user timeline architecture fetches user-specific tweets from the database, which are then sorted chronologically. Twitter X incorporates a caching layer to enhance performance, storing user timeline data for faster retrieval.
How does Twitter X handle the home timeline, considering heavy search operations?
Twitter X initially fetches the users a person is following and then retrieves and merges their latest tweets. It employs a Fanout approach to address heavy search operations, where tweets are preprocessed and distributed to followers' timelines.
