FAANG System Design Cheat Sheet

System design interviews are the single biggest filter between senior engineers and staff-plus offers at FAANG companies. Most candidates fail not because they lack technical knowledge, but because they lack a repeatable framework for structuring their answers under pressure. This cheat sheet gives you that framework. You will learn the exact five-step process that has helped hundreds of engineers land offers at Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, and Netflix. Step one is always requirements clarification. Never jump into drawing boxes and arrows. Spend the first three to five minutes asking pointed questions: What is the expected scale? What are the latency requirements? Is this read-heavy or write-heavy? Do we need strong consistency or is eventual consistency acceptable? Interviewers are testing whether you think before you build. Step two is capacity estimation. Back-of-the-envelope math is your secret weapon.