schema-design Interview Questions
20 interview questions in our bank cover schema-design, most of them System Design for ML. They average 3.5/5 difficulty — medium — and each one was reported by a candidate after a real interview. Companies known to ask about schema-design: Airbnb, Netflix, Salesforce, ByteDance, Affirm, and 6 more.
Practice these on the problems board →Companies that ask about schema-design
Question mix
- System Design for ML18
- Coding & Leetcode-style Questions2
Difficulty
- 2/5 — easy1
- 3/5 — medium11
- 4/5 — hard6
- 5/5 — very hard2
Questions tagged schema-design
Ads Audience Targeting / Custom Audience System
5/5This architectural challenge, frequently asked at Netflix, focuses on building a massive custom audience targeting platform capable of ingesting colossal advertiser datasets, matching hashed identifiers against a vast user base, and evaluating complex boolean segmentation rules in real time. Candidates are evaluated on their ability to design ultra-low latency lookups and scalable distributed pipelines. Access the complete system blueprint and expert solution by purchasing a subscription.
System Design for MLNetflixVideo-Keyword Association Review System
3/5Design a scalable media association pipeline in this system design interview question inspired by engineering challenges at ByteDance. You will architect a backend service capable of ingesting massive batches of video assets and keyword sets, evaluating relevance scores, and supporting seamless updates and resumable uploads. The problem tests your ability to handle heavy asynchronous workloads, data versioning, and state management at scale. Unlock the comprehensive architecture breakdown, trade-off analysis, and expert solution with a subscription.
System Design for MLByteDanceVenmo-Style P2P Payment Data Model
4/5This Affirm system design interview challenge requires you to architect a robust database schema and data model for a peer-to-peer payment platform similar to Venmo. You must design tables and workflows that handle direct balance transfers, bank-funded transfers with asynchronous clearing windows, pending states, and failure recovery scenarios. The exercise evaluates your capability to model complex financial transactions with strict consistency and state tracking requirements. To review the comprehensive architectural design, entity-relationship models, and expert guidelines, a subscription is needed.
System Design for MLAffirmTagging System REST API
3/5Dive into this comprehensive system design exercise centered around RESTful API creation, as featured in Atlassian interviews. The task requires you to architect a robust tagging mechanism that supports entity association, lifecycle management, and efficient searching while handling pagination and edge cases. Interviewers use this scenario to gauge your practical architectural judgment and interface design clarity. Unlock the complete system requirements and expert design blueprint with a subscription.
System Design for MLAtlassianAirbnb Booking System Design
3/5This system design challenge explores the architecture behind a scalable lodging reservation platform, focusing heavily on managing concurrent transactions and preventing race conditions during checkout holds. Encountered frequently as an Airbnb interview question, it tests your ability to balance read-heavy search patterns with strict transactional consistency for bookings. Access to the complete architectural blueprint and detailed mitigation strategies requires a subscription.
System Design for MLAirbnbIn-Memory SQL Database
4/5This open-ended Airbnb coding interview requires you to design and implement a simplified relational database from scratch, supporting table creation, data insertion, and conditional querying. The prompt deliberately leaves room for ambiguity, testing your ability to clarify requirements, establish a solid minimum viable product, and handle stretch goals like indexing or filtering. Architectural vision and clean code organization are paramount for success. The full problem and model solution require a subscription.
Coding & Leetcode-style QuestionsAirbnbAds Demand Intake Data Modeling
5/5Design a robust advertising demand management architecture suitable for large-scale platforms like Netflix in this comprehensive system design interview scenario. You will architect data models to handle advertiser account hierarchies, multi-layered campaign budgets, creative assets, complex targeting rules, and real-time impression measurements. The discussion dives deep into balancing direct-sold orders with programmatic bidding workflows while maintaining accurate event attribution. Unlock the complete system design blueprint and architectural evaluation by subscribing today.
System Design for MLNetflixDesign Google Drive / Data Room
3/5Architect a secure document storage and management platform inspired by real-world system design interviews at Harvey. This challenge focuses heavily on establishing robust organization-level access control lists and handling scalable file handling for digital assets. You will learn how to design reliable storage hierarchies and security boundaries while addressing enterprise-grade data governance requirements. Gain access to the comprehensive system architecture guide and expert recommendations through our subscription.
System Design for MLHarveyDesign a URL Shortener (TinyURL)
2/5Tackle a classic Roblox system design interview by architecting a scalable URL shortening service capable of translating lengthy web links into compact, redirectable identifiers. This challenge tests your knowledge of unique ID generation schemes, collision resolution strategies, high-throughput caching, and read-heavy traffic management. Unlock the complete system architecture guide and expert design breakdown with a paid subscription.
System Design for MLRobloxDesign a Collaborative Spreadsheet (Google Sheets)
4/5Presented during an onsite engineering round at Salesforce, this system design challenge requires architecting a real-time collaborative workspace supporting simultaneous edits, formula calculations, and data persistence. It evaluates your expertise in handling distributed concurrency, state synchronization, and scalable backend data models. Uncover the comprehensive architectural guidelines and complete system breakdown with a subscription.
System Design for MLSalesforceMachine Coding: Train Ticket Booking System (API + Schema + OOP Design)
4/5This machine coding interview question, featured in hiring loops at Nielsen, asks you to build a comprehensive backend service for a railway reservation platform. You will be evaluated on your ability to establish clean object-oriented architecture, design robust relational database schemas, and structure intuitive application programming interfaces for searching journeys, verifying capacity, and executing secure reservations. Unlock the full architectural blueprint and reference implementation with a subscription.
Coding & Leetcode-style QuestionsNielsenWaitlist System Design
3/5Building scalable backend subsystems requires careful handling of massive concurrency, priority queues, and efficient messaging patterns. In this reported Airbnb system design interview question, you are tasked with architecting a robust waitlist platform that manages user subscriptions, evaluates criteria dynamically, and handles notification fan-out at scale. The exercise tests your database schema design, API boundaries, and idempotency guarantees under heavy traffic. Gain access to the full architectural blueprint and expert solution by subscribing now.
System Design for MLAirbnbPerishable-Goods Tracking & Location System
3/5Tackling real-time inventory tracking for perishable goods is a compelling machine learning system design challenge frequently featured in screening rounds at Amazon. This scenario requires architects to design a scalable platform that monitors product lifecycles across numerous retail locations, seamlessly transitioning items to designated storage zones upon expiration while maintaining a reliable audit ledger. Candidates must address challenges related to spatial querying, data durability, and state synchronization at scale. Access to the comprehensive architectural blueprint and expert evaluation details requires a paid subscription.
System Design for MLAmazonData Modeling and DAU Query for a Fitness App
3/5Tackle a practical analytics engineering challenge featured by DoorDash, focusing on database schema design for health tracking applications. You will establish metrics for daily active users and write efficient querying logic to extract vital user engagement insights over customized time intervals. This exercise tests database design principles and aggregation proficiency. Unlock the full case study and expert solution by subscribing.
System Design for MLDoorDashGroup Chat / Messaging System Design
3/5Master the architectural patterns behind building a scalable communication platform in this system design exercise frequently featured in Airbnb technical interviews. Learn how to architect real-time message dispatching, handle offline message retention, manage read statuses, and optimize fan-out distribution strategies for large participant groups. You will explore database storage schemas and traffic scaling bottlenecks. Access to the comprehensive architectural walkthrough and expert-crafted reference solution requires a subscription.
System Design for MLAirbnbCoffee Ordering System Design
3/5Used during technical evaluations at Salesforce, this system design prompt asks candidates to construct an end-to-end beverage ordering and management platform. The interview scenario prioritizes relational database modeling, efficient query design for complex business metrics, and reliable real-time status notification pipelines for customers and vendors. Architects must address tricky edge cases and lifecycle state transitions within strict time limits. Unlocking the complete architectural design and database schemas requires an active subscription.
System Design for MLSalesforceSupport Ticket Routing & Claiming System
3/5Tackle a realistic system design challenge inspired by Airbnb where you must engineer an internal support platform capable of ingesting tickets from multiple channels, routing them dynamically to qualified agents without race conditions, and aggregating performance metrics over rolling timeframes. This problem tests your ability to design cohesive domain models and scalable analytics pipelines under concurrency constraints. Discover the complete system architecture and expert solution by subscribing.
System Design for MLAirbnbHost Listings Page — Aggregation Optimization
3/5This Airbnb system design interview question focuses on diagnosing and resolving performance bottlenecks in a host dashboard application. When rendering aggregated reservation and pricing metrics across numerous listings for a specific date range, naive data joining causes unacceptable latency. You will learn how to optimize database schemas, leverage caching or pre-aggregation, and achieve sub-second response times. Access to the comprehensive architectural analysis and recommended design pattern requires a subscription.
System Design for MLAirbnbML Platform Portal Full-Stack Design
4/5This machine learning platform system design challenge, modeled after engineering practices at Netflix, asks you to architect a centralized web portal for managing the complete lifecycle of predictive models. Candidates must design robust workflows for experiment tracking, version control, model deployment stages, and automated production health monitoring including data drift and anomaly alerts. The exercise covers API design, data storage schemes, and frontend architecture. To explore the complete system blueprints and architectural recommendations, a paid subscription is required.
System Design for MLNetflixPromotion Posting System Data Model
4/5Design a comprehensive relational database schema to power a multi-channel promotional publishing system, mirroring real-world architecture questions from Netflix. This challenge requires modeling complex cross-platform constraints, multi-region localization, financial tracking, hierarchical approvals, and scheduled publishing workflows. It tests your ability to translate intricate business logic into a scalable database design. To view the complete architectural specifications, entity-relationship details, and model schema, subscribe now.
System Design for MLNetflix
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schema-design interview FAQ
- How many schema-design interview questions are there?
- 20 reported questions, mostly System Design for ML.
- Which companies ask schema-design questions?
- Airbnb (6), Netflix (4), Salesforce (2), ByteDance (1), Affirm (1), Atlassian (1), Harvey (1), Roblox (1).
- How hard are schema-design questions?
- They average 3.5 out of 5: 1 at 2/5, 11 at 3/5, 6 at 4/5, 2 at 5/5.