Mock system design interview with an interviewer who pushes back

Sketch on the canvas, defend your choices out loud, and get scored on the trade-offs, not the boxes. Forty-five minutes on demand. Your first one is free.

Start your first interviewFree · no credit card · free account required
  • Twenty prompts: feeds, rate limiters, chat, storage
  • Whiteboard canvas plus live voice
  • Scored on requirements, design, trade-offs and communication

Built by senior big tech engineers

interview room · google · mid/seniorHOW IT FEELS
SYSTEM DESIGN · GOOGLEDesign a URL Shortener41:07
clientlbapicachepostgres
INTERVIEWER SPEAKING

How the session runs

  1. 01

    Pick the level

    Junior, mid/senior or staff, and a target company if you have one. The setup hands you a prompt from the library: a news feed, a URL shortener, a rate limiter, a chat service. Or open any of the 20 prompts in the design library and start the interview from there.

  2. 02

    Design on the whiteboard while you talk

    Draw the architecture on the canvas and narrate it. The interviewer interrupts the way a real one does: why a queue there, what happens when the cache dies, how does this shard.

  3. 03

    Get scored on the parts that decide the round

    Requirements gathering, design quality, trade-off analysis and communication, each scored from 1 to 5, with the places where you hand-waved called out.

What the interviewer does that a guide can't

  • Asks for the numbers: how many writes a second, how big is a row, what does a day of data weigh.
  • Picks the component you were vaguest about and makes you go deeper on it.
  • Pushes on the requirement you skipped and watches what you keep.
  • Doesn't let a box stand without a reason. Every arrow gets asked why.

What you walk away with

  • A scored evaluation across requirements gathering, design quality, trade-off analysis and communication, with a verdict from strong hire to no hire.
  • Your whiteboard, saved as you left it, next to the evaluation.
  • Focus areas from the evaluation, and a recommended next interview at the level the score says you are ready for.

First interview free. Unlimited from $9.99/mo on the yearly plan, or $24.99 month to month. See pricing

What people say after a mock

The follow up questions were simply amazing. Overall an ultra realistic interview experience, thank you.

Mohan M · Prepping for Amazon

This tool is pretty great for someone like me. I have always been intimidated by tech interviews. Even the thought of a failed mock interview and the embarrassment I would feel after giving them had me avoiding them. This tool has helped me realise that I do suck, but I could be a lot worse, I am progressing and feeling more confident as time goes on, and that talking through my process is just as important as the solution, if not more.

Sirat B · Prepping for NVIDIA

I can 100% see this being a staple in every software engineer's interview prep process.

Baid B · Apple Senior SWE

It was like a real one, the questions, the tone everything.

Presha M · New Grad

Questions before you start

Start your first interview

Prepare for the mock, then come back

  • Free system design courses

    Caching, load balancing, database scaling, consistency and message queues, each with simulations.

  • System design concepts

    Start with caching, the block most prompts test, and follow the links to the rest.

  • Design library

    All 20 prompts with written AI feedback, and the place to start a mock on a specific one.

  • How this compares

    Guides, peer mocks, coaches and AI interviewers, side by side.