Review — Is Grokking Modern System Design For Software Engineers and Managers Really the Best Course?

Is Educative’s Grokking Modern System Design For Software Engineers and Managers really the best course for System Design interviews?

javinpaul
Javarevisited
9 min readSep 17, 2022

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Review — Grokking Modern System Design For Software Engineers and Managers Really the Best Course?
image — educative.io

Hello guys, if you are preparing for Tech interviews then you may know that System Design Interview is the hardest part of any coding interview and it requires a lot of preparation and knowledge to crack system design interview, but you cannot shy away from it.

System Design has become a key part of the software engineer interview and your performance on System Design Interview ill determine, if you get get the job or not, how much will be your salary and what would be your starting designation.

As an experienced Java developer I have been at both side of the table and I have also interviewed hundreds of Software Engineer candidates. The System Design Interview has always been a challenging loop — even for the most skilled programmers.

That’s why Educative have launched a new course: Grokking Modern System Design Interview for Software Engineers and Managers which contains step-by-step breakdowns for 13 common System Design Interview questions, including Design TinyURL (which you can try today for free).

In this course, you will get hands-on knowledge of System Design fundamentals so you can answer ANY System Design problem during your interview, even the one which you have never heard of.

If you have been following me here or on my blog Javarevisited, then you may now that for System design interviews, I have shared best System Design Courses, Books, Free Resources, and websites to practice System design questions where I have shared a lot of resources for programmers and software engineers.

I have even shared a complete guide to prepare for System design interview where I have listed key topics and key System design questions, if you haven’t read it, I suggest you to also go through it.

Is Educative right place to prepare System Design Interview?

If you are preparing for System design interview and gone through those articles then you may know that Educative has best System design courses like the famous Grokking the System Design Interview and this new course, called Grokking Modern System Design for Software Engineers and Managers.

Before I give you my verdict on whether you need to choose Educative’s Grokking Modern System Design For Software Engineers And Managers course, let me tell you a little bit about what system design really is.

System design is basically the process of defining elements of a system including modules, architecture, components, interface, and data for a system based on a specific set of requirements.

It can also refer to the process of defining, developing, and designing systems. These designs have to satisfy the specific needs of a company or an organization.

Review Grokking Modern System Design For Software Engineers And Managers of Educative.io

As a Software Engineer and System designer, you have to make use of all the different modeling languages for expressing the information and knowledge in the structure of a system. This system has to be defined by a consistent set of rules and definitions. It can also be defined in textual or graphical modeling languages.

There are different kinds of graphical modeling languages like the Unified Modeling Language, UML, Flowchart, Business Process Modeling Notation, and Systems Modeling Language.

There are also different types of design methods that you can make use of. They include Architectural Design, Logical Design, and Physical Design.

Coming to the crux of the matter, the Grokking Modern System Design For Software Engineers And Managers is one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date system design courses on the internet right now.

It is basically a course that has been literally created to prepare you for a system design interview. Through this course, you will also get an idea of how to approach system design in general.

It also covers all essential topics of System design interview like

  1. Distributed Search,
  2. Domain Name System
  3. Database
  4. Key-Value Store
  5. Content Delivery Network or CDN
  6. Service Monitoring
  7. Distributed Caching
  8. Distributed Messaging Queue
  9. Rate Limiter
  10. Blob Store
  11. Sequencer
  12. Distributed Logging
  13. Sharded Counters and more

It is also one of the only courses out there that will teach you about large-scale distributed system design problems in painstaking detail. It does not matter even if you are an expert in the field. I am pretty sure that you will find this course a valuable learning experience.

Review — Grokking Modern System Design For Software Engineers and Managers Really the Best Course?

This course is created by people who have gone through the System Design interview many times and they have also gone the extra mile to give you a list of design choices. This list will make you understand the requirement, compare different approaches, and finally come up with a suitable solution for the complex problem that you are facing.

What makes this course really interesting is also the fact that the instructors do not spoon-feed you anything. You are required to work on the problem and come up with innovative solutions yourself. If you are looking for just one course that will thoroughly prepare you for a system design interview, you do not need to look any further.

The instructors of the course will also share with you their first-hand experiences on how to solve a complex system design problem. You will learn about all the different tips, tricks, concepts, and approaches for solving system design questions in general.

You will also have the opportunity to practice a lot of classic system design problems like the web crawler, URL shortener like TinyURL, and designing a restaurant reservation system.

How to design URL Shortner like TinyURL

The course will teach you about different techniques that are useful for scaling distributed systems. You will get an overview of database technologies and NoSQL solutions. In addition, you will also learn how to use caching for improving scalability and performance.

5 Best System Design Interview Courses on Educative

While this is one of the most up-to-date course on System Design on Educative, it also have many more gems which is worth knowing. Here is a list of my favorite Educative courses for System Design Interviews:

1. Grokking The System Design Interview

This is a wonderful course that will teach you everything you need to know about system designing along with grokking from absolute scratch. In this way, it is absolutely perfect for complete beginners. It is a perfect starting guide for beginners looking to enter the amazing world of system design.

Course Duration: 3 hours

Course Rating: 4.6 stars out of 5

Course Instructor: Educative

Course Price: $20 per month

best System Design Course on Educative

2. Grokking The Advanced System Design Interview

In this fantastic course, you will learn about all the core features of advanced system design. You will also become a very advanced system designer. You will be able to master both system design and grokking. By the end of this course, you will become an expert system designer.

Course Duration: 2 hours

Course Rating: 4.6 stars

Course Instructor: Design Gurus

Course Price: $20 per month

best System Design Interview Course on Udemy

3. Grokking The Object-Oriented Design Interview

This is a great course that will help you take your skills in object-oriented system design to another level. You will be able to do this by using object-oriented system design rather than the traditional system design techniques. The course will teach you how to pass your system design interview. You will also learn how to get jobs at Google. Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon.

Course Duration: 2 hours

Course Rating: 4.4 stars out of 5

Course Instructor: Educative

Course Price: $20 per month

Best Object Oriented Design Course

4. Machine Learning System Design [Educative]

This is an exciting course that will teach you everything you need to know about the basics of machine learning system design in the shortest time possible. The course will also teach you everything you need to know about machine learning and system design.

Course Duration: 1 hour

Course Rating: 4.6 stars out of 5

Course Instructor: Khang Phem

Course Price: $20 per month

best Machine Learning Design Course

5. Grokking The Machine Learning Interview [Educative]

This fantastic course will help you polish your machine learning skills. You will be able to do this by grokking your way to getting a very good machine learning job.

Course Duration: 1 hour

Course Rating: 4 stars out of 5

Course Instructor: Educative

Course Price: $20 per month

best Machine Learning Interview Course

That’s all in this review of Grokking Modern System Design For Software Engineer and Managers course from Educative.io. As per my experience, this is one of the best online course to learn about System design and truly prepare for System Design Interview, I highly recommend this to all Software engineers who are preparing for Tech interviews, particularly FAANG companies.

The course covers essential System design topics like Distributed Caching, Messaging, Sequencer, Load Balancer but also provide solution to common System design problems like how to design Google Map, YouTube, Design an URL Shortner like TinyURL, Instagram Design and more.

If you liked this review of Educative’s Grokking Modern System Design For Software Engineers And Managers, feel free to share it with your friends and family. You can also drop a comment if you have any doubts about this course and we will get back to you in an instant.

How to design YouTube? Steps

I have no doubt that this course will transform you from a complete beginner to a system design expert within a matter of weeks or months.

By the way, if you find Educative platform and their Grokking courses like Grokking the System Design Interview, Grokking the Object-Oriented Programming interview and want to join multiple courses on Educative then you should get an Educative Subscription which provides access to their 100+ courses in just $14.9 per month. It’s very cost-effective and great for preparing for coding interviews.

All the best with your System Design Interview. If you have any doubt, questions or System Design Problem feel free to ask in responses. You can also email me.

Other Programming Articles and Tutorials you may like

Thanks for reading this article so far. If you know any excellent online resources like websites or programming platforms to learn System Design and Software Designing, especially for beginners, which you think complements these two websites, then feel free to share. Everybody loves great resources and happy learning System design.

P. S. — If you are looking for alternatives o learn System Design in 2024 then I also suggest you to checkout Frank Kane’s Mastering the System Design Interview course on Udemy. Frank is an ex-hiring manager and know what it takes to crack System design interview of those big FAANG companies in 2024.

Alternative, you can also join Alex Yu’s System Design Interview — An insider’s guide and ByteByteGo for a complete System design Interview preparation.

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javinpaul
Javarevisited

I am Java programmer, blogger, working on Java, J2EE, UNIX, FIX Protocol. I share Java tips on http://javarevisited.blogspot.com and http://java67.com