Master System Design
Like a Staff Engineer
by Microsoft Engineer Raju Guthikonda
30 real-world architectures · 10 LLM systems · latest 2025 research papers. Real systems, backed by research. Built for CS students who want to ace system design interviews and actually understand how things work.
Built by a Microsoft engineer · Free forever · 30 architectures
Netflix CDN
Netflix
GPT Inference
OpenAI
Kafka Streams
Twitter Fan-out
Twitter/X
RAG Pipeline
Cohere
DynamoDB
Amazon
30 Architectures. Zero Fluff.
Every architecture explains the why behind design decisions — not just the what. Includes references to original research papers from Google, Amazon, Meta, and leading AI labs.
Netflix Content Delivery Architecture
How Netflix streams to 260M users without a single datacenter
Netflix · Disney+ · Hulu
Amazon DynamoDB Architecture
The Dynamo paper that changed distributed databases forever
Amazon · LinkedIn · Cassandra (inspired)
Apache Kafka Event Streaming Architecture
Partitions, consumer groups, log compaction, and exactly-once semantics
LinkedIn · Confluent · Uber
GPT / Transformer Inference Architecture
KV cache, FlashAttention, quantization, and batching at scale
OpenAI · Anthropic · Google DeepMind
RAG Pipeline Architecture
Retrieval-Augmented Generation from PDF to production
OpenAI · LangChain · Cohere
Multi-Agent LLM Orchestration
LangGraph state machines, tool use, memory, and human-in-the-loop
Anthropic · OpenAI · Microsoft AutoGen
How It Works
Structured learning — not a random dump of content. Two architectures per week keeps it manageable while building deep intuition over time.
Read the Free Articles
All 30 architecture deep-dives are free on the website. Each includes diagrams, key concepts, tradeoffs, and research paper links. No login required.
Listen to the Podcast
Alex & Sam break down each architecture in a conversational podcast episode — 3-8 minutes each. Perfect for commutes, walks, or coding sessions. All 30 episodes are free.
Understand the Trade-offs
Each episode goes deep on why engineers at Netflix, Google, and Meta made specific design decisions. Understand the real constraints — not just the happy path.
Ace Your System Design Interviews
30 architectures across distributed systems, data infrastructure, and LLM/AI. Walk into any FAANG system design interview with genuine intuition — not memorized diagrams.
No account · No payment · Just good systems education
Architecture Deep-Dives by Ear
Alex & Sam break down how Netflix, Kafka, GPT, and 27 more real-world systems actually work — in 3-8 minute podcast episodes. Listen while you commute, code, or cook.
Netflix Content Delivery
6:36
Twitter Fanout Timeline
5:44
Uber Geospatial Architecture
7:38
WhatsApp Messaging at Scale
3:36
Google Web Search Architecture
3:34
Amazon DynamoDB Internals
3:57
No login · No credit card · Always free
Learn from Engineers Who Ship at Scale
Not textbook authors — engineers who have designed, operated, and debugged these exact architectures at Microsoft, Lowe's, Target, and Wells Fargo.
“I've spent 10+ years building scalable systems at Microsoft and Wells Fargo — and I kept noticing the same gap: CS students could solve LeetCode but couldn't explain why Netflix uses consistent hashing or how GPT inference actually works at scale. ArchDesign.io is what I wish existed when I was studying.”
Software Engineer @ Microsoft
Building distributed cloud systems at scale
10+ Years in the Industry
Microsoft · Wells Fargo · Space Ranger Award winner
MS Computer Science — GPA 3.79
University of Houston – Clear Lake · $15K Scholarship
Cloud & Distributed Systems Expert
Azure, Cassandra, Redis, Kafka, CosmosDB
“From Wells Fargo to Target to Lowe's, I've built full-stack systems that handle millions of retail transactions daily. The patterns repeat — but the tradeoffs are always in the details. That's what we teach here.”
Senior SWE @ Lowe's
Full-stack systems at retail scale · Nov 2022–Present
9+ Years Experience
Lowe's · Target · Principal Financial · Wells Fargo
MS Computer Science
University of Houston – Clear Lake · 2011–2013
Full-Stack & Distributed Systems
Java, JavaScript, React, Spring Boot, Kubernetes
Research-first
Every architecture cites the original paper — Dynamo, MapReduce, FlashAttention, LoRA, PagedAttention.
Production-grade depth
Failure modes, operational gotchas, and real tradeoffs from actually running these systems.
2025 LLM papers
PRESERVE, Mooncake, Preble, Oaken — cutting-edge inference architectures ByteByteGo hasn't covered.
Interview-ready framing
Common patterns from real system design rounds at Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft — 5 questions per architecture.
Why Engineers Choose ArchDesign.io
We built what we wished existed when preparing for FAANG system design rounds — rigorous, current, and completely free.
| Feature | ByteByteGo | DesignGurus | ArchDesign.io ✦ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $15/mo | $29/mo | Free |
| LLM Architectures | Limited | None | 10 Deep-dives |
| Latest Research Papers | Outdated | None | 2025 papers |
| Interview Questions | No | Basic | 5 per article |
| Built by practitioners | No | No | Microsoft + Lowe's |
| Free articles + podcast | No | No | 30 + 30 free |
Research-First
Every architecture is grounded in the actual papers engineers at Meta, Google, and OpenAI cite internally — PRESERVE, Mooncake, Preble, Oaken, PyramidInfer and more.
Production Depth
Written by a Microsoft Software Engineer with 10+ years of real-world distributed systems experience. Not a blogger. Not a YouTuber. A practitioner.
Always Current
Competitors recycle content from 2021 books. We publish breakdowns of 2024–2025 papers within weeks of release, so you're never studying yesterday's architecture.
Everything Is Free Forever
30 architecture articles + 30 podcast episodes. No credit card, no login, no paywall. System design education should be free for every CS student.
$0 · Always
Read the articles, listen to the podcast, download the diagrams. Everything on ArchDesign.io is free, permanently.
30 podcast episodes
3–8 min each, free forever
30 architecture articles
Diagrams, tradeoffs, papers
3 categories covered
Distributed · Data · LLM/AI
No credit card · No account required · No catch
What Students Are Saying
Built for CS students preparing for FAANG system design interviews.
“I've been listening to the podcast on my commute and it's genuinely the best way I've found to build system design intuition. Alex and Sam explain things like I'm a smart person, not like they're reading from a textbook.”
CS Student
Preparing for FAANG interviews
“The LLM architecture episodes are unlike anything else out there. Nobody else is explaining RAG pipelines, KV cache disaggregation, and multi-agent systems at this level of depth for free.”
Backend Engineer
Moving into ML infrastructure
“I used to dread the system design round. After going through all 30 architecture deep-dives, I actually look forward to it now. The diagrams and podcast together clicked for me in a way that reading alone never did.”
Software Engineer
New grad preparing for interviews
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about ArchDesign.io — or just start reading for free.
Still have questions? Email Raju directly — he reads every message.
Start Learning Like a Staff Engineer
30 real-world architecture deep-dives + 30 podcast episodes — from Netflix CDN to GPT inference pipelines. Read the articles. Listen on the go. Built by a Microsoft engineer, free for every CS student.
Built by a Microsoft engineer · Free system design education for every CS student