Learn System Design from Scratch — Free 10-Part Roadmap (2026)
Where to start with system design: interview keywords, reading order, monolith to sharding—links to TechPartner's free 10-part course scaling from 1 to 1M users.
· 1 min read
Table of contents▼
Looking for a system design course or system design interview prep without a distributed-systems background? This page is your roadmap; lessons live in the 10-part series scaling from 1 to 1M users.
What is system design?
Deciding how components—app servers, databases, caches, queues—fit together so the product meets traffic, latency (p99), and availability targets. That is high level design plus back-of-envelope math.
Reading order
| Step | Topic | Lesson |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Metrics, QPS, CAP | Part 1 |
| 2 | Monolith MVP | Part 2 |
| 3 | Managed DB | Part 3 |
| 4 | Redis + CDN | Part 4 |
| 5 | Read replicas | Part 5 |
| 6 | Load balancing | Part 6 |
| 7 | Message queues | Part 7 |
| 8 | Sharding | Part 8 |
| 9 | Interview cheat sheet | Part 9 |
| 10 | Capstone | Part 10 |
Next steps
Frequently asked questions
How long does this system design course take?
About 3–5 hours to read all 10 parts and exercises; add 2–3 mock sessions for parts 9–10 (cheat sheet + capstone).
Do I need Kubernetes before system design?
No. Learn load balancers, Redis, replicas, queues, and sharding conceptually first—orchestration comes later.
Where should I start?
Part 1 (metrics and estimation), then read in order through part 10. Full hub: /blog/seri/system-design-scale
Continue reading
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