Design LinkedIn Feed
Last updated: March 20, 2026
Quick Overview
Design the architecture for LinkedIn Feed. Cover scalability, data storage, caching, and real-time requirements.
LinkedIn
System Design
Software Engineer
Software Engineer
System Design Round
System Design
Easy
7
9
2,195 solved
Design the architecture for LinkedIn Feed. Cover scalability, data storage, caching, and real-time requirements.
This is a common system design question asked during System Design Round at LinkedIn. The interviewer expects you to demonstrate your ability to design large-scale distributed systems, make well-reasoned trade-offs, and communicate your thought process clearly. LinkedIn values engineers who can think about scalability from day one.
What the Interviewer Expects
- Clearly define functional and non-functional requirements
- Propose a reasonable high-level architecture with core components
- Choose appropriate data storage solutions with basic justification
- Discuss basic scaling strategies (horizontal scaling, caching)
- Identify potential bottlenecks and suggest simple solutions
Key Topics to Cover
API design and rate limiting
Database selection and data modeling
Message queues and async processing
Load balancing and horizontal scaling
High-level architecture and component design
Caching strategies (local, distributed, CDN)
How to Approach This
- Start by clarifying functional and non-functional requirements with the interviewer.
- Estimate the scale: QPS, storage, bandwidth. This drives your design decisions.
- Draw a high-level architecture first, then deep dive into 1-2 critical components.
- Discuss trade-offs explicitly (e.g., consistency vs availability, SQL vs NoSQL).
- Address failure scenarios, monitoring, and how the system handles 10x traffic spikes.
Possible Follow-up Questions
- What would the deployment pipeline look like for this system?
- How do you ensure data consistency across multiple services?
- How would you migrate from a monolithic to a microservices architecture?
Practice a Similar Problem on Codemia
Solve a related problem with our interactive workspace, get AI feedback, and view detailed solutions.
Solve on CodemiaSample Answer
Requirements
Functional Requirements:
- User Posts: Users can create, edit, and delete posts.
- Feed Generation: The system generates a personalized feed for each user based on their connections, int...
Capacity Estimation
Back-of-Envelope Calculations:
- User Base: Assume 800 million users, with an active user rate of 50% (400 million active users).
- Posts per User per Day: Assume an average of 3 posts/use...
Submit Your Answer
Markdown supported