Best Apple System Design Interview Resources I Used (And How They Helped Me)

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Hey fellow devs! If you’re prepping for an Apple system design interview—welcome to the rollercoaster. I still remember my first Apple onsite; my heart raced as I faced that whiteboard. What helped me survive and thrive wasn’t just raw coding skill but mastering system design step-by-step with the right resources.

In this post, I want to share the 7 system design interview resources for Apple that truly moved the needle for me. Some were courses, some videos, and a few gems from the trenches of real interview experiences. I’ll break down how they helped, where they shine, and how to integrate each into your prep.

1. Educative.io: “Grokking the System Design Interview” (solution)

Why it rocked my prep:

Educative’s Grokking course is probably the holy grail for system design interviews. It’s super structured with visual flowcharts, easy-to-digest sections, and real-world problems like designing Twitter, YouTube, or an e-commerce checkout system.

How it helps Apple prep: Apple loves engineers who understand scale and clean design. The course walks you through trade-offs: consistency vs availability, load balancing strategies, caching techniques—vital concepts Apple interviewers test.
My takeaway: Always start with the problem scope and constraints. Focus on clarifying requirements aloud; this showed my thought process clearly during my Apple interview.

Pro tip: Pair this with sketching actual architecture diagrams on a whiteboard or digital tool (like Miro) to ingrain the flow.

Check out Educative’s course here

2. ByteByteGo’s System Design with Alex Xu (video + book)

I binge-watched Alex Xu’s YouTube channel, then read his book System Design Interview – An Insider's Guide. His explanations are crisp, and his approach feels like a mentor breaking down complex puzzles.

Why it’s different: Alex breaks complex ideas into bite-sized chunks and uses lots of analogies — like comparing distributed systems to everyday things (think traffic cops managing intersections).
Apple-specific edge: Apple interviews are meticulous about solid fundamentals. Alex’s clear explanations of data partitioning, consistency models, and CAP theorem landscapes helped me nail those tricky follow-up questions.

Lesson: Master the basics first, then apply patterns. You’ll handle unexpected twists in Apple’s whiteboard sessions with more confidence.

Watch ByteByteGo’s playlist

Grab Alex Xu’s book

3. DesignGurus.io (case studies + mock interviews)

When I got closer to my onsite, I wanted more targeted practice. DesignGurus.io offers mock interviews tailored to Apple’s style, including review sessions and deep-dive case studies.

What I found useful: They emphasize structure and communication—how to walk the interviewer through your reasoning without drowning in details.
I especially liked their Apple system design examples modeled after actual interview feedback shared by peers.

Immediate takeaway: Practice framing your answers with top-down decomposition and always revisit the assumptions based on interviewer hints.

Explore Design Gurus

4. Leetcode Discussions and System Design Tags (peer wisdom)

Leetcode isn’t just for coding challenges—its rich discussion forums contain real stories from Apple candidates sharing system design questions they encountered.

Scouring these threads gave insights into Apple’s interview style—focus on distributed systems, reliable data replication, and efficient storage designs.
The community often shares starter templates and thoughts like how Apple values scalability with simplicity.

Pro insight: Use these firsthand accounts to simulate the interview environment. Sometimes the questions aren’t insanely complex but test your ability to tradeoff and reason at scale.

Dive into Leetcode discussions

5. System Design Primer GitHub Repo (deep understanding + diagrams)

If you like hands-on learning with open-source resources, this repo deserves a spot in your arsenal:

https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer

I followed this repo’s walkthroughs of system components—load balancers, caches, queues—and diagrams that visually map interactions.
Apple interviews prize engineers who think end-to-end, so the diagrams helped me quickly structure and articulate designs.

Remember: Diagramming is your secret weapon, especially for remote interviews where you can share screens and sketch live.

6. Tailored Notes from FAANG Interviews (my personal journal)

I kept a private journal of all my mock interviews and real on-sites, including Apple. This was my best secret weapon.

After every session, I jotted down: What went well? What questions tripped me up? How did Apple interviewers probe certain answers deeper?
Over time, patterns emerged: Apple loves cloud-native designs, fault tolerance, and succinct explanations with reasoning behind every tradeoff.

Your hack: Start your own post-mortem notes now. Your future self will thank you!

7. System Design Interview Youtube Series by Gaurav Sen (math + systems + intuition)

Gaurav Sen’s channel is for those who want to go beyond just answering and truly understand the math and theory beneath system design concepts.

I especially benefited from his videos explaining distributed algorithms (like Raft, Paxos), load balancing math, and consistency models.
Apple interview questions often align with real-world system constraints, so mastering these concepts gave me an extra edge.

Framework to try: When stuck, think about “What’s the core bottleneck here?” and “How would I test or fail this system?”

Check out Gaurav Sen’s channel

Final thoughts: How I tied it all together for my Apple interview

Apple’s system design interviews aren’t about blitzing through impossibly huge systems. They want to see clear communication, tradeoff reasoning, and solid architecture fundamentals.

My approach was simple:

Start with the big picture: Clarify scope and constraints.
Sketch a high-level design with key components.
Dive into important parts—data modeling, APIs, scalability.
Discuss tradeoffs (latency vs consistency, complexity vs maintainability).
Keep iterating, seek feedback during mock interviews.

Using the above resources repeatedly helped me gain fluency—to flex designs on the fly, field curveball questions, and stay calm.

You’re closer than you think

System design interviews can feel like a black box. But with the right resources and a growth mindset, you can decode what Apple wants. Remember: every expert was once a beginner fumbling through whiteboard sketches.

Got your own favorite system design resource or story? Drop a comment below or ping me on Dev.to. Let’s all level up together!

Happy designing 🚀