System designEasysd-g529

Subject Url shortenerLevel Entry–Mid~25 minCommon in Distributed systems interviewsIndustries Software development, Technology

Question

Design a small URL shortener for an internal company tool that handles about 1,000 new links per day and a few thousand redirects per day. A user pastes a long URL and gets back a short code; visiting the short code redirects to the original. The system is read-heavy (far more redirects than creates) and links never expire. Walk through the components, the data model, and how you generate short codes.

What a strong answer looks like

Clarify scale and constraints first. Propose a clean component breakdown, then go deep on the hard parts — data model, bottlenecks, consistency, failure modes — and name the trade-offs you are making.

Learn the concepts

Narrate your design

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Run or narrate your approach, then ask the coach.