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Data Pipelines System Design Case Studies

InterviewSkool tracks 42 Data Pipelines case studies with architecture diagrams, scale estimates, and deep dives.

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Companies

Topics

Distributed Systems 90Real-time 51Storage 43Data Pipelines 42API Design 41Databases 38Caching 37Security 32AI / ML 23Algorithms 20Scheduling 20Search 19Event Driven 14Fintech 14Payments 11Geospatial 11Analytics 11Observability 11E-commerce 11Messaging 10CDN 9Concurrency 8Ads 8Frontend 8Booking System 6Networking 5IoT 4Media 3Media Streaming 3Collaboration 3Rate Limiting 2
Data PipelinesClear all
A/B Testing (Experimentation) Platform
5 min readAnalyticsData PipelinesDistributed Systems
Intermediate▶ Mock
Ad Click and Impression Aggregator
6 min readAdsAnalyticsData Pipelines
Advanced+2▶ Mock
Ad Creative Relationship Processing with an External Model API
5 min readAdsData PipelinesAI / ML
Intermediate▶ Mock
Ads Audience Targeting System
5 min readAdsData PipelinesCaching
Advanced▶ Mock
Ads Platform Data Model (OLTP and Reporting)
5 min readAdsDatabasesAnalytics
Intermediate▶ Mock
Analytics Dashboard for an AI Chat Product
5 min readAnalyticsAI / MLData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
ML Pipeline to Predict Document Aspect Ratio (Adobe)
5 min readAI / MLData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Multi-Tenant Audit Logs Service
4 min readSecurityStorageData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
User Behavior Tracking (Clickstream Analytics)
6 min readAnalyticsData PipelinesReal-time
Intermediate▶ Mock
Content Moderation System (Harmful Post Detection)
6 min readAI / MLSecurityData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Core Dump Collection and Crash Analysis System
5 min readObservabilityStorageData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Real-Time Data Stream Processor
4 min readData PipelinesReal-timeDistributed Systems
Intermediate▶ Mock
Centralized Logging System (ELK / Splunk)
6 min readObservabilityData PipelinesSearch
Intermediate+1▶ Mock
Finding the Mode of Data Spread Across Many Machines
4 min readAlgorithmsDistributed SystemsData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Sorting a 500 GB CSV with 16 GB of RAM (External Merge Sort)
4 min readAlgorithmsStorageData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Flight Search Platform (Google Flights / Kayak)
4 min readSearchCachingData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Governed Data Service for Downstream Consumers
3 min readAPI DesignData PipelinesSecurity
Intermediate▶ Mock
High-Volume Healthcare Data Ingestion Pipeline
4 min readData PipelinesSecurityStorage
Advanced▶ Mock
Scalable Image Processing Service
5 min readData PipelinesSchedulingStorage
Intermediate▶ Mock
Incident Ticket Correlation Platform
3 min readObservabilityData PipelinesDistributed Systems
Advanced▶ Mock
IoT / Sensor Telemetry Pipeline
7 min readIoTData PipelinesStorage
Intermediate+1▶ Mock
Large File Upload and Processing Pipeline
7 min readStorageData PipelinesSecurity
Intermediate▶ Mock
Interactive Map with 100 Million+ Points
4 min readGeospatialFrontendData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Streaming Mention Analytics with Search and Alerts (Bloomberg)
3 min readReal-timeSearchAnalytics
Advanced▶ Mock
Metrics Monitoring and Alerting System
7 min readObservabilityData PipelinesStorage
Advanced+3▶ Mock
Personal Finance Dashboard from Multiple Providers
3 min readFintechAPI DesignCaching
Intermediate▶ Mock
Multi-Tenant Data Ingestion and Processing Platform
4 min readData PipelinesDistributed SystemsSecurity
Advanced▶ Mock
Multimodal RAG Assistant over an Internal Knowledge Base
4 min readAI / MLSearchData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Large-Scale Near-Duplicate Video Detection
4 min readAI / MLMediaSearch
Advanced▶ Mock
News Aggregator (Google News)
6 min readSearchData PipelinesCaching
Intermediate▶ Mock
Price Drop Tracker (CamelCamelCamel)
5 min readE-commerceSchedulingData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
E-commerce Product Catalog and Price Updates
6 min readE-commerceCachingDatabases
Intermediate▶ Mock
Recommendation System (Candidate Generation + Ranking)
6 min readAI / MLData PipelinesDistributed Systems
Advanced▶ Mock
Security Monitoring Framework for Cloud Infrastructure
4 min readSecurityObservabilityData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Data Engineering for a Short-Video App (TikTok-scale)
4 min readData PipelinesAnalyticsStorage
Advanced▶ Mock
Smartwatch Sensor Subsystem Design
4 min readIoTReal-timeData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
Detecting and Reducing Stale Job Listings (LinkedIn)
4 min readData PipelinesAI / MLSearch
Intermediate▶ Mock
Street View Image Ingestion and Storage
4 min readMediaStorageData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Surge (Dynamic) Pricing for Ride-Hailing
4 min readReal-timeGeospatialAlgorithms
Advanced▶ Mock
Top-K Trending Items (Heavy Hitters)
7 min readAnalyticsReal-timeAlgorithms
Advanced+4▶ Mock
Typeahead / Search Autocomplete
6 min readSearchCachingData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock
User Activity Collection and Recent-Window Queries
5 min readAnalyticsData PipelinesStorage
Intermediate▶ Mock

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Data Pipelines in system design?

Data Pipelines is a core system design topic covered in 42 case studies on InterviewSkool. It appears frequently in FAANG interviews, especially at Google, Amazon, and Meta.

How should I prepare Data Pipelines for system design interviews?

Study the case studies above, focusing on architecture trade-offs, scale estimates, and API designs. Practice explaining your decisions aloud — this is exactly what interviewers evaluate.

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