Workshop

Design Distributed Counters for System Design Interviews

Mohit Yadav

Practical System Design Interview Prep

One Counter. Two Very Different Architectures.

Knowing system design patterns isn't enough. Can you justify your architecture when scale, concurrency and correctness put your decisions to the test?

Having sat through hundreds of interviews on both sides of the table, I've seen what separates engineers who know the theory from those who demonstrate strong engineering judgement.

In this hands-on workshop, we'll solve a classic system design interview problem: Designing a Counter.

Using the same structured frameworks I apply when designing production systems handling terabytes of data daily, you'll:

  • Design from first principles: Translate requirements into a sound architecture.

  • Scale from 10K to 1M TPS: Evolve your design as traffic grows.

  • Challenge assumptions: Contrast analytics counters, where approximation is acceptable, with inventory counters, where correctness is critical.

  • Investigate failures: Read infrastructure and application dashboards, identify bottlenecks and detect failure modes.

  • Defend your decisions: Evaluate tradeoffs and understand how changing promises can fundamentally change an architecture.

Build a repeatable approach to solving unfamiliar system design problems and defending your decisions like a Staff Engineer.

What you’ll learn

Think and Communicate Like a Staff Engineer

  • Translate ambiguous requirements into clear problem statements.

  • Identify constraints, assumptions and critical design decisions.

  • Spot hidden concurrency, correctness and scalability challenges.

  • Recognise when familiar solutions break down and why.

  • Articulate trade-offs and justify technical decisions.

  • Communicate design choices with the clarity expected at Senior Engineer level.

Workshop agenda

  • 📚 Pre-Workshop: Build Your System Design Foundation

    Watch my free lightning session to understand system design interview expectations, learn a repeatable design framework and get introduced to the counter problem.

  • 🎯 Stage 1: Understand the Problem Before Designing

    Start with the business problem, not the technology. Identify key requirements, ask the right questions and establish the correctness, consistency and availability expectations.

  • 📊 Stage 2: Introduction to Application & Infrastructure Dashboards

    Get familiar with the counter application's dashboards and learn how to interpret key metrics to identify performance bottlenecks and potential failure points.

  • 🔍 Breakout 1: Diagnose the 10K TPS Bottleneck

    Investigate application and infrastructure dashboards to identify bottlenecks and failure points. Work together to propose changes that can help the system handle the load.

  • 🧠 Stage 3: Instructor Debrief — Understanding Your Trade-offs

    Review your proposed solutions, discuss what works and what doesn't, and uncover the architectural bottlenecks that limit further scalability.

  • 🔍 Breakout 2: Push Towards 1M TPS

    Traffic has increased dramatically. Analyse the new dashboards, identify emerging bottlenecks and decide what needs to change to support the next level of scale.

  • 🧠 Stage 4: Instructor Debrief — Scaling Beyond the Obvious

    Explore why previous optimisations are no longer sufficient, discover the next architectural evolution and discuss operational metrics and failure recovery.

  • 🔍 Breakout 3: When Correctness Becomes Non-Negotiable

    The business requirements have changed. You're no longer counting analytics events; you're managing inventory. Rethink your design when every count must be correct and overselling is not an option.

  • 🎓 Stage 5: Instructor Debrief — Two Problems, Two Architectures

    Design for correctness under intense concurrency, identify failure scenarios and defend your architectural choices against alternative approaches.

Learn directly from Mohit

Mohit Yadav

Mohit Yadav

Contact

Staff Engineer @ HubSpot | Ex-Meta | Distributed Systems Architect

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HubSpot
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Nutanix
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Who this workshop is for

  • Interview-focused engineers: Developers preparing for system design interviews who want to move beyond textbook solutions.

  • Aspiring senior/staff engineers: Mid-level engineers looking to strengthen architectural thinking and demonstrate engineering judgement.

  • Backend engineers: Developers wanting hands-on experience with scalability, concurrency, performance and correctness.

What's included

Mohit Yadav

Live sessions

Learn directly from Mohit Yadav in a real-time, interactive format.

Live session

Learn directly from Mohit Yadav in a real-time, interactive format.

Private LinkedIn Group

Discuss doubts, organise peer mock interviews and exchange feedback on interview performance.

Lifetime access

Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.

Community of peers

Stay connected with fellow students.

Certificate of completion

Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.

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Frequently asked questions

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Reimbursement

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Team discount

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Save 20%+ when 2 or more teammates enroll in the same cohort.

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Private cohort

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A dedicated cohort with a custom schedule and curriculum, tailored to your team.

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$399

USD

Dec 4
·

10am–2pm EST

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