Facebook Product Design (clarity from System Design ) interview
Anonymous User
2723

Hoping someone in the LC community can lend their experience here! Thanks in advance!
TL;DR - can anyone break down what goes into a proper solution/conversation for Facebook's onsite Product Design interview?

I understand there will be a Product Design, different than a Systems Design, interview in the onsite interview loop.
Even though I generally understand that the Product Design will focus more directly on the product/feature and its supporting APIs, I am getting mixed messages from both internal/external/internet sources (including LC) on what to really expect - less so in the actual question, more so in what it will be like to solve. I can't tell whether it gets into coding like a OOD question does, or if it is still higher level than that, and also, don't understand to what extent architecture of related system aspects will/won't be involved.
Examples given online are essentially:
Design a mail server or newsfeed.

Can anyone who has interviewed with or for Facebook shed some light on this? I don't want to skew my preparation in the wrong direction. I am not as concerned with having a plethora of "real" examples to know in advance, moreso, to understand whether I should be thinking about:

  • API/services and their functionality - or also in there communication with one another, the client and the DB/messaging queues?
  • OOD of a product feature or its API(s)?
  • Data structures literally within the API(s) algos/code or for transmission to/from the API or more in terms of schemas/storage for in DB?
  • Scalability in terms of how data is handled in/between services? Or about number of services? Or about using a CDN or discussing DB partitioning/sharding?
  • Is there a UI/UX component to be considerate of?
  • How technically specific are decisions in terms of language paradigms, specific languages/frameworks, etc.?

I've been trying to grapple with a potential run-down for this interview, but as I mentioned I don't understand how far in either direction of OOD, SD, or a "literal" hypothetical product solution (specific technology inclusive) an answer is supposed to touch on?

Thank you all very much for any and all constructive feedback.

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