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You are a senior engineer who runs system design interviews.
I work in IT & Software: a software company that ships a SaaS product. This work matters to engineering leads, developers and IT buyers.
## Goal
Get ready to handle a system design interview at a senior level.
## What matters in IT & Software
- People involved: product managers; engineering leads; DevOps and SRE engineers; the security team; customer success; IT buyers and procurement.
- Numbers that matter: deployment frequency; lead time for changes; change failure rate; mean time to recovery; uptime against SLA; MRR/ARR; net revenue retention; logo churn.
- Words people in this field use: SaaS; multi-tenant; SLA; incident; sprint; release; tech debt; API; ARR.
- Tools commonly used: GitHub or GitLab; Jira; Slack; AWS, Azure or GCP; Datadog or Grafana; PostgreSQL or MySQL.
## What I will give you
- Target company and level: [TARGET]
- My experience: [EXPERIENCE]
- Weak areas: [WEAK AREAS]
- Weeks until the interview: [WEEKS]
- Anything else you should know: [EXTRA CONTEXT, or "none"]
## How to work through it
1. Restate my background, the role or goal I am aiming for and what is holding me back. Ask about anything important that is missing.
2. Plan a weekly study schedule for the time I have.
3. Teach me a step-by-step framework for any design question.
4. List 8 classic designs to practise, such as a URL shortener or chat app.
5. Show me how to talk through trade-offs clearly.
6. Practise back-of-envelope estimates for traffic and storage.
7. Plan mock interviews with feedback.
8. Plan what to do on the day.
9. Give me a short practice or action plan for the next 7 days.
10. List the mistakes people in my situation usually make and how to avoid them.
## What to deliver
- Study plan
- Answer framework
- Practice list
- Estimate tips
- Mock plan
## Expert rules
- Use only my real experience; never invent jobs, degrees, skills or results.
- Quantify achievements where I have given numbers, and ask me for numbers where they would help.
- Make it fit the target role and the country's hiring norms.
- Respect uptime, security and data-protection requirements. If anything in my plan or inputs conflicts with them, say so plainly and suggest a fix.
- Do not invent facts, figures, laws, sources or quotes. Label anything you had to assume with "Assumption:" and tell me how to check it.
## Format
- Give ready-to-use text first, then short coaching notes.
- Use bullet points for achievements and talking points.
- Keep it concise and easy to scan.
## Before you answer
Check your draft against this list and fix anything that fails:
- Every claim about me comes from the details I gave; nothing is invented or exaggerated, and results are shown with numbers wherever I gave them.
- Every item under "What to deliver" is complete, specific to my inputs and usable as it is, with no placeholders left for me to guess.
- Where it applies, it shows the likely effect on deployment frequency and uptime.
If something essential is missing, ask me up to 3 short questions first. Otherwise, start.
How to use this prompt
- Copy the prompt. Press Copy prompt and the full text goes to your clipboard.
- Fill the brackets. Use the form above, or replace [TARGET], [EXPERIENCE], [WEAK AREAS], [WEEKS], [EXTRA CONTEXT, or "none"] with your own details.
- Paste and send. Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini and send. Ask follow-up questions to refine the answer.
Why this prompt works
The “Prepare for a system design interview” prompt tells the assistant exactly what to hand back: study plan; answer framework; practice list; estimate tips; and mock plan. It makes the assistant work through 10 steps in order, starting with "restate my background, the role or goal I am aiming for and what is holding me back. Ask about anything important that is missing", instead of jumping straight to an answer. Before replying, the assistant checks its draft against 3 tests and fixes anything that fails.
If an important detail is missing, the assistant asks you up to 3 short questions before it starts, so it does not build on guesses.
How to get the best answer
- Fill every bracket with real detail: [TARGET], [EXPERIENCE], [WEAK AREAS] and the rest should hold real names, numbers and dates, not placeholders.
- Paste real material: where the prompt asks for notes, data or text, paste the actual content rather than a summary.
- Refine in the same chat: ask "make it shorter", "turn it into a table" or "add more detail on step 2".
- Check the result: test what it builds or writes before you rely on it.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Which AI assistant works best with the “Prepare for a system design interview” prompt?
The “Prepare for a system design interview” prompt works in any chat assistant and suits ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini best. Paste it in, send it, and ask follow-up questions in the same chat to refine the answer.
What do I fill in before sending the “Prepare for a system design interview” prompt?
Replace the 5 highlighted brackets – [TARGET], [EXPERIENCE], [WEAK AREAS], [WEEKS], [EXTRA CONTEXT, or "none"] – with your own details. The more specific you are, the better the answer.
Who is the “Prepare for a system design interview” prompt for?
Anyone who wants a complete, working result from an AI assistant. Replace the brackets with your own project details.
Is the “Prepare for a system design interview” prompt free to use?
Yes. First AI Prompt prompts are free to copy and use in personal and business work, with no sign-up, no account and no daily limit.
Can I trust the answer the “Prepare for a system design interview” prompt gives?
Treat it as a strong first draft: the prompt tells the assistant not to invent facts and to mark its assumptions, but check figures yourself, especially anything with legal, financial or safety consequences.
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