Top System Design books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite System Design books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of System Design

Understanding the concepts of System Design starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture

Developers of enterprise applications (e.g reservation systems, supply chain programs, financial systems, etc.) face a unique set of challenges, different than those faced by their desktop system and embedded system peers. For this reason, enterprise developers must uncover their own solutions. In this new book, noted software engineering expert Martin Fowler turns his attention to enterprise …

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Modern Systems Analysis and Design, EBook, Global Edition

Developing advanced system analysts Prioritizing the practical over the technical, Modern Systems Analysis and Design presents the concepts, skills, methodologies, techniques, tools, and perspectives essential for systems analysts to develop information systems. The authors assume students have taken an introductory course on computer systems and have experience designing programs in at least …

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Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Interview Questions and Solutions

Now in the 5th edition, Cracking the Coding Interview gives you the interview preparation you need to get the top software developer jobs. This is a deeply technical book and focuses on the software engineering skills to ace your interview. The book is over 500 pages and includes 150 programming interview questions and answers, as well as other advice.

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Systems analysis and design Alan Dennis

Systems Analysis and Design, 8th Edition offers students a hands-on introduction to the core concepts of systems analysis and systems design. Following a project-based approach written to mimic real-world workflow, the text includes a multitude of cases and examples, in-depth explanations, and special features that highlight crucial concepts and emphasize the application of fundamental theory …

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Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software

Eric Evans has written a fantastic book on how you can make the design of your software match your mental model of the problem domain you are addressing. "His book is very compatible with XP. It is not about drawing pictures of a domain; it is about how you think of it, the language you use to talk about it, and how you organize your software to reflect your improving understanding of it. Eric…

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Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems

Data is at the center of many challenges in system design today. Difficult issues need to be figured out, such as scalability, consistency, reliability, efficiency, and maintainability. In addition, we have an overwhelming variety of tools, including relational databases, NoSQL datastores, stream or batch processors, and message brokers. What are the right choices for your application? How do …

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Additional System Design Reading

These books are not required for you to learn System Design, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

Head First Design Patterns

Using the latest research in cognitive science and learning theory to craft a multi-sensory learning experience, Head First Design Patterns uses a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works, not a text-heavy approach that puts you to sleep.

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Software Architecture: The Hard Parts: Modern Trade-Off Analyses for Distributed Architectures

Salary surveys worldwide regularly place software architect in the top 10 best jobs, yet no real guide exists to help developers become architects. Until now. This book provides the first comprehensive overview of software architecture’s many aspects. Aspiring and existing architects alike will examine architectural characteristics, architectural patterns, component determination, diagramming …

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System Design Interview - An Insider's Guide

System design interviews are the most difficult to tackle of all technical interview questions. This book is Volume 1 of the System Design Interview - An insider’s guide series that provides a reliable strategy and knowledge base for approaching a broad range of system design questions. This book provides a step-by-step framework for how to tackle a system design question. It includes many rea…

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Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems

Distributed systems have become more fine-grained in the past 10 years, shifting from code-heavy monolithic applications to smaller, self-contained microservices. But developing these systems brings its own set of headaches. With lots of examples and practical advice, this book takes a holistic view of the topics that system architects and administrators must consider when building, managing, …

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Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time

Today, software engineers need to know not only how to program effectively but also how to develop proper engineering practices to make their codebase sustainable and healthy. This book emphasizes this difference between programming and software engineering. How can software engineers manage a living codebase that evolves and responds to changing requirements and demands over the length of its…

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Laying the Foundations: A book about design systems

Laying the Foundations is a comprehensive guide to creating design systems, digital brand guidelines, and how to design systematically. It's an ideal book about web design and product design for designers (of all levels) and design teams. Learn more about the book at: designsystemfoundations.com This is real talk about creating design systems and digital brand guidelines. No jargon, no glossin…

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

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Senior Software Engineer at GitHub Actions. I build distributed systems and tooling for platform engineering and developer experience, improving how teams deploy and scale cloud-native workloads. I’m especially interested in Go, Kubernetes, networking, containers, and observability. I also maintain a strong interest in emerging technologies like Rust, eBPF, and WebAssembly …

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Seasoned IT manager with 20 years of experience across Amazon Retail, AWS, and Telecom domain. In my current role, I manage two pizza teams at Amazon with 12 direct reportees. Since Q4 2024, I have conducted 30+ interviews across engineering families. My mentorship approach is personalized, and hands-on. I can …

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My area of expertise is high-traffic, data-intensive services. I can help you with: - system design, - applying object-oriented principles in practice, - modern tech stack (Spring Cloud, Reactor, GraphQL, Kubernetes), - overall career guidance (planning toward senior roles). From you I expect eagerness to learn, as the main progress …

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With 17+ years of experience in the industry, I have worked as a tester, a lead/manager, and as a developer. I have worked on large teams (OneDrive, Power Automate), as well as taking a v1 product from inception to running at a global scale. Delivering interviews, designing systems to work …

$340 / month

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