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.

Systems Analysis and Design

Systems Analysis and Design: An Object-Oriented Approach with UML, 5th Edition by Dennis, Wixom, and Tegarden captures the dynamic aspects of the field by keeping students focused on doing SAD while presenting the core set of skills that every systems analyst needs to know today and in the future. The text enables students to do SAD—not just read about it, but understand the issues so they can…

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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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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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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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Machine learning system design interview

Machine learning system design interviews are the most difficult to tackle of all technical interview questions. This book provides a reliable strategy and knowledge base for approaching a broad range of ML system design questions. It provides a step-by-step framework for tackling an ML system design question. It includes many real-world examples to illustrate the systematic approach, with det…

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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…

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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.

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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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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System Analysis, Design, and Development: Concepts, Principles, and Practices

Written in a practical, easy to understand style, this text provides a step-by-step guide to System Analysis and Engineering by introducing concepts, principles, and practices via a progression of topical, lesson oriented chapters. Each chapter focuses on specific aspects of system analysis, design, and development, and includes definitions of key terms, examples, author's notes, key principle…

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Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software

Capturing a wealth of experience about the design of object-oriented software, four top-notch designers present a catalog of simple and succinct solutions to commonly occurring design problems. Previously undocumented, these 23 patterns allow designers to create more flexible, elegant, and ultimately reusable designs without having to rediscover the design solutions themselves. The authors beg…

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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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Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World

This groundbreaking text presents a balanced focus on concepts and techniques from both traditional systems analysis and the newer object-oriented approach, to provide the most complete, up-to-date coverage of systems analysis and design with a minimum of extraneous information and outdated theory. The emphasis is therefore placed on fundamentals of lasting value rather than on details of only…

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