System Design Interview: URL Shortener

Design a URL shortener service like tinyurl.com. It is one of the most commonly asked system design interview questions. There are numerous resources online. My design is by no means the best or most complete. But I think I can offer my thought process from a different angle. After all, there is no one right answer to a system design question. It’s all about focus, tradeoff, and preference. Let’s dive right in.

Requirements

For any system design, as always, let’s clarify who are the users and what they are trying to accomplish with the…