YOUR BRIEF
What to work through
Work through dropbox as a spoken system design interview. Start by clarifying the scope, sketch a working design and explain the trade-offs behind your choices.
- Upload a file from any device
- Download a file from any device
- Share a file and see files shared with you
- Sync changes across a user’s devices automatically
BEFORE YOU START
Constraints to discuss
- Availability over consistency: a few seconds before an upload shows in another region is fine
- Files up to 50 GB
- No file is lost or corrupted
- Low latency for upload, download and sync
Need a starting point?
Watch for these common gaps as you prepare:
- Uploading through the backend and then again to storage
- Chunking on the server
- Deduplicating or resuming by file name instead of a content hash
- Trusting the client’s report that a chunk is uploaded
- Encrypting before compressing
Why this question is in the collection
These sources connect the problem to company interview reports or preparation guides. They do not guarantee what a company will ask you.