# [System Design] The Foundation & The Framework EP01 Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/software-engineer-interview-prep-podcast-7756520/system-design-the-foundation-the-framework-ep01 Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/software-engineer-interview-prep-podcast-7756520/system-design-the-foundation-the-framework-ep01.md Podcast: [Software Engineer Interview Prep Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/software-engineer-interview-prep-podcast-7756520) Published: 2026-03-01T11:00:45+00:00 Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/prabuddha-ganegoda/episodes/System-Design-The-Foundation--The-Framework-EP01-e3fp34t Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/10f2c0f8c/podcast/play/116214365/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-2-1%2F75b7796d-39b6-8e2e-98c3-62b511090dd8.m4a Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/software-engineer-interview-prep-podcast-7756520/episodes/system-design-the-foundation-the-framework-ep01 Duration seconds: 3023 ## Resource Episode 1 of your 3-part System Design Interview deep-dive podcast series! This episode focuses on how interviewers at FAANG and Tier-1 financial institutions evaluate you—which is how you think, not just what you know. The hosts will cover: The RADIO Framework: The 5-step, 45-minute blueprint for every interview: R equirements, A PI Design, D ata Model, I nfrastructure, and O ptimise & Operate. The #1 Trap for Candidates: Why skipping Non-Functional Requirement (NFR) clarification—like asking about SLAs, active users, and data volume before jumping in—is the main reason senior candidates fail. Scalability & The CAP Theorem: A deep dive into Horizontal vs. Vertical scaling, when to use Sharding, and the core trade-offs of the CAP Theorem (Consistency vs. Availability) when network partitions are inevitable. Episode 2 The Database Decision Matrix: How to clearly articulate when to use an RDBMS (PostgreSQL) for ACID compliance versus a Document Store (MongoDB) or a Wide-Column Store (Cassandra) for massive write scale. Caching Architectures: Explaining the trade-offs between Cache-Aside, Write-Through, and Write-Behind patterns, as well as how to avoid system crashes like Cache Stampedes and Avalanches. Kafka Deep Dive: Unpacking how to confidently discuss Kafka offsets, consumer groups, and the critical difference between "At-least-once" delivery and "Exactly-once" financial settlement semantics. Episode 3 The Estimation Toolkit: The latency numbers you absolutely must memorize (like L1 cache taking ~1 ns, and a cross-region WAN round-trip taking ~150 ms) and the formulae for calculating daily storage and peak QPS. Designing a Fintech Payment System: A walkthrough of designing for extreme correctness (99.999% availability), including the Saga… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/software-engineer-interview-prep-podcast-7756520/episodes/system-design-the-foundation-the-framework-ep01/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/software-engineer-interview-prep-podcast-7756520/system-design-the-foundation-the-framework-ep01.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.