Interview Q&A / System Design
System Design interview questions
Caching, scaling, databases and classic design problems for beginners.
Prefer rapid revision? Practise System Design short interview answers →
- What is the difference between offset and cursor pagination?
Offset pagination uses page number and size (LIMIT 20 OFFSET 40), which is simple but slow on deep pages and shifts when rows change. Cursor pagination continues after the last item seen, so it stays fast and stable.
BeginnerQuick answer1 min read - What is the difference between REST and GraphQL?
REST exposes many fixed endpoints that each return a set shape of data. GraphQL exposes one endpoint where the client asks for exactly the fields it needs, which avoids over-fetching but makes caching and rate limiting harder.
BeginnerQuick answer1 min read