FoundationsProblem 1 of 1
FoundationalEasyDeep Dive available
Design a URL Shortener
Design a URL shortener that stores 10 billion short URLs, serves 100K redirects/sec globally with sub-5ms p99 server-side on cache hit, supports custom aliases and expiration, and runs click analytics without touching redirect latency. The hard parts: generating unique IDs without cross-region coordination, absorbing viral hot keys, and keeping the cache hit rate honest when traffic drifts away from a Zipf distribution.
Key Topics
Region-Prefixed Counter IDsBijective Shuffle (Feistel)Three-Layer CachingMulti-Region Active-ActiveRead-Heavy System