System Design Interview Framework

Build a system design interview framework for evaluating [Senior/Staff/Principal] engineers. Include: 1) Question bank — 10 system design questions at varying difficulty (design a URL shortener → design a distributed payment system), with expected scope for each level. 2) Evaluation rubric — score across dimensions: requirements clarification, high-level design, component deep-dive, scalability, trade-off analysis, communication clarity. 3) Interview structure (45-60 min) — requirements gathering (5 min), high-level design (10 min), component deep-dive (15 min), scalability discussion (10 min), trade-offs and alternatives (5 min). 4) Level-specific expectations — what junior, senior, staff, and principal candidates should demonstrate differently. 5) Interviewer guide — how to probe deeper, when to provide hints, how to redirect, calibration examples of 'strong hire', 'hire', 'no hire'. 6) Common evaluation pitfalls — over-valuing knowledge of specific technologies, under-valuing communication, how to account for different backgrounds. 7) Sample walkthrough — complete example interview for 'Design a real-time chat system' with sample candidate responses at each level. 8) Debrief template — structured feedback format for hiring committee discussion.