Video Streaming (YouTube)

Difficulty: Medium

What It Tests

Video ingestion pipeline, transcoding, adaptive streaming, content delivery.

Topics Covered

• Blob / Object Storage
• CDN (Content Delivery Network)
• Message Queues & Async Processing
• Database Sharding
• API Design
• Microservices & API Gateway
• Load Balancing
• Scaling Fundamentals

Hello Interview Breakdown

Read the full Hello Interview breakdown →

Video Walkthroughs

• NeetCode: Design Youtube →
• ByteByteGo: How Video Streaming Works →

Approach Hints

• Upload raw video to S3, publish to a Kafka topic to trigger transcoding workers
• Transcode to multiple resolutions/formats (HLS/DASH), store segments in S3 served via CDN
• Store video metadata in a sharded relational DB
• Use adaptive bitrate streaming based on client bandwidth