Most system design resources are either too shallow (Grokking, system design primer, etc) or fairly deep (DDIA). There's not a good middle ground. > would get

Most system design resources are either too shallow (Grokking, system design primer, etc) or fairly deep (DDIA). There's not a good middle ground. > would get you a L5 or even do well as L4 at FAANG Imo, the system design interview is actually about communication and not purely about design. Explaining your thought process, how you work with others, how you identify bottlenecks, how you think about the problem space. There's a difference between being able to interview and actual system design in the real world. You'd be surprised at how surface level system design interviews are. Often people with real world experience do poorly because they dive too deep or know too much and the interviews are generally short (45 min). There are also no real set standards, unlike algo problems where there is a fair amount of theory around time complexity. My amazon interview was mostly cribbed off grokking uber design and I passed.