Designing a modern system involves navigating complex requirements to create cohesive and functional designs. As a designer, you’ll need to understand these requirements and guide the design process effectively, addressing both broad and specific topics in product design.

In this course, you will design APIs for well-known systems such as YouTube, Stripe, and Zoom, understanding how these APIs integrate into the larger product ecosystem. You’ll begin by discussing recurring concepts, using them as foundational building blocks. You’ll trace the lifecycle of each API call from the client to the service to meet functional requirements. Additionally, you’ll use a reference back-end implementation to demonstrate how an API call operates, with a focus on minimizing client-visible latency to create competitive APIs and products.

This course prepares you for product architecture design interviews by examining systems from a client’s perspective and discusses how client calls interact with the back-end system.

What You’ll Learn

• An understanding of the foundational knowledge of API design
• Familiarity with the principles of advanced-level API designing
• An understanding of the importance of good APIs
• An understanding of what makes a good API design
• Ability to tackle any new API design endeavor

Course Content

1.Introduction to the Course

The chapter outlines the APIs and their significance in software communication, emphasizing product design practices and business considerations.

• Introduction to APIs
• Unpacking API Design
• About the Product Architecture Design Course
• Business Considerations with APIs

2.Network Intricacies

This chapter teaches network fundamentals, focusing on latency, throughput, and network sockets as the foundation for communication.

• The Narrow Waist of the Internet
• Latency and Throughput
• Network Sockets as a Foundation for Communication

3.Different Ways of Client-Server Communication

The chapter explores client-server communication methods, including HTTP, RPCs, and WebSockets, to understand how data is transmitted over the web.

• World Wide Web
• Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
• Evolution of HTTP
• Remote Procedure Calls (RPCs)
• WebSockets

4.Common Data Formats for Web APIs

The chapter discusses the importance and selection of data formats for effective API communication, covering textual and binary types for optimal performance.

• Data Representation and Efficient Communication in APIs
• Textual Data Formats
• Binary Data Formats
• Let AI evaluate Your Understanding of Data Formats

5.Comparison of API Architectural Styles

This chapter compares REST, GraphQL, and gRPC, teaching you how to evaluate and choose based on their applications, advantages, and trade-offs.

• Introduction to Web API Architectural Styles
• Representational State Transfer (REST): Web Architecture Style
• RESTful API
• GraphQL: A Query Language for APIs
• The gRPC Framework
• Comparisons of Different API Architecture Styles
• Let AI Evaluate Your Understanding of Architectural Styles

6.API Design Security

This chapter covers API security, including TLS, input validation, CORS, authentication, authorization, and security frameworks.

• Introduction to API Security
• Transport Layer Security (TLS)
• Securing APIs Using Input Validation
• Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) in APIs
• Authentication and Authorization
• OAuth: The Authorization Framework
• Authentication and Authorization Frameworks: OpenID and SAML
• High-Level View of Security in APIs
• Quiz on API Security

7.Important Concepts in API Design

The chapter emphasizes key API design concepts including versioning, rate limiting, caching, and monitoring, essential for efficiency and user experience.

• API Versioning
• Evolving an API Design
• Rate Limiting
• Client-Adapting APIs
• Data Fetching Patterns
• Event-Driven Architecture Protocols
• Cookies and Sessions
• The Role of Idempotency in API Design
• Server-Side Rendering vs. Client-Side Rendering
• Quiz on Important API Concepts – I
• Speeding up Web Page Loading
• Resource Hints and Debouncing
• Circuit Breaker Pattern
• Managing Retries
• Caching at Different Layers
• API Monitoring
• Quiz on Important API Concepts – II
• Let AI Evaluate your Concepts of the API Design

8.Back-of-the-Envelope Calculations for Latency

This chapter focuses on estimating API response times, processing times, and latency essential for performance evalulation and user satisfaction.

• Introduction to Response Time in APIs
• Estimation of Processing Time of an API
• Estimation of Latency of an API
• The Estimation of Response Time of an API
• Discussion on Response Time

9.What Are the Foundational API Designs?

This chapter introduces the REDCAMEL approach for designing APIs and foundational API designs for reusable functionalities across applications.

• The REDCAMEL Approach for Designing APIs
• Conventions for the Design Chapters of the Course
• Foundational API Designs

10.Design a Search Service

This chapter covers the design of a search service, including requirements, design decisions, API models, and latency estimation.

• Requirements of the Search API
• Introduction to the Search Service
• Search API Design Decisions
• API Model for Search Service
• Refinements in the Search API
• Search API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget

11.Design a File Service

The chapter outlines the design and evaluation of a file service API, focusing on requirements, architecture, and optimization for reliability and performance.

• Requirements of the File API
• File API Design Decisions
• API Model for File Service
• File API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget

12.Design a Comment Service

The chapter explores the design elements and requirements for a comment service API, focusing on functionality, architecture, and latency evaluation.

• Requirements of the Comment API
• Comment API Design Decisions
• API Model for Comment Service
• Comment API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget
• Quiz on Rating API

13.Design a Pub-Sub Service

The chapter explores the design and implementation of a pub-sub service, focusing on asynchronous communication, API requirements, and performance evaluation.

• Introduction to the Pub-Sub Service
• Requirements of the Pub-Sub API
• Pub-Sub API Design Decisions
• API Model for Pub-Sub Service
• Pub-Sub API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget

14.Concluding Foundational Design Problems

The chapter delves into advanced API design challenges using API designs like search, pub-sub, file and commenting as foundation.

• Advanced API Design Problems

15.YouTube Streaming API Design

The chapter discusses the comprehensive design of the YouTube Streaming API, focusing on requirements, architecture, and latency management for optimal user experience.

• Requirements of the YouTube API
• Introduction to Video Streaming
• YouTube API Design Decisions
• API Model for YouTube Service
• YouTube API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget
• Quiz on TikTok API Design

16.Facebook Messenger API Design

This chapter covers Messenger API design, emphasizing efficient messaging, security, and real-time communication.

• Requirements of the Messenger API
• Messenger API Design Decisions
• API Model for Messenger Service
• Messenger API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget

17.Google Maps API Design

The Google Maps API design focusing requirements, architectural design decisions, API endpoint functionalities, and performance evaluation strategies.

• Requirements of the Google Maps API
• Google Maps API Design Decisions
• API Model for Google Maps Service
• Google Maps API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget

18.Learn to Design a Chess API with AI Mentor

In this chapter, you will interact with our AI mentor for enhanced development feedback to design a Chess API.

• Chess API Design AI Mentor (Beta)

19.Zoom API Design

This chapter teaches video conferencing API design, focusing on requirements, network architecture, real-time communication, and optimal performance strategies.

• Requirements of the Zoom API
• Introduction to Video Conferencing
• Zoom API Design Decisions
• API Model for Zoom Service
• Zoom API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget

20.Leetcode API Design

The chapter discusses the design and functionalities of the LeetCode API, emphasizing service structure, efficiency, and user interaction.

• Requirements of the LeetCode API
• LeetCode API Design Decisions
• API Model for LeetCode Service
• LeetCode API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget

21.Payment Gateway API Design—Stripe

This chapter is about Stripe API design teaching payment processing while ensuring security, reliability, and efficient transactions and data management.

• Requirements of the Stripe API
• Working of a Payment System
• Stripe API Design Decisions
• API Model for Stripe Service
• Stripe Interaction with Cards Network
• Stripe API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget

22.Twitter API Design

The chapter teaches Twitter API design emphasizing user interactions, API model, and efficient performance management.

• Requirements of the Twitter API
• Twitter API Design Decisions
• API Model for Twitter Service
• Twitter API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget

23.Uber API Design

The chapter discusses the Uber API’s design, covering key API architectural decisions and evaluations to ensure efficiency and security.

• Requirements of the Uber API
• Uber API Design Decisions
• API Model for Uber Service
• Uber API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget

24.CamelCamelCamel API Design

This chapter explores how CamelCamelCamel API is designed to track Amazon product price drops focusing a robust API design using REST API.

• Requirements of the CamelCamelCamel API
• CamelCamelCamel API Design Decisions
• API Model for CamelCamelCamel Service
• CamelCamelCamel’s Communication with the Amazon Service
• CamelCamelCamel API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget

25.Gaming API Design

The chapter explores the complexities of gaming API design, focusing on optimal performance using event-driven architecture and JSON data format.

• Requirements of the Gaming API
• Introduction to the Gaming Ecosystem
• Gaming API Design Decisions
• API Model for Gaming Service
• Gaming API Design Evaluation and Latency Budget

26.API Failures and Mitigations

This chapter covers causes of API failures discussing notable incidents and robust mitigation strategies to enhance reliability and prevent disruptions.

• What Causes API Failures
• Knight Capital Failure Due to Development Bug
• Amazon S3 Service Disruption
• Facebook and Uber APIs Failure

27.Conclusion

This chapter wraps up the course discussing API design key takeaways, strategies for implementation and testing, and the next step for API design mastery.

• What’s Next?
• Conclusion