Designing a Social Media Feed in Ruby on Rails: Mastering System Design Interview Questions

Deep Dive into a Common System Design Interview Question in Ruby on Rails

Social media feeds, with their dynamic content and user-specific customizations, are one of the most challenging yet fascinating features to design and develop. A well-optimized feed can significantly improve user experience and drive platform engagement. As a senior Ruby on Rails developer, you are tasked with balancing the functional requirements, efficiency, and scalability. Let’s walk through the design of such a feed.

Understanding the Requirements

Firstly, ascertain what the feed is supposed to do. The basic requirements for most social media feeds include:

• Displaying posts from users’ friends or people they follow.
• Sorting and prioritizing content based on various criteria, such as relevance, popularity, or time.
• Supporting different types of content (text, images, videos).
• Efficiently loading fresh content as users scroll (infinite scrolling).

Choosing the Database