Design a Leaderboard System Design Interview

1. Problem Statement

2. Architecture Discussion Map

Use this as one discussion aid, not a single correct answer. Your design should follow from the requirements, scale, and trade-offs you establish.

graph LR
    A["Design a Leaderboard"]
    A --> F1["Data Structures Sorted Sets / Skip Lists"]
    A --> F2["Write Optimization Batching updates"]
    A --> F3["Consistency Exact rank vs Approximate rank"]
    A --> F4["Partitioning Sharding by Score vs ID"]
    A --> F5["Tiered Storage Monthly vs All-time"]

3. Key Focus Areas

• 1
  Data Structures (Sorted Sets / Skip Lists)
• 2
  Write Optimization (Batching updates)
• 3
  Consistency (Exact rank vs Approximate rank)
• 4
  Partitioning (Sharding by Score vs ID)
• 5
  Tiered Storage (Monthly vs All-time)