System Design

Search, Ads, and Feed Ranking Design

Prepare for high-frequency ranking systems with query understanding, auctions, personalization, calibration, and latency budgets.

Recommended on day 68120 minutesAdvanced

Learning objectives

  • Compare search, ads, and feed ranking architectures
  • Reason about retrieval, auction, relevance, calibration, and business constraints
  • Design feedback loops without amplifying bias or spam

Interview prompts

  • How does ads ranking differ from organic feed ranking?
  • What metrics would you use for search quality?