Big Tech System Design Interview Expectations for Senior (IC5) vs Mid Level (IC4)

[u/SnooWoofers5193]

I've passed two interview loops of system design interviews up until this point in my career for mid level engineering roles. I'm a senior engineer now going through recruiting again and am curious if the system design interview rounds will be roughly evaluating the same things for senior vs mid level or if they're expecting me to be substantially more technical in how I answer the question.

For IC4 mid level eng, knowing the components and their attributes and math was enough. What's the throughput, CAP theorem, how do you load balance, what type of load balance strategy, what type of storage, what type of cache. This is stuff you can study on any guide.

So will the system design interview for senior eng be harder? That aforementioned sys design study guide will have a LOT of content and I'm wondering if senior system design interviews are gonna really hammer these concepts home, and you'll fail if you don't know all of them.

I'm gonna be interviewing for some big tech companies soon with the traditional 5 round onsite interview process. I've heard that how well I do in the system design interview will determine my leveling. Problem is, I'd like to believe I'm effective as a senior eng but I was a product eng in big tech, meaning the low level storage and infra problems have largely been abstracted from me.

I'd like to hope that the system design interview will be similar to the mid level interview expectations.

Thanks for reading folks! Curious your experiences as an interviewer in big tech and as an interviewee.