What to work through
Work through a data table component as a spoken system design interview. Start by clarifying the scope, sketch a working design and explain the trade-offs behind your choices.
- Show rows of data in columns that the team using the table configures, with their own cell content
- Sort by a column and filter rows
- Page or scroll through far more rows than fit on screen
- Select one row, several, or all of them
- Work in any language, and with a keyboard and a screen reader
Constraints to discuss
- The table first draws in under 100 milliseconds
- Scrolling stays at 60 frames a second, even with 100,000 rows
- A sort or filter answers within 200 milliseconds, with a placeholder while the server works
- Dates, numbers and text sort and show the way the reader's language expects
Need a starting point?
Watch for these common gaps as you prepare:
- Drawing every row of a large table
- Redrawing every row when one selection changes
- Sorting one page in the browser while the server pages
- A header that breaks when only nearby rows are drawn
- No keyboard support
- Select all that silently means every matching row
Why this question is in the collection
These sources connect the problem to company interview reports or preparation guides. They do not guarantee what a company will ask you.
- HubSpot: A senior software engineer's own post about an onsite, December 2025: the system design round was a data table component, with accessibility and translation to cover.
- Amazon: A frontend engineer (SDE 2) reports a technical round in October 2025: the component design question was a reusable table of paged user data, how it holds state without needless redraws, and who owns that state.