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title: How do you actually grade a system design? - Devscape
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# How do you actually grade a system design? - Devscape

**[All Laravel](https://daily.dev/sources/alllaravel)** · [@raiyan_memon](https://daily.dev/raiyan_memon) · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

A builder working on Devscape, a system-design practice and evaluation tool, asks experienced engineers how to grade architecture submissions when there is no single correct answer. Using a URL shortener example (API → Redis → PostgreSQL), the post raises questions about whether components like Redis or a queue should be mandatory, and when simplicity crosses into being a design flaw.

## Content

I'm building a system-design practice tool where developers design the architecture themselves and then get evaluated.

But I ran into a problem:

There isn't always a single "correct" architecture.

For example, for a URL shortener:

`API → Redis → PostgreSQL`

Is Redis mandatory?

Should an architecture lose points for not having a queue?

When does a simple architecture become a bad architecture?

I'm currently building the evaluation engine for **Devscape**, and I'd love to hear how experienced engineers would approach this.

[https://devscape.in](https://devscape.in)

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- [The Step Every Beginner Misses Between SRS and Development: System Design](https://daily.dev/posts/the-step-every-beginner-misses-between-srs-and-development-system-design-mb6il9ayq) · Medium · 7 upvotes · 0 comments

---

Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#postgresql](https://daily.dev/tags/postgresql), [#redis](https://daily.dev/tags/redis)

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