- Understand the problem and requirements (functional and non-functional).
- Define the key features and use cases.
- Identify scale (number of users, data size, requests per second).
- Choose the right architecture (monolith, microservices, event-driven, etc.).
- Design high-level components (API gateway, services, database, cache, etc.).
- Define data flow and interactions between components.
- Choose the right database (SQL/NoSQL) based on access patterns.
- Add caching for faster reads.
- Add Load Balancers to distribute traffic.
- Design for fault tolerance and high availability.
- Add monitoring, logging, and alerts.
- Consider security (auth, rate limiting, data protection).
- Think about future scalability and flexibility.