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Interview Guide Jul 23, 2026 14 min read

GoF Design Patterns Cheat Sheet for Senior Software Engineer Interviews

The 7 design patterns that actually matter for system design and machine coding interviews. Practical real-world examples, class relationships, and trade-offs.

Interview GuideDesign PatternsLLDGoFOOP
HFHLDForge Architecture TeamStaff Systems Architect

1. Why Patterns Matter in Interviews

Interviewers don't test design patterns for academic trivia; they look for standard vocabularies that produce extensible, decoupled code adhering to the Open/Closed Principle.

2. The Essential 7 Interview Patterns

1. Strategy Pattern: Pluggable algorithms (pricing models, payment methods, route finders).

2. Observer Pattern: Decoupled event pub/sub (notifying riders when a driver accepts).

3. State Pattern: Clean state transitions without 50 nested switch statements (order lifecycle, ATM states, elevator car motion).

4. Factory Method: Encapsulating object creation based on dynamic inputs.

5. Decorator Pattern: Adding responsibilities to objects dynamically without subclass explosion (pizza toppings, coffee extras, discount layers).

6. Chain of Responsibility: Passing requests along a handler pipeline (logging filters, approval workflows, currency note dispensers).

7. Adapter Pattern: Bridging incompatible legacy interfaces to new clean contracts.

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Written by HLDForge Architecture Team

Staff Systems Architect

The HLDForge Architecture Team publishes practical engineering guides, real-world case studies, and high-concurrency blueprints to help engineers build scalable and fault-tolerant software.

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