Topic / 12 published entries
Architecture
Microservices, system design for interviews, observability, and AWS orchestration.
architecture
AWS Step Functions: Durable Workflow Orchestration
Replacing fragile Lambda chains with Step Functions state machines — state design, parallel execution, and the 256KB payload limit.
DynamoDB Patterns
Single-table design, partition key selection, GSIs, DynamoDB Streams, TTL, capacity modes, and access patterns for high-scale applications.
Microservices Patterns
Service decomposition, API gateway, service mesh, circuit breaker, bulkhead, sidecar, and the key trade-offs between microservices and monoliths.
Monorepo Architecture
How I evaluate monorepos for frontend and platform-scale engineering: build graph, ownership, release strategy, and when a modular monolith or polyrepo is the better move.
Observability: Logs, Metrics, Traces
The three pillars of observability — structured logging, metrics with Prometheus/Grafana, distributed tracing with OpenTelemetry, and alerting strategy.
System Design: Chat System
Design a scalable real-time chat system — WebSocket connections, message delivery guarantees, storage, and online presence at WhatsApp/Slack scale.
Design: Google Docs (Collaborative Editor)
Real-time collaborative document editing — OT vs CRDT, WebSocket multiplexing, operational transforms, and persistence architecture.
System Design: Notification System
Design a multi-channel notification system — push (FCM/APNs), SMS, email, in-app — at 10M notifications/day with deduplication, rate limiting, and delivery tracking.
System Design: Rate Limiter
Design a distributed rate limiter — token bucket vs sliding window, Redis implementation, and where to place it in your architecture.
Design: Stock Exchange (Matching Engine)
How a trading system works — order book, price-time priority matching, ultra-low latency architecture, market data distribution, and crash recovery.
Design: Twitter / X Feed
How to design Twitter — fanout on write vs read, timeline generation, tweet storage, trending topics, and handling celebrity accounts.
System Design: URL Shortener
Design a URL shortening service like bit.ly — hash generation, redirect performance, analytics, and scaling to 100M URLs.