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Rohit Lakhotia

Rohit Lakhotia is a software engineer and writer covering engineering, career growth, and the tech industry.


Articles

What are Different Types of SQL Indexes?

Unlock database performance with our guide to SQL index types. Learn how B-Tree, clustered, non-clustered, and hash indexes speed up your queries.

Apr 8, 2026

How Slack Built Secure Enterprise Search?

Slack enables secure enterprise search using real-time fetch, RAG, ACL & OAuth, no data storage, always permission-aware & private across tools.

Apr 6, 2026

Aspect-oriented design vs OOPs vs Functional Programming

Discover aspect-oriented design vs oop vs functional programming and how to apply each approach for scalable, maintainable software.

Apr 1, 2026

How Airbnb Migrated a Petabyte Without Users Noticing

Airbnb rebuilt Mussel into a cloud-native KV store and migrated 1PB+ data using Apache Kafka with zero downtime.

Mar 30, 2026

API Gateway vs Load Balancer

Discover the differences between API gateway vs load balancer and find out which is best for your system's performance and security needs.

Mar 25, 2026

How Slack cut their E2E Build Time by 80%?

Slack cut E2E time 80% by skipping redundant frontend builds and reusing cached assets, saving compute, storage, and hours.

Mar 23, 2026

What are Immutable Data Structures?

Explore why immutable data structures: why they matter in modern coding. Discover how they enhance reliability, simplify concurrency, and prevent bugs.

Mar 18, 2026

How Shopify Made Commerce Data Queryable Without SQL

ShopifyQL Notebooks lets merchants explore business data without SQL, using commerce-focused models built for clarity, speed, and action.

Mar 16, 2026

What is Backpressure?

Learn what is backpressure in distributed systems, why it’s vital for stability, and key strategies to prevent overloads in large-scale systems.

Mar 11, 2026

How Slack Automatically Stops Suspicious Activity in Real Time

Slack’s AER detects suspicious activity and automatically terminates user sessions, shrinking response time from hours to minutes.

Mar 9, 2026

Normalized vs Denormalized Database?

Choosing between a normalized vs denormalized database? This guide breaks down the performance trade-offs to help you make the right architectural choice.

Mar 4, 2026

How Shopify Built Super-Fast Search at C++ Speed

Shopify built RankFlow to run ML-powered search at C++ speed, letting data scientists iterate fast without sacrificing latency or scale.

Mar 2, 2026

Observability vs Monitoring: Technical Differences Explained

Discover the key observability vs monitoring: technical differences, including telemetry, tools, and use cases that differentiate these vital DevOps practices.

Feb 25, 2026

Why Spotify’s Shuffle Never Felt Random (and What They Did About It)

Spotify kept Shuffle random but made it feel fair by choosing the least repetitive random order, so songs feel fresher without breaking true randomness.

Feb 23, 2026

Replication vs Redundancy. What's the Difference?

Learn the key differences between replication and redundancy to optimize your data protection strategies. Discover which method suits your needs best.

Feb 18, 2026

How Dropbox Dash Uses a Feature Store for Real-Time AI

Dropbox Dash uses a hybrid feature store to deliver fast, fresh signals at scale, keeping AI search accurate, low-latency, and reliable at scale.

Feb 16, 2026

What Is MLOps?

Learn what is MLOps: bridging the gap between devops and machine learning. Explore its lifecycle, tools, and best practices for scaling AI effectively.

Feb 11, 2026

How Spotify Scaled Content Annotations to Millions (Without Losing Quality)

Spotify built a scalable annotation platform by combining human experts, smart tools, and strong infrastructure to power high-quality ML training data

Feb 9, 2026

What is Reactive Programming?

Discover what is reactive programming through simple analogies and real-world examples, with practical tips for building reactive apps.

Feb 4, 2026

How Dropbox Dash Uses Context Engineering to Build Smarter AI

Dropbox Dash evolved into agentic AI by engineering context fewer tools, relevant data, and specialized agents making AI faster, smarter at work.

Feb 2, 2026

What is Publish-Subscribe Pattern?

What is publish-subscribe pattern? Learn how pub/sub decouples components, with real-world examples and benefits for scalable systems.

Jan 28, 2026

How LinkedIn Uses Machine Learning to Moderate Content at Scale

LinkedIn is using ML to prioritize content smarter, not replace humans but helping reviewers act faster, scale better, and keep the platform safe without losing judgment or nuance.

Jan 26, 2026

What is Configuration Drift?

What is Configuration Drift? Learn causes, risks, and best practices to detect, prevent, and fix drift with IaC and GitOps.

Jan 21, 2026

How Instagram Improved HDR Video on iOS With Dolby Vision

Dolby Vision first hurt Reels due to load delays from metadata. Compression fixed it, boosting watch time and enabling rollout on Instagram iOS

Jan 19, 2026

What is Lazy Loading vs Eager Loading?

lazy loading vs eager loading explained with practical examples. Learn when to apply each approach for performance and resource efficiency.

Jan 14, 2026

How LinkedIn Rebuilt its Profile Highlights System

LinkedIn rebuilt Profile Highlights into a plug-in platform, enabling faster experiments, independent teams, better performance, and ~50% lower costs.

Jan 12, 2026

What is a Dead Letter Queue?

What is a Dead Letter Queue? Handling messages that fail explained with practical patterns to build resilient, reliable messaging systems.

Jan 7, 2026

How LinkedIn Reduced Latency and Cost by Merging Two Critical Systems

LinkedIn merged identity midtier and data services, cutting network hops to reduce latency, memory use, and cost while keeping APIs unchanged.

Jan 5, 2026

How Big Tech Manages 100 Versions of One Product?

How Tech Companies manage 100 versions of one product - discover strategies, architecture, and tools used to scale across platforms.

Dec 31, 2025

How Lyft Built an In-App Messaging Without Annoying Riders

Lyft built in-app messaging by starting with simple banners and scaling into a smart, context-aware system that delivers timely messages without annoying riders.

Dec 29, 2025

What is Metamorphic Testing?

What is Metamorphic Testing? Discover how it solves the test oracle problem and how to test complex AI, APIs, and untestable code.

Dec 24, 2025

How Airbnb builds Products 10x Faster Using GraphQL and Apollo

Airbnb ships faster by using GraphQL and Apollo to power backend-driven UI, automatic types, and tooling that lets engineers focus on building features

Dec 22, 2025

What is Mutation Testing?

What is mutation testing? Just break your code! Learn how mutants reveal weaknesses and strengthen your automated tests.

Dec 17, 2025

How Zomato Improved their Android App Startup Time by Over 20% Using Baseline Profiles

Zomato cut Android app startup time by 20% using Baseline Profiles, pre-optimizing key code paths for faster launches and a smoother, consistent user experience.

Dec 15, 2025

What Happens During a Database Migration?

Discover what happens during a database migration. This practical guide covers planning, execution, validation, and strategies for a smooth transition.

Dec 10, 2025

How Airbnb Measures the Lifetime Value of a Listing

Airbnb’s LTV framework shows which listings drive value, supports hosts, and adapts to market changes for smarter, data-driven decisions.

Dec 8, 2025

What Is CQRS?

What is CQRS? This guide explains the CQRS pattern with simple analogies and practical examples to help you build scalable and high-performance applications.

Dec 3, 2025

How Lyft Rebuilt its Iconic Dashboard Emblem and its entire IoT Platform along with it?

Lyft’s Glow is more than an emblem, it’s a unified IoT platform with secure provisioning, real-time control, device shadowing, and safe OTA updates.

Dec 1, 2025

How Debuggers Know What to Show You?

Learn how debuggers know what to show you? (program slicing) with examples of static vs dynamic slicing and dependency graphs for faster debugging.

Nov 26, 2025

How LinkedIn Made the “My Network” Tab Faster, Smoother, and More Flexible

LinkedIn sped up My Network by unifying APIs, adding pagination, and using a backend-driven render model, cutting latency and improving the overall UX.

Nov 24, 2025

What Is the N+1 Query Problem?

What is the n+1 query problem? Learn how it slows apps, why it happens, and practical fixes with code examples to speed up performance.

Nov 19, 2025

How Swiggy Cut QA Regression Time by 66% Using Automated Event Testing

Swiggy built ARD Automator to automate mobile event verification using contracts and validators, cutting QA time by 66% and boosting accuracy.

Nov 17, 2025

What is Garbage Collection: How it really works?

What is Garbage Collection: How it really works? A clear walkthrough of GC concepts, algorithms, and memory-management tips for modern languages.

Nov 12, 2025

How Razorpay Uses Terraform to Simplify and Scale Infrastructure Management

Razorpay leverages Terraform + Atlantis to automate, secure, and scale infrastructure with GitOps workflows and modular IaC practices.

Nov 10, 2025

What is Token Bucket Algorithm?

Discover how context switching lets operating systems multitask smoothly, switching between processes to keep your system fast and efficient.

Nov 5, 2025

How LinkedIn Cut Build Times from 30 Minutes to 10 Seconds

LinkedIn’s RDev lets engineers code in the cloud with pre-built containers, cutting setup from 30 mins to 10 secs while keeping CI consistent.

Nov 3, 2025

How Context Switching Works in Operating Systems?

Discover how context switching lets operating systems multitask smoothly, switching between processes to keep your system fast and efficient.

Oct 29, 2025

How Swiggy Scaled and Maintained Postgres

Swiggy scaled Postgres by cleaning unused indexes, controlling auto-vacuum, and using pg_repack for online maintenance and better performance.

Oct 27, 2025

What is Event Driven Architecture?

Discover what is event driven architecture, its core components, benefits, and real-world examples in this comprehensive guide.

Oct 22, 2025

How Razorpay prepared for Chrome’s Third-Party Cookie Deprecation

Razorpay uses partitioned cookies (CHIPS) to tackle Chrome’s 3P cookie phaseout, cutting drop-offs while ensuring a smooth, reliable checkout.

Oct 20, 2025

What Is Chaos Engineering?

Discover what is chaos engineering and how proactive failure testing builds stronger, more reliable systems. Learn the principles and tools.

Oct 15, 2025

How LinkedIn Built a Faster, Safer, and Smarter HDFS Ecosystem

LinkedIn scaled HDFS with HA, Observer nodes, encryption & Wormhole, boosting speed, reliability & secure data access for massive growth.

Oct 13, 2025

Acid vs Base: Which Database Consistency Model Should You Use?

Discover whether acid vs base: which database consistency model should you use? Find out which approach suits your needs with real-world examples.

Oct 8, 2025

How Salesforce Reinvented Task Execution for the Cloud Era

Salesforce built a cloud-native task execution system in Hyperforce, replacing SSH with secure, scalable, multi-cloud automation using recipes & workers.

Oct 6, 2025

Just-in-Time (JIT) Compilation: How It Speeds Up Code

Unlike interpreting code line-by-line or compiling everything in advance, JIT compiles frequently used sections, or 'hot spots', into efficient native machine code during execution. This approach offers interpreter flexibility with the performance of a compiled program.

Oct 1, 2025

How Zomato Handles 100 Million Daily Search Queries

Zomato fixed search scale issues by moving from Field Cache to DocValues and using nested docs, cutting costs, OOM errors & boosting speed.

Sep 29, 2025

Why GPUs Dominate AI Training (and What TPUs Do Differently)

Discover why GPUs dominate AI training and what TPUs do differently. Learn the key differences and find out which hardware is best for your needs.

Sep 24, 2025

API Rate Limiting vs API Throttling: Which Is Best?

Learn the key differences between API rate limiting vs API throttling to choose the right strategy for your application's performance and security.

Sep 22, 2025

How Salesforce migrated 200,000 Machines from CentOS 7 to RHEL 9

Using automation for zero downtime, stronger security & faster parallel upgrades, Salesforce successfully migrated 200,000 machines from CentOS 7 to RHEL 9

Sep 22, 2025

How Salesforce migrated 200,000 Machines from CentOS 7 to RHEL 9

Using automation for zero downtime, stronger security & faster parallel upgrades, Salesforce successfully migrated 200,000 machines from CentOS 7 to RHEL 9

Sep 22, 2025

Edge Computing vs Fog Computing: Making the Right Choice

When comparing edge computing vs. fog computing, the main difference comes down to a simple question: where does the data processing happen?

Sep 20, 2025

Authorization: RBAC vs ABAC

The core difference between RBAC and ABAC boils down to one thing: how they determine permissions. RBAC is static whereas ABAC is dynamic.

Sep 19, 2025

Authentication Explained: Basic, Bearer, OAuth2, JWT & SSO

This guide will break down five common methods: Basic, Bearer, OAuth2, JWT, and SSO. We'll look at how each one works.

Sep 18, 2025

Agile vs Waterfall: Which Software Development Model Should You Pick?

Confused about agile vs waterfall? Discover which software development model to choose with our comprehensive guide on agile vs waterfall.

Sep 17, 2025

What Are Vector Databases? The Secret Sauce Behind AI Search Engines

A vector database stores complex data, such as text, images, and audio, as high-dimensional numerical representations called vector embeddings.

Sep 17, 2025

What Is Distributed Caching? A Guide to Faster Applications

Distributed caching enhances application performance by combining the RAM of multiple computers into one data store. It...

Sep 16, 2025

A Practical Guide to API Gateway Patterns in Microservices

API Gateway patterns serve as a unified entry point, routing traffic and simplifying client-side development. The main patterns are Backend for Frontend...

Sep 15, 2025

How Swiggy Improved Video Performance with Smart Caching

Swiggy boosted video cache hits & cut costs by clustering widths with K-means, reducing redundant processing while keeping playback seamless.

Sep 15, 2025

What is HTTP Keep-Alive? A Guide to Faster Website Speed

HTTP Keep-Alive, also known as a persistent connection, is a feature that allows a single TCP connection to remain open for multiple HTTP requests and responses.

Sep 14, 2025

Circuit Breaker vs Retry in Microservices

When building resilient systems, the debate of circuit breaker vs retry is about choosing the right tool for the right kind of failure. A Retry pattern is...

Sep 13, 2025

Protobuf vs JSON: Which one to choose?

Deciding between Protobuf and JSON really boils down to what you're building. If you need something universally...

Sep 12, 2025

Strong vs Eventual Consistency in Distributed Systems

At its core, consistency is about how systems manage updates across multiple servers. In distributed architectures...

Sep 11, 2025

Sharding vs Partitioning: What's the Difference?

Partitioning splits data within one database for faster retrieval, while sharding spreads data across multiple databases to handle scale and traffic.

Sep 10, 2025

What is Homomorphic Encryption? A Practical Guide with Examples

Homomorphic encryption is a powerful form of cryptography that allows computation on data while it remains encrypted.

Sep 10, 2025

Latency vs Throughput: A Guide for System Performance

When you hear engineers talk about latency vs throughput, they are discussing two sides of the same coin: speed versus capacity.

Sep 9, 2025

Write-Through, Write-Back & Write-Around in Cache: A Practical Guide

Your app writes data every second but how it writes can change everything. Write-Through, Write-Back & Write-Around hide big trade-offs.

Sep 8, 2025

How Hyperforce Edge Networking Scaled to 20 Million Domains With Less Than 30GB of RAM

Scaled from 3M→20M+ domains, Salesforce Hyperforce Edge cut memory <30GB with new storage design, boosting speed, reliability & security.

Sep 8, 2025

CDN vs Edge Cache: What You Need to Know

When people discuss CDN vs edge cache, they're often setting up a false comparison. The reality is simpler: edge caching is the core process that makes a modern Content Delivery Network (CDN) work.

Sep 7, 2025

Redis vs Memcached: When to Use What?

Redis: complex data, persistence & pub/sub. Memcached: simple, ultra-fast, volatile key-value caching.

Sep 6, 2025

What is Memcached?

Memcached is a high-performance, open-source caching system that stores frequently accessed data in RAM.

Sep 5, 2025

Client-Side vs Server-Side Caching

Server-side caching saves data on your server to speed things up for everyone, while client-side caching saves data on a single user's device, just for them.

Sep 4, 2025

Object vs File vs Block Storage Explained

File storage uses folders, object storage flattens data with metadata for scale, and block storage is a simpler form for raw binary data.

Sep 3, 2025

What is NoSQL? A Clear Guide to NoSQL Databases

Running an online store? Products vary by size, color, reviews, ratings & sellers fitting all that into rigid tables quickly gets messy...

Sep 3, 2025

What is Read/Write Splitting? Boost Database Performance

When apps scale, one database handling both reads and writes becomes a bottleneck. Read/write splitting fixes this by separating the two.

Sep 2, 2025

What Is an Application Server? Role & Importance

Ever wondered what happens behind the curtain when you log into an app, book a flight, or add something to your online shopping cart? That seamless, interactive experience is powered by an unseen engine...

Sep 1, 2025

How Razorpay Capital Detects Duplicate or Fraudulent Merchants

Razorpay scaled payments to billions of transactions by re-engineering its core systems, ensuring speed, security & reliability at scale.

Sep 1, 2025

Synchronous vs Asynchronous Communication

At its core, the difference between synchronous and asynchronous communication boils down to a single question: do you need an immediate response?

Aug 29, 2025

Computer Networking Explained: History, Protocols, Security, and More

Ever wondered what makes your Wi-Fi, apps, and smart devices talk to each other so smoothly. From gaming marathons to binge-worthy streams, all thanks to the invisible connections working behind the scenes.

Aug 28, 2025

Performance and Scalability in Web Applications

Ever wondered why some apps stay smooth at 100 users but crash at 10k? That is where performance meets scalability.

Aug 28, 2025

Data Management in Applications

Whether you’re building a simple note-taking app, a social media platform, or a large-scale e-commerce system, your application’s success depends on how well...

Aug 28, 2025

Authentication & Access Control

You sign in to your bank account and can only view your balance. The bank manager logs in and can approve loans. Same system, different powers but how does the app decide?

Aug 28, 2025

System Design Tutorial

When applications grow beyond a handful of users, writing code alone isn’t enough. To scale, stay reliable, and support complex features, software needs strong...

Aug 28, 2025

What are AI Agents and How Do They Work?

Imagine having a personal assistant who spots a bug in your code and submits the patch before you get the error.

Aug 27, 2025

How Salesforce Migrated 760+ Kafka Nodes Handling 1M Messages per Second with Zero Downtime

Salesforce upgraded 760+ Kafka nodes handling 1M+ msg/sec with zero downtime, scaling Marketing Cloud seamlessly for the future.

Aug 25, 2025

Vertical vs Horizontal Scaling

Is it better to make one server stronger or add more servers?

Aug 20, 2025

How X (Formerly Twitter) Handles Millions of Tweets Every Second

X scaled from Ruby to Java, microservices, real-time data, and AI to handle millions of tweets, searches, and users with speed and reliability.

Aug 18, 2025

How does the Internet Work?

Ever wondered how you can send a cat meme to Tokyo, check the Paris weather before packing, and video chat with someone in another time zone, all in seconds? That’s the internet, turning the world into one big, lightning-fast conversation. But how does it work?

Aug 16, 2025

Monolith vs Microservices Architecture

One giant program or a bunch of mini-programs, what should you choose?

Aug 13, 2025

How Spotify Powers Music Streaming for Millions

Spotify uses Kafka, microservices, and ML to deliver real-time, personalized music to millions, powered by a fast, scalable cloud backend.

Aug 11, 2025

What Is IoT in Simple Words? A 5-Year-Old's Guide.

Imagine your toothbrush telling your mom if you skipped brushing! Read how smart things work together in the world of IoT.

Aug 9, 2025

What is CAP Theorem?

Why can’t your favorite app be always fast, always online, and always correct? CAP Theorem has the answer.

Aug 6, 2025

How Meta Powers its Cloud Gaming Infrastructure at Scale

Meta streams games from cloud GPUs to your device with ultra-low latency, using real-time encoding, smart networking, and fast decoding.

Aug 4, 2025

Understanding API Gateway in Microservices: Key Benefits & Use Cases

Learn how an API gateway in microservices optimizes architecture. Explore core functions, patterns, and best practices to enhance your system.

Jul 30, 2025

How Amazon Key Unlocks 100 Million Doors a Year

Amazon Key lets drivers unlock gates for faster deliveries. From serverless to microservices, it now powers 100M+ secure unlocks yearly.

Jul 28, 2025

Encryption vs Tokenization: Which Data Security Method Is Better?

When you're trying to decide between encryption vs tokenization, it helps to think in analogies. Encryption is like locking your valuables in a high-tech safe, the data is still there, just scrambled into an unreadable format. Only someone with the right key can open it.

Jul 23, 2025

EP 88: How Pinterest Evolved its Architecture to Serve 500 Million Users

Pinterest began as a simple side project and scaled by simplifying tech, embracing microservices, and building strong pipelines and monitoring.

Jul 21, 2025

EP 87: How Uber Handles 40 Million+ Reads Per Second Using an Integrated Cache

Uber serves 40M+ reads/sec by pairing Docstore with a smart Redis cache, using CDC for near-instant updates and clever sharding for scale.

Jul 14, 2025

EP 86: How Facebook Scales Live Streaming for Millions of Viewers at Once?

Facebook scaled Live streaming for millions by building robust ingestion, delivery, and ISP optimizations, powering events like the UEFA Final.

Jul 7, 2025

How Uber Eats Scaled Search to Handle Billions of Daily Queries

Uber Eats scaled search by revamping indexing, geo-sharding & ranking, supporting billions of queries daily without compromising latency.

Jun 30, 2025

EP 84: How Pinterest Built Text-to-SQL to make Data analysis easier

Pinterest built a Text-to-SQL tool using LLMs and RAG to help analysts convert questions into SQL and find the right data faster and easier.

Jun 23, 2025

EP 83: How Pinterest Rebuilt its $3B+ Ads System without any Downtime

Pinterest rebuilt its \$3B+ ad system with a graph-based design for better scale, safety & dev speed, launched with zero downtime and big cost wins.

Jun 16, 2025

EP 82: How Pinterest uses LLMs to make your Search Results more Relevant?

Pinterest's AI teacher-student system improved search by 19.7%, understanding user intent beyond keywords for better relevance globally

Jun 9, 2025

EP 81: How Pinterest Built “Holiday Finds” to make Gift Shopping easier?

Pinterest Holiday Finds uses smart recommendations, auto wishlists and a fresh UI to make holiday gifting easy!

Jun 2, 2025

EP 80: How Pinterest improved ABR Video Performance?

Pinterest sped up video playback by embedding manifests in API responses and using Memcache to reduce startup latency.

May 26, 2025

EP 79: How Grab enabled near Real-Time analytics on their Data Lake

Grab used Apache Hudi with Flink and Spark to enable near real-time analytics, ensuring fast ingestion and low-latency queries on their data lake.

May 19, 2025

How Discord’s "Go Live" streaming works

Discord’s “Go Live” streams in real-time by capturing, encoding, transmitting, and decoding adapting quality to your network and device.

May 12, 2025

EP 77: How GitHub made Push Processing faster and more Reliable

GitHub sped up and stabilized push processing by splitting one big job into parallel Kafka-triggered tasks with better retries and monitoring.

May 5, 2025

EP 76: How Mixpanel Fixed Their Load Balancing Problem using Power of 2 Choices

Mixpanel fixed Compacter’s load imbalance using Power-of-2-Choices, boosting efficiency and cutting costs by 70% with minimal changes!

Apr 28, 2025

EP 75: How Netflix built a Distributed Counter for Billions of User Interactions

Netflix uses a smart Distributed Counter system to track billions of user actions daily with speed, accuracy, and massive scale.

Apr 21, 2025

How Stripe Scales its APIs using Rate Limiters

Stripe uses token buckets, concurrency limits & load shedders to scale APIs, prevent abuse & keep critical traffic flowing reliably.

Apr 14, 2025

How does UPI work?

UPI enables instant bank-to-bank transfers using just a UPI ID or mobile number, no bank details needed, just your app and secure PIN.

Apr 7, 2025

EP 72: How Netflix Ensures Reliability with Prioritized Load Shedding

Netflix ensures reliability by shedding low-priority requests during stress while keeping streaming smooth, validated through Chaos Engineering.

Mar 31, 2025

EP 71: How PayPal Solved the Thundering Herd Problem Efficiently

PayPal’s Braintree fixed the Thundering Herd Problem using Exponential Backoff with Jitter and simplified their architecture for better scaling.

Mar 24, 2025

EP 70: How Wayfair built their Ad Bidding System?

Wayfair built a smart Ad Bidding System using automation, ML, and real-time data to optimize bids, maximize ROI, and scale efficiently.

Mar 17, 2025

EP 69: How Airbnb Rebuilt its Payment System to achieve 150x performance gains?

Airbnb rebuilt its payments system with SOA, a unified read layer & denormalization, boosting scalability, reliability & 150x faster transactions.

Mar 10, 2025

EP 68: How Stripe uses Similarity Clustering to detect fraud

Stripe uses similarity clustering with XGBoost to detect fraud, linking accounts by shared traits to block fraud rings in real-time and reduce false positives.

Mar 3, 2025

EP 67: How BBC uses Serverless to handle Millions of visitors

BBC uses AWS Lambda to scale instantly, optimize caching, and reduce cold starts, ensuring fast, cost-efficient performance for millions of visitors.

Feb 24, 2025

EP 66: How Meta distributes Exabytes of Data across the World so fast?

Meta uses Owl, a hybrid system that mixes peer-to-peer caching with smart tracking, making data move faster, smoother, and at scale.

Feb 17, 2025

EP 65: How Quora Improved its Search System with Qdrant?

Quora moved to Qdrant for faster, scalable embedding search, improving recommendations with real-time updates, bulk loads, and optimized storage.

Feb 10, 2025

How Jira moved from JSON to Protobuf saved them 55% cost and 75% CPU?

Jira cut data size by 80%, reduced Memcached CPU by 75%, and saved 55% in costs by switching from JSON to Protobuf, improving speed and efficiency.

Feb 3, 2025

EP 63: How Quora Optimized their Databases?

Quora optimized databases with caching, MyRocks for storage efficiency, and MySQL sharding to boost performance, cut costs, and handle scale.

Jan 27, 2025

EP 62: How Robinhood prevents Fraud using Graph Algorithms

Robinhood prevents fraud using graph algorithms to analyze user connections, detect patterns, and enable real-time, smarter fraud detection.

Jan 20, 2025

EP 61: How Stripe achieved 99.999% uptime with DocDB (Document Database)

Stripe achieved 99.999% uptime by building DocDB, a custom solution on MongoDB, enabling efficient data migration, scaling, and high availability.

Jan 13, 2025

How DoorDash transitioned from Monolith to Microservices

DoorDash used the strangler fig pattern, scream tests, and multi-tenant architecture to smoothly transition from monolith to microservices.

Jan 6, 2025

EP 59: How Reddit designed their Metadata Store to serve 100k req/sec?

Reddit built a high-performance metadata store using Aurora Postgres, range-based partitions, PgBouncer, and JSONB fields, handling 100k req/sec.

Dec 30, 2024

EP 58: How Facebook built its Video Delivery System?

Facebook unified Reels, Watch, and Live, optimizing ranking, servers, and mobile to deliver personalized, efficient, and fresh video experiences.

Dec 23, 2024

EP 57: How Airbnb Processes a Million User Events Every Second?

How Airbnb made 1.9 Billion in 6 months and how Airbnb’s User Signals Platform uses Apache Flink & Lambda Architecture to process millions of events per second for real-time personalization.

Dec 16, 2024

EP 56: How LinkedIn Scaled to 1 billion Users?

By shifting to microservices from monoliths, using tools like Hadoop, Kafka, Rest.li, LinkedIn scaled to a billion of users globally.

Dec 9, 2024

EP 55: How did Magic Pocket help Dropbox save millions?

Dropbox scaled its storage with its custom-built system- Magic Pocket, and utilized high-density SMR drives, increasing its gross revenue by 75%.

Dec 2, 2024

EP 54: How Dropbox scaled its storage infrastructure?

Dropbox scaled its storage infrastructure with a custom-built system called Magic Pocket, utilizing high-density SMR drives and advanced data replication for durability and scalability.

Nov 25, 2024

EP 53: How TikTok Optimizes Video Streaming

TikTok boosts streaming by preloading videos, optimizing buffers, and reusing media players, with on-device upscaling and task distribution for smooth playback on all networks.

Nov 18, 2024

EP 52: How GitHub manages continuous integration and deployment

GitHub manages CI/CD by automating testing, building, and deploying code changes, allowing developers to release updates faster and with confidence.

Nov 11, 2024

EP 51: How Instagram handled user growth and scale?

Instagram achieved rapid user growth by maintaining a simple and efficient tech stack, utilizing AWS, Django, and Postgres also effectively managing traffic with load balancing, caching, and data sharding to handle the increasing demand.

Nov 4, 2024

EP 50: How Google search works?

Google Search works by using crawlers to scan and index web pages, then processes your queries to rank and display relevant results in seconds.

Oct 28, 2024

EP 49: How Stripe Handles Global Payments Technology

Stripe utilizes a tech stack of Ruby and JavaScript to enable secure, compliant global payments and currency conversion.

Oct 21, 2024

EP 48: How Tinder Streams to 75 Million Users with HTTP Live Streaming

Tinder used HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) & AWS CloudFront to deliver Swipe Night videos efficiently, ensuring seamless, adaptive playback.

Oct 14, 2024

How Netflix Secures Content Delivery using Open Connect CDN?

Netflix secures content delivery through its proprietary Open Connect CDN, which caches content on local servers, ensuring low-latency streaming and minimizing network congestion.

Oct 7, 2024

EP 46: How Uber Manages Real-Time Analytics with Apache Flink

Uber Eats uses real-time data processing with Apache Kafka, Flink, and Pinot to manage order updates, optimize delivery logistics, and provide quick analytics for efficient and accurate food delivery.

Sep 30, 2024

EP 45: How Slack Maintains Reliability and Uptime

Slack maintains reliability and uptime through automated incident detection, real-time collaboration, proactive monitoring, and a resilient microservices architecture.

Sep 23, 2024

How Zoom Ensures Low Latency Video Calls

Zoom ensures low latency by using distributed data centers, optimized video encoding, and adaptive bitrate streaming to maintain real-time communication quality.

Sep 16, 2024

EP 43: How Amazon Personalizes Product Recommendations

Amazon personalizes product recommendations using machine learning, collaborative filtering, and user interaction data to tailor suggestions based on individual preferences

Sep 9, 2024

EP 42: How Pinterest Scales Their Image Search with Elasticsearch

Pinterest scales its image search by using Elasticsearch for fast indexing, real-time search, and advanced machine learning features.

Sep 2, 2024

EP 41: How Facebook Handles Billions of Messages Daily

Facebook manages billions of daily messages using scalable servers, distributed systems and advanced algorithms for efficient processing and real-time delivery.

Aug 26, 2024

EP 40: How Airbnb Uses Machine Learning for Dynamic Pricing

Airbnb uses machine learning to dynamically set rental prices, optimizing revenue and enhancing guest experiences.

Aug 19, 2024

EP 39: How Twitter Manages High Availability with Kubernetes

Twitter achieves high availability with Kubernetes through multi-node deployments, load balancing, and data center redundancy.

Aug 12, 2024

EP 38: How Spotify Optimized Their Recommendation System

Spotify optimized recommendations by combining collaborative filtering, content-based filtering, and audio analysis to deliver highly personalized music recommendations.

Aug 5, 2024

EP 37: What is OAuth?

OAuth is an open standard protocol that allows users to grant apps access to their data without sharing their passwords.

Jul 29, 2024

EP 36: What is Load Balancing?

Load balancing distributes network traffic across multiple servers to avoid overload.

Jul 22, 2024

What is Grafana?

Grafana is an open-source platform for monitoring and visualizing real-time metrics from various sources.

Jul 15, 2024

What is Kibana?

Kibana is an open-source data visualization tool that works with Elasticsearch to create interactive charts, graphs, and dashboards for exploring and analyzing data.

Jul 8, 2024

What is MongoDB?

MongoDB is a NoSQL database that stores data in flexible, JSON-like documents.

Jul 1, 2024

What is ⁠PostgreSQL?

PostgreSQL is a robust, open-source object-relational database system known for advanced features, scalability, and support for complex queries.

Jun 24, 2024

What is RabbitMQ?

RabbitMQ is an open-source message broker for reliable, scalable communication between applications.

Jun 17, 2024

EP 30: What is Elasticsearch?

Elasticsearch is a distributed, open-source search and analytics engine designed to handle large volumes of data in real-time.

Jun 10, 2024

EP 29: What is Cassandra?

Cassandra is a scalable, distributed NoSQL database for handling large data with high availability.

Jun 3, 2024

EP 28: What is Kafka?

Kafka is a distributed streaming platform for real-time data with low latency and high throughput.

May 27, 2024

EP 27: What is Kubernetes?

Kubernetes orchestrates and automates the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications.

May 20, 2024

EP 26: What is Docker?

Docker simplifies application deployment by packaging software into standardized containers.

May 13, 2024

Exclusive Git Cheat Sheet from Hello, World!

We've got something exciting to share with you that will help you with your Git skills.

May 9, 2024

EP 25: What is DMARC Record? Why is it used?

DMARC prevents email spoofing and phishing by authenticating email senders.

May 6, 2024

EP 24: What is DKIM Record? Why is it used?

DKIM is an email authentication protocol that enhances email security by preventing domain-based phishing attacks.

Apr 29, 2024

What is WebRTC?

WebRTC enables browser-based real-time communication without plugins.

Apr 22, 2024

EP 22: What is SPF Record? Why is it used?

An SPF record controls which servers can send emails for a domain, preventing email fraud.

Apr 15, 2024

What are WebSockets?

Two-way real-time communication between client-server over a single connection.

Apr 8, 2024

What is Micro Frontend Architecture?

Micro frontends are extending the concepts of micro services to the frontend world.

Apr 1, 2024

What is Blockchain?

Blockchain is a decentralized ledger technology that records transactions securely in an immutable chain of blocks.

Mar 25, 2024

How does CDN work?

A CDN is a network of servers that cache and deliver digital content from the closest server to users, reducing website loading times and improving user experience.

Mar 18, 2024

What is hashing and what different types are there?

Hashing is a way to convert data into a shorter code for secure storage or comparison.

Mar 11, 2024

What is URL, URI, and URN?

A URI identifies a resource, URL specifies its internet location and a URN assigns a unique name.

Mar 4, 2024

What is an API Gateway?

An API gateway directs requests, enforces policies, and streamlines user experience by coordinating services and handling protocol translations.

Feb 26, 2024

What is UDP?

UDP is a lightweight, connectionless protocol for fast data transmission without the guarantee of delivery.

Feb 19, 2024

What is TCP?

TCP is a protocol that ensures reliable and ordered delivery of data packets over the internet.

Feb 12, 2024

What is Serverless?

Serverless are types of servers without the headache of server management.

Feb 5, 2024

What is HTTP?

HTTP is a connectionless and stateless protocol used all over the internet.

Jan 29, 2024

What is Redis Cache and Database?

Redis is a open source service to help you cache and fetch data in rocket speed.

Jan 22, 2024

What is CI/CD and why is it even needed?

It's the automation that makes developer life simpler and efficient!

Jan 15, 2024

What is Encryption and what different types are there?

How are we protected on the internet when everyone is trying to get our data?

Jan 8, 2024

What is DNS, and how does it work?

Why is DNS so important that Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp had a outage due to that?

Jan 1, 2024

What is an IP address?

It's the house address but for your digital devices

Dec 25, 2023

What are microservices?

Netflix uses microservices but Google doesn't. But what exactly is that?

Dec 18, 2023

What is an ORM?

Ever thought of skipping database languages? ORM is for you!

Dec 11, 2023

Reverse proxy vs Forward proxy?

Do you know how website handles traffic?

Dec 4, 2023

What the hell are JWT tokens?

Everyone is talking about them, but what are they?

Nov 27, 2023

What is an API?

API are everywhere but do you know what are they?

Nov 20, 2023

Naming the newsletter and Choosing your Poison

What's the reason behind naming this newsletter and the first code that we all wrote and hopeful everyone will in future.

Nov 15, 2023