Backend, APIs, and System Design
API design, database choice, distributed patterns, and the engineering decisions that compound for years.
60 posts · page 3 of 3
- Backend, APIs, and System Design
The State Machine Pattern: A Backend Engineer's Quiet Hero
Working notes on the state machine pattern: a backend engineer's quiet hero. Written for founders, engineers, and operators who want a clear read on backend, apis, and system design from someone who has shipped the work.
12 min read
- Backend, APIs, and System Design
The Multi Tenant Database: One Schema or Many?
The three multi-tenancy models for SaaS -- shared table, separate schema, separate database -- and when each one is worth its complexity.
12 min read
- Backend, APIs, and System Design
Zero Downtime Database Migrations: A Step By Step Guide
Most outages I have seen during a schema change were avoidable. Zero downtime migrations are not magic. They are a discipline. This is the sequence I use on real production systems, with the traps that catch teams who skip a step.
13 min read
- Backend, APIs, and System Design
The Replication Lag Problem: How to Detect and Defend
Working notes on the replication lag problem: how to detect and defend. Written for founders, engineers, and operators who want a clear read on backend, apis, and system design from someone who has shipped the work.
12 min read
- Backend, APIs, and System Design
The Write Heavy Workload: A Different Set of Tradeoffs
Working notes on the write heavy workload: a different set of tradeoffs. Written for founders, engineers, and operators who want a clear read on backend, apis, and system design from someone who has shipped the work.
11 min read
- Backend, APIs, and System Design
The Read Heavy Workload: Strategies That Move the Needle
Working notes on the read heavy workload: strategies that move the needle. Written for founders, engineers, and operators who want a clear read on backend, apis, and system design from someone who has shipped the work.
12 min read
- Backend, APIs, and System Design
The Edge: When to Move Logic Off Your Origin
What belongs at the CDN edge, what must stay at origin, and how to make the decision correctly for your specific workload.
12 min read
- Backend, APIs, and System Design
The Outbox Pattern: A SaaS Reliability Cheat Code
Working notes on the outbox pattern: a saas reliability cheat code. Written for founders, engineers, and operators who want a clear read on backend, apis, and system design from someone who has shipped the work.
12 min read
- Backend, APIs, and System Design
The N+1 Query Problem: Detection, Prevention, and Refactoring
How the N+1 query problem degrades API performance at scale, how to detect it with query logging, and how to fix it with joins and data loaders.
12 min read
- Backend, APIs, and System Design
Webhooks vs Polling vs Server Sent Events vs WebSockets
Working notes on webhooks vs polling vs server sent events vs websockets. Written for founders, engineers, and operators who want a clear read on backend, apis, and system design from someone who has shipped the work.
13 min read
- Backend, APIs, and System Design
The Public API Decision: When to Build One, When to Resist
Working notes on the public api decision: when to build one, when to resist. Written for founders, engineers, and operators who want a clear read on backend, apis, and system design from someone who has shipped the work.
11 min read
- Backend, APIs, and System Design
The API Versioning Strategy That Survives Real World Use
The API versioning approach that keeps customer integrations stable while letting your product move fast. URL versioning, header versioning, and when each is right.
12 min read
More than blog posts.
The Labs folder has the experiments themselves. The Systems folder has the stack and architecture. The Journey folder has the timeline. Pick whichever pulls you.