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The default PostgreSQL configuration is tuned for compatibility, not performance. It ships with settings calibrated for a machine with 128MB of RAM in...
The first time an AI editor suggests the exact function signature you needed — one that lives three files away in a utility module you half-forgot exi...
Every Node.js PostgreSQL tutorial shows you pg.Pool. You set max: 20, you get 20 reusable connections, and that works fine for a single-server app wit...
Why Queries That Work Locally Break in ProductionDevelopment databases are small. You have maybe a few thousand rows, everything fits in memory, and e...
Stop Using Types Just for AutocompleteIf you're using TypeScript mainly so your editor can suggest method names, you're getting maybe 10% of the value...
Why API Design Is Worth Getting Right EarlyAn API is a contract. Once developers — internal or external — start building against it, every endpoint UR...
Why Docker Matters for DevelopersBefore Docker, setting up a project on a new machine was a ritual of pain. Clone the repo. Install the right Node ver...
Why This Deserves More Attention Than It GetsCredential leaks are one of the most common and preventable security incidents in software. Bots actively...
The Problem Git Hooks SolvePicture a typical pull request review. Someone opens a PR and a reviewer digs in — but before getting to the actual logic, ...
Most applications log errors. Fewer log the events that matter to the business: who changed a permission, who exported a CSV of customer data, who del...
There is a specific kind of production bug that is worse than a crash: a performance regression. A crash is visible. It pages someone, generates an er...
Every Node.js project starts with a .env file. That is fine. The problem is when the .env approach never evolves — when you still have a single .env.p...
The default Dockerfile most developers write for a Node.js app looks something like this: FROM node:20 WORKDIR /app COPY . . RUN npm install EXPOSE 30...
API documentation that is maintained separately from the API is documentation that is wrong. Every refactor that renames a field, every new endpoint t...
Most real-time features do not need the full complexity of a dedicated WebSocket framework. A notification badge that updates when a new message arriv...
The promise of a monorepo is simple: one repository, shared code, unified tooling, atomic changes across packages. The reality, historically, was a fr...
Most Node.js security tutorials cover the obvious things — use HTTPS, hash passwords, validate input. The gaps they leave are the ones attackers explo...
Unit tests are fast and easy to write. They are also very good at telling you your functions work in isolation while your API is broken in production....
Stripe's documentation is excellent. It shows you how to create a PaymentIntent, how to set up a subscription, how to handle a webhook. What it does n...
The reflex when someone asks for search is to reach for Elasticsearch or Algolia. For a lot of products, that reflex costs you operational complexity,...
Most Node.js apps handle errors the same way: a try-catch here, an Express error middleware at the bottom, maybe a process.on('uncaughtException') add...
Most developers reach for offset pagination first. It is intuitive — page=3&limit=20 maps directly to OFFSET 60 LIMIT 20 in SQL. It works fine in ...
Every application eventually needs work that runs on a schedule. Clean up expired sessions at midnight. Send a weekly digest on Monday morning. Retry ...
Feature flags are one of those tools that sound like enterprise overhead until you ship a broken feature to all your users at once and spend 45 minute...
Sending email looks simple. You call an API, pass a subject and body, and it goes. Then you notice your password reset emails are landing in spam. You...
Every security breach that starts with "attacker submitted unexpected input" is a validation failure. Every production bug that starts with "we assume...
Memory leaks in Node.js have a reputation for being mysterious. They are not. There is a small, well-defined set of causes responsible for nearly ever...
Multitenancy is one of those architectural decisions that is nearly impossible to retrofit. If you build a single-tenant app and decide later to make ...
Every API that survives long enough becomes a versioning problem. You ship v1. Users build on it. Six months later you need to change a response shape...
Here is what happens when a Node.js app shuts down the wrong way: Your CI pipeline pushes a new deploy. Docker sends SIGTERM to the container. The pro...
Database migrations are the most dangerous routine operation in backend development. Not because they are complex — most are simple ALTER TABLE statem...
Modern backend systems rarely fail in obvious ways. APIs timeout silently, background jobs crash without logs, and database exceptions disappear behin...
Most file upload tutorials show you how to receive a file on your server and then push it to S3. That approach works, but it has a problem: every uplo...
Webhooks look simple until production happens. You wire up an endpoint, it works in staging, and then real traffic arrives: retries, duplicate deliver...
Every Node.js app has console.log in it. Most production apps have a lot of console.log in them. And when something breaks at 2 AM, developers find th...
Here is a rule of thumb that will save you a lot of production pain: if it takes more than 200ms, it should not be in your request/response cycle. Sen...
JWT authentication is one of those things every developer has implemented at least once, and most have implemented wrong at least once. The basic patt...
A lot of Docker Compose tutorials show you how to run two containers locally. This is not that. This is the full production-grade stack — Node.js app,...
Most developers reach for Redis when their app starts feeling slow and someone mentions "just add a cache." That is a fine reason to start. But Redis ...
Most tutorials show you how to make a GitHub Actions workflow. This one shows you how to make one that is actually fit for production — with environme...
There is a conversation happening in engineering teams right now that nobody wants to have out loud. The AI coding tools are fast. The velocity number...
A year ago, "vibe coding" felt like the most exciting phrase in tech. Andrej Karpathy coined it, Twitter ran with it, and a generation of developers s...
If you follow the mainstream tech press, you're trapped in a loop of extremes: either AI is moments away from replacing every developer on earth, or i...
The proliferation of Large Language Models (LLMs) and autonomous AI agents has introduced a critical integration bottleneck known as the $N \times M$ ...
Object-Relational Mappers (ORMs) are excellent for standard CRUD operations, relationship management, and schema migrations. But when you transition f...
When building modern web applications, handling file uploads efficiently and cost-effectively is a top priority. While storing files on a local disk i...
If you are building an API that handles money, orchestrates physical hardware, or manages critical state, you are one network timeout away from a disa...
If you write JavaScript or TypeScript, your asynchronous code probably looks like a massive nesting doll of try/catch blocks. async function fetchUser...
Most developers hit this wall at some point. You push a fix, your CI runs, and for 15 awkward seconds your app returns a 502. Your users see an error....
Vercel provides an unmatched developer experience. You push to main, and your site is live. But as your startup grows, Vercel's pricing limits—especia...
You spin up a new VPS. The provider sends you root credentials. You SSH in and get straight to deploying your app because that is the exciting part. M...
Real Systems Rarely Start With “System Design”One of the biggest misconceptions beginners have about large-scale systems is imagining they were design...
The Infrastructure Was Technically “Up” But Users Could Not Use ItThe dashboards looked healthy. CPU usage remained normal. Database replicas were syn...
The Most Dangerous Assumption In Software EngineeringThe deployment looked perfect. Multiple backend servers. Database replicas across regions. Redis ...
Microservices Solved One Problem And Created AnotherAt first, the architecture felt cleaner. The monolith had been split successfully: authentication ...
The System Did Not Crash Because Of TrafficThe infrastructure had survived large launches before. Load balancers distributed requests correctly. Auto-...
The Bug Only Happened In ProductionThe payment system looked perfectly fine during testing. One worker processed refunds. Another handled subscription...
The Distributed System Worked Perfectly Until The Network FailedEverything looked healthy. Database replicas were synchronized. API latency remained l...
The Queue Worked Fine Until The Company Needed HistoryAt first, the architecture felt stable again. Message queues absorbed traffic spikes beautifully...
The Architecture Started Breaking In Places Nobody ExpectedAt first, the backend looked clean. The payment service called the email service directly. ...
The System Worked Perfectly Until Traffic Arrived All At OnceEverything looked fine during testing. A user uploads an image. The backend stores the fi...
The Night The Database Became The ProblemEverything looked healthy from the outside. CPU usage on the backend servers was normal. API latency graphs w...
The Database Decision That Quietly Shapes EverythingMost engineers do not think deeply about databases in the beginning. The product is still small. T...
The Infrastructure Worked Fine Until One Server Was AddedEverything looked stable for months. Traffic distribution was predictable. Cache hit rates we...
Redis Usually Enters The Architecture QuietlyAt first, Redis rarely feels important. An engineer adds it to reduce database load on one slow API endpo...
The Strange Moment When The Database Starts Repeating ItselfFor a while, the infrastructure looked healthy again. Replication reduced database pressur...
Replication Solves Reads Until It Doesn’tFor a while, replication feels like the perfect scaling solution. The primary database handles writes. Replic...
A strange thing happens when applications start becoming successful. The backend server that once felt unbelievably fast suddenly starts struggling. A...
The First Scaling Decision Almost Every Startup MakesFor a surprisingly long time, the entire backend is usually one increasingly powerful machine. No...
Distributed systems are rarely the starting point. Most applications arrive there slowly, usually after one machine stops being enough. In the beginni...
Every developer reaches this point eventually. Your application starts growing. New features keep getting added. Deployments become stressful. Bugs ap...
Most applications do not fail because the code is bad. They fail because success arrives faster than the architecture evolves. A backend that works pe...