System Design

⏱ 3 min read A skip list is a probabilistic data structure that allows O(log n) search, insertion, and deletion on an ordered sequence, […] Read article

⏱ 4 min read A publish-subscribe (pub/sub) messaging system decouples producers (publishers) from consumers (subscribers) through a message broker. Publishers emit events to topics Read article

⏱ 3 min read A Bloom filter is a space-efficient probabilistic data structure that tests whether an element is a member of a set. Read article

⏱ 3 min read An API rate limiter controls how many requests a client can make within a time window, protecting backend services from Read article

⏱ 3 min read A distributed task queue decouples work producers from workers, enabling async processing, retries, scheduling, and horizontal scaling. Common use cases: Read article

⏱ 5 min read A data warehouse is an analytical database optimized for read-heavy, aggregation-heavy workloads over large historical datasets. Unlike OLTP databases designed Read article

⏱ 9 min read Cache invalidation — ensuring cached data reflects the current state of the source of truth — is famously difficult. Phil Read article

⏱ 4 min read Database replication maintains copies of a database on multiple servers for high availability, read scaling, and disaster recovery. Understanding replication Read article

⏱ 4 min read Service discovery allows microservices to find each other’s network addresses without hardcoded configuration. In a dynamic environment where services scale Read article

⏱ 4 min read Microservices architecture decomposes a monolith into independently deployable services, each owning a bounded domain. This enables independent scaling, technology heterogeneity, Read article

⏱ 8 min read An image processing pipeline handles user-uploaded images: validating, resizing, compressing, and formatting them for web and mobile delivery. Instagram, Pinterest, Read article

⏱ 4 min read A data pipeline moves data from operational systems (databases, event streams, APIs) to analytical systems (data warehouses, data lakes) where Read article

⏱ 8 min read An object storage system stores arbitrary binary data (files, images, videos, backups) addressable by a globally unique key, with near-infinite Read article

⏱ 4 min read A video calling system enables real-time audio and video communication between users in a browser or mobile app. WebRTC (Web Read article

⏱ 4 min read A transactional email delivery system sends emails triggered by application events — welcome emails on registration, password reset links, order Read article