Microservices · Featured
Request Hedging Tail Latency: Cutting p99 Without Overload
Learn how hedged requests cut p99 tail latency in microservices: delay tuning, hedge budgets, cancellation, idempotency, routing, and when to avoid it.
13 min read
Engineering notes
How software gets built, structured and paid for.
Microservices or monolith, Nx and monorepos, backends, DevOps — explained for people who run production systems, with the trade-offs left in.
Browse by topic
Microservices
60Service boundaries, communication, data ownership and the operational reality of distributed systems.
Monoliths & Modular Monoliths
44When one deployable is the right answer, how to structure it, and how to migrate in either direction.
Nx & Monorepos
60Workspace tooling, the project graph, affected builds, caching and CI for monorepos.
Backend Engineering
63Runtimes, frameworks and API styles: Node.js, Bun, NestJS, Spring Boot, Python, REST, GraphQL and gRPC.
DevOps
44Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, PostgreSQL, Redis, Nginx, monitoring and deployment.
Engineering Cost Optimization
24Spend less time and money building and running software — without cutting corners that cost more later.
Architecture guides
More →Request Hedging Tail Latency: Cutting p99 Without Overload
Learn how hedged requests cut p99 tail latency in microservices: delay tuning, hedge budgets, cancellation, idempotency, routing, and when to avoid it.
13 min read
nx migrate upgrade: A Two-Phase Guide to Nx Breaking Changes
Run an nx migrate upgrade as a reviewable change: inspect migrations.json, apply in small commits, verify behavior, and handle breaking changes safely.
16 min read
Nx Affected Inputs for Non-JS Files: SQL, Protobuf and Config Assets
Configure Nx named inputs, implicit dependencies and workspace-root filesets so changes to SQL, protobuf, YAML and template files trigger the right tasks.
13 min read
Practical tutorials
More →Profiling a Slow Endpoint: Flame Graph to Fix, On-CPU vs Off-CPU
Learn to diagnose a slow monolith endpoint: scope the problem, use APM traces, pick on-CPU or wall-clock profiling, read flame graphs, and fix N+1 queries.
16 min read
Nx Continuous Tasks: Run Dev Servers and APIs Together Locally
Mark serve targets as continuous in Nx and wire them with task dependencies so nx serve web starts your API too, plus readiness, ports and e2e.
13 min read
Nx Inputs for Non-JS Files: SQL, Protos and Configs in Affected
Model SQL migrations, .proto schemas and config files with Nx namedInputs and dependency edges so affected detection and caching stop skipping changed projects.
13 min read
Cost optimization guides
More →How to Reduce NAT Gateway Costs: Attribute Bytes Before You Fix
Learn how NAT Gateway billing stacks with AWS data transfer costs, how to attribute bytes with flow logs, and when VPC endpoints actually save money.
13 min read
How to Reduce Observability Costs: Logs, Cardinality and Sampling
Model what drives your observability bill, find the top contributors, then apply log retention, metric cardinality and trace sampling controls where they matter.
13 min read
Architecture Decision Cost: A Practical TCO Model for Engineers
Estimate architecture decision cost as a small TCO model with ranges, reversal cost, and opportunity cost, then record and revisit it in your decision records.
12 min read
Learning paths
From monolith to microservices
Decide, structure, then split — or don't.
Fast monorepos and faster CI
Project graphs, caching and affected builds.
Shipping and running services
Containers, pipelines, databases and proxies.
Spending less to build and run software
Where engineering money actually goes.