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Roadmap

Every concept in the order it makes sense to meet it, from a single request to a system that serves millions.

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The Lifecycle of a Software Request

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Concepts
16
Total read time
3h 58m
Left to read
3h 58m
Fundamentals0/2
The Lifecycle of a Software RequestArchitectural Styles: Monolith to Event-Driven
Scaling and Trade-offs0/7
Scalability: Vertical vs Horizontal ScalingLatency, Throughput & AvailabilityCAP Theorem & Trade-offsCore Concepts of Load BalancingDesign Requirements & Estimating Resource NeedsCaching Strategies & Cache InvalidationContent Delivery Networks (CDNs)
Communication and APIs0/3
Choosing a Communication PatternAPI Design: REST, GraphQL, and gRPCRate Limiting
Data Storage and Management Strategies0/2
Selecting Relational vs NoSQL Database ModelsImplementing Database Sharding and Partitioning

Apply It

The MethodA 7-step walkthroughThe order to work in when you’re handed a blank page and a vague problem.Case studiesSystem blueprintsThe same trade-offs, met by real teams at real scale.

System Design 101

CapstoneScaling a Photo App to a Million UsersA practical system design walkthrough: growing one photo-sharing app from a single server to a million users, and the break that makes each of the ten pieces necessary.CapstoneHow a Backend Is Built Around One MessageFollow one chat message end to end and watch a backend assemble around it: server, API, database, cache, WebSockets, message queue, load balancer, containers, architecture and observability — each one arriving when the last hits its limit.

Interview Q&A

67 questionsQuestions, answeredJavaScript, React, performance and the browser — each one answered the way you would say it in the room.Frontend