thinking-in-backend.hashnode.devScaling and Performance Engineering: Finding the Real BottleneckPerformance is the efficiency of a single request; Scalability is the system’s ability to maintain that efficiency as volume increases. It is a common mistake to conflate performance and scalability. A server that responds in 10ms is performant. A sy...Jan 23·5 min read
thinking-in-backend.hashnode.devBackend Security: Knowing Where Trust EndsIn backend engineering, one idea sits underneath almost every security decision:the trust boundary. The frontend, whether it’s a web app, a mobile app, or a third-party script, runs in an environment you do not control. Anyone can modify it. Anyone c...Jan 22·4 min read
thinking-in-backend.hashnode.devGraceful Shutdown: Letting Systems Stop Without Breaking ThingsWe spend most of our time thinking about systems while they’re alive. How they handle requests. How they scale. How they recover from failure. Very little time is spent thinking about what happens when they stop. That’s a mistake. Because backend sys...Jan 21·4 min read
thinking-in-backend.hashnode.devObservability: Turning On the LightsWhen you are coding on your laptop, debugging is easy. You have your terminal right there, and if something breaks, the error message pops up immediately. In a production backend, your code is running on a server thousands of miles away. It’s talking...Jan 20·4 min read
thinking-in-backend.hashnode.devTask Queues and Background Jobs: The Art of Doing Nothing (Right Now)Imagine you’re at a busy coffee shop. You walk up to the counter, order a complicated latte, and the cashier says: “Stay right here. I’m going to go to the back, roast the beans, milk the cow, and brew this. No one else can order until I’m done.” You...Jan 19·4 min read
