Track 02 · Module 1 live
The fundamentals that outlast any framework.
System design from first principles: scale, storage, queues, and failure, in production terms.
System design taught properly: estimation, networking, databases at scale, caching, queues, reliability, and case studies. Start from first principles, leave with production instincts and the numbers to defend your designs.
7 modules planned · 6 lessons live · ~37 min of reading, growing weekly
Curriculum
Seven modules, in the order you'd build the system.
02up next
Networking and API Design
load balancers · rate limiting · TLS
03in queue
Databases at Scale
replication · sharding · consistency
04in queue
Caching
cache-aside · invalidation · CDNs
05in queue
Queues and Async Processing
delivery guarantees · outbox · backpressure
06in queue
Reliability and Resilience
retries · timeouts · circuit breakers
07in queue
Case Studies
url shortener · news feed · chat
Related reading
Live now, and close in spirit: interview drills on these exact topics, plus reliability and networking in production.
- System Design Interview Questions, Answered20 questions →
- Database Interview Questions, Answered20 questions →
- LLM Fallbacks in Production: Routing, Retries, and Timeouts9 min →
- How to Stream LLM Responses: SSE vs WebSockets (and the Fetch-Stream Option)5 min →
- Rate Limits Are a Capacity Contract7 min →
Module 1 is live. Six more are coming.
One email per module as it ships, starting with networking and API design. Free either way; email is the ping, not the gate.
Meanwhile, everything in the AI Engineering track is live now.