9 posts.
A practical roadmap to becoming a Backend Developer. One language deep, databases, SQL, REST and GraphQL, auth, caching, queues, and production deployments.
A practical guide to database sharding: what it is, when you actually need it, common shard key strategies, and the operational costs nobody warns you about.
A working introduction to gRPC: protobuf schemas, code generation, the four RPC styles, deadlines, errors, and when to pick it over REST.
How idempotency keys work, where to use them, and how to implement them correctly so clients can safely retry POST requests without creating duplicates.
A clear-eyed guide to JWTs: structure, signing, verification, refresh flows, and the real-world failure modes nobody warns you about.
A practical introduction to MongoDB for developers familiar with relational databases: documents, collections, queries, indexes, and when to pick it over SQL.
OAuth2 demystified for working developers: the four flows, access and refresh tokens, PKCE, scopes, and where security actually breaks in practice.
Practical Redis caching patterns: cache-aside, write-through, TTL choices, stampede protection, and invalidation strategies that survive production.
Build a real WebSocket server in Node.js: handshake, broadcasting, heartbeats, backpressure, and scaling beyond a single process.