System Design Classroom

Good System Design Starts With Constraints, Not Diagrams, Not Tools

Most Engineers Learn System Design Backwards

Apr 4 • Raul Junco

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March 2026

Async systems scale your system… and your problems.

Many developers only realize it after consistency breaks.

Mar 28 • Raul Junco

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Refactoring Databases Is a Different Animal

A practical pattern for evolving database schemas without breaking production

Mar 14 • Raul Junco

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CAP questions almost never appear labeled as “CAP theorem.”

They show up disguised as simple data questions.

Mar 7 • Raul Junco

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February 2026

A Single Subscriber Doesn’t Turn Pub/Sub Into a Queue

Why execution semantics -not tooling- define async patterns.

Feb 28 • Raul Junco

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January 2026

80% Of The Times, Scaling Is Not a Rewrite Problem

How a single interview question reveals who understands load, risk, and trade-offs

Jan 10 • Raul Junco

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December 2025

Happy Teams Build Better Products

6 lessons every engineer eventually learns the hard way.

Dec 12, 2025 • Raul Junco

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October 2025

Performance Doesn’t Start at SELECT; It Starts at CREATE.

Stop blaming your queries. Most database slowness comes from design mistakes made on day one.

Oct 28, 2025 • Raul Junco

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CDC Isn’t the Shortcut You Think It Is

7 hidden costs of “free” event publishing

Oct 7, 2025 • Raul Junco

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September 2025

What Uber’s Slackbot Taught Me About Building Smart AI Assistants

Forget dashboards. The fastest path to insight is an agent that speaks your data’s language.

Sep 30, 2025

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Most Engineers Want Both Consistency and Scalability.

Reality Doesn't Work That Way.

Sep 25, 2025

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To Cache or Not to Cache

A 7-question framework for making caching a design decision, not a default.

Sep 16, 2025 • Raul Junco

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