System Design Foundations — How the Pieces Fit Together
A calm summary of system design foundations, showing how core concepts connect into one mental model.
Vivek Molkar
A System Design Walkthrough (Putting It All Together)
A calm, end-to-end walkthrough showing how core system design ideas interact in a real request flow.
Designing for Change (Why Systems Fail Months Later)
Why systems rarely fail on day one, and how designing for change is about surviving evolving requirements, not predicting them.
Observability (Knowing What Is Actually Happening)
A first-principles explanation of observability — why green dashboards are not enough, and how explaining a request end-to-end changes how systems are debugged.
Rate Limiting (Fairness Under Abuse)
A first-principles explanation of rate limiting using a simple, intuitive analogy and clear diagrams to show why fairness matters under load.
Authentication vs Authorization (Trust Comes Before Permission)
A first-principles explanation of authentication vs authorization, using simple analogies and diagrams to clarify trust and permission.
Event-Driven Architecture (When Time Matters)
A first-principles explanation of event-driven architecture, focusing on time, decoupling, and designing systems that react instead of block.
Synchronous vs Asynchronous Systems (Why Waiting Is a Design Choice)
A calm, first-principles explanation of synchronous vs asynchronous systems, focusing on waiting, time, and system design trade-offs.
API Design (Contracts Over Code)
A first-principles look at API design, why APIs are contracts not functions, and how broken expectations cause real outages.
Monolith vs Microservices (Why This Question Usually Shows Up at the Wrong Time)
A grounded, first-principles look at monoliths vs microservices, why the question appears too early, and how real-world pressure should drive architecture.