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System Design

A collection of 11 posts

Markdown: A Primer for TPMs

Markdown: A Primer for TPMs

As Technical Program Managers (TPMs), our work often involves creating, editing, and sharing technical documentation across various tools and platforms. Whether you’re drafting specifications, contributing to GitHub issues, or writing postmortems, clarity and efficiency are essential. In this series we are going to go through basic introductions to various

CI CD in the Age of Vibe Coding and AI Co-Pilots: Why It Matters

CI CD in the Age of Vibe Coding and AI Co-Pilots: Why It Matters

Let’s be honest: we’re not coding like we used to. The days of carefully-crafted architecture diagrams, multi-week design docs, and “measure twice, cut once” development cycles are on the decline. Today, your junior dev just pushed to main with a commit message that reads “hope this works lol”

A TPM’s Quick Guide to Eventual Consistency

A TPM’s Quick Guide to Eventual Consistency

One of the most critical and commonly misunderstood concepts in distributed systems is eventual consistency. While engineers wrestle with implementation details, TPMs must understand what eventual consistency is, when it applies, and how to plan around it. This guide is your no-nonsense introduction to eventual consistency: what it is, why

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) Why Your LLM Has Memory Loss

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) Why Your LLM Has Memory Loss

Ever tried to explain a story to someone with the memory span of a goldfish? That’s what talking to most large language models (LLMs) feels like today. They’re brilliant, sure. But ask them to remember what you said two paragraphs ago—and good luck. This is where the

Understanding the Kubernetes Gateway API: A TPM's Field Guide

Understanding the Kubernetes Gateway API: A TPM's Field Guide

Spending time as a Technical Program Manager in the bullpen you would have come across the term Kubernetes Gateway. We touched on in a previous article on what Ingress is. Kubernetes Gateway API is the latest promise to replace ingress with a more extensive and expressive traffic routing. In our

Kubernetes for TPMs Herding Containers Without Losing Your Mind

Kubernetes for TPMs Herding Containers Without Losing Your Mind

Why Kubernetes Matters for TPMs Let’s get this out of the way: You don’t need to write Kubernetes manifests or debug pods at 2AM. But you do need to understand how Kubernetes impacts your project timelines, deployment practices, infra costs, and cross-functional alignment. According to Datadog’s 2023

Vector Databases Why Your Recommender System Just Got Smarter

Vector Databases Why Your Recommender System Just Got Smarter

You know that moment when your Spotify Discover playlist hits you with a song so on-point it feels like the algorithm knows you better than your therapist? Behind that magic is a quiet revolution in how we search and compare data: vectors. And now, a new class of databases is

Learn the Different Types of Software Releases

Learn the Different Types of Software Releases

“In a world where downtime is the ultimate villain… only a handful of clever release strategies can save the day.” Welcome fellow Technical Program traveler, to the curious, caffeine-fueled world of software release types. If you thought “releasing code” just meant someone hitting a giant red “Deploy” button and then

Using Mermaid.js to Generate Live System Diagrams from Markdown

Using Mermaid.js to Generate Live System Diagrams from Markdown

Version-Control Your Architecture Diagrams Like Code I often solicit architectural diagram from teams as part of production readiness reviews, and just as often lament the number of times I come across stale diagrams. You’ve seen it before: outdated Visio charts buried in a SharePoint folder, or a PNG diagram

A TPM’s Guide to System Scalability

A TPM’s Guide to System Scalability

In our next installment on A TPM’s Guide, we are going to dive into scalability. But let’s start off first with the very rudimentary question, What is Scalability? What is Scalability? Scalability in the context of systems architecture and design refers to the ability of a system to

The Importance of Observability: Logs, Traces & Metrics Explained

The Importance of Observability: Logs, Traces & Metrics Explained

Introduction If you’ve spent any time working in software development or SRE teams, you’ve probably heard the terms logs, traces, and metrics thrown around. But what do they actually mean? And more importantly, why should Technical Program Managers care? Observability isn’t just an engineering concern—it plays