Blog
- 397Jul 24, 20182 minsystem design
Replica, Consistency, and CAP theorem
Any networked system has three desirable properties: consistency, availability and partition tolerance. Systems can have only two of those three. For example, RDBMS prefers consistency and partition tolerance and becomes an ACID system.
Read more → - 398Jul 23, 20181 minsystem design
Load Balancer Types
Usually, load balancers have three categories: DNS Round Robin, Network Load balancer and Application Load balancer. DNS Round Robin is rarely used as it is hard to control and not responsive. The network Load balancer has better granularity and is simple and responsive.
Read more → - 399Jul 22, 20181 minsystem design
B tree vs. B+ tree
A B+ tree can be seen as B tree in which each node contains only keys. Pros of B+ tree can be summarized as fewer cache misses. In B tree, the data is associated with each key and can be accessed more quickly.
Read more → - 400Jul 20, 20183 minsystem design
Experience Deep Dive
For those who had little experience in leadership positions, we have some tips for interviews. It is necessary to describe your previous projects including challenges or improvements. Also, remember to demonstrate your communication skills.
Read more → - 401Jul 20, 20181 minsystem design
Data Partition and Routing
The advantages of implementing data partition and routing are availability and read efficiency while consistency is the weakness. The routing abstract model is essentially two maps: key-partition map and partition-machine map.
Read more → - 402Jul 19, 20181 minstrategy
Where Does the Energy of a Good Strategy Come From?
The key to an effective strategy lies in channeling limited energy into the points that can generate the most impact. Common sources include: leverage; proximate objectives; chain-link systems; design; focus strategy; growth; advantage; external change; inertia.
Read more → - 403Jul 18, 20181 minstrategy
The Core of a Good Strategy: Coherent Actions
Coherent and complementary actions refer to actions that directly support each other to create synergy; strategic collaboration can be designed and is centrally imposed on the system; centralization has its pros and cons, as the interests of various sub-organizations differ; organizational collaboration is time-consuming and labor-intensive, aiming for maximum efficiency and just the right coordination as the outcome.
Read more → - 404Jul 17, 20181 minstrategy
The Core of a Good Strategy
The three fundamental elements of a good strategy: Diagnosis - simplifying the problem and identifying challenges; Guiding Policies - how to respond to challenges; Coherent Actions - a series of actions that mutually reinforce each other under the guidance of principles.
Read more → - 405Jul 16, 20182 minstrategy
Why Are There So Many Bad Strategies?
Three reasons for bad strategies: making choices is painful; people dislike thinking and prefer templates; people often believe that human will can overcome all, thinking that attitude determines everything.
Read more → - 406Jul 15, 20182 minproduct_managementproduct
Telemetry Product Management Framework
A key role of product management is to make sure product development efforts are focused. The telemetry spreadsheet helps you visualize the roadmap, balance resource allocation, and hence keeps the project on track.
Read more → - 407Jul 14, 20183 minwebarchitecture
Designing very large (JavaScript) applications
Very Large JS App = a lot of developers + large codebase. How to deal with a lot of developers? Empathy and good programming model. How to deal with a large codebase? Code Removability/Delete-ability. Be careful with abstractions.
Read more → - 408Jul 13, 20182 minstrategy
A Bad Strategy is Superficial
A bad strategy is formalism, characterized by four fundamental traits: empty rhetoric, obfuscation, strategy should not be a mere accumulation of grandiose terms; failure to confront challenges, mistaking goals for strategy; sub-goals that are irrelevant or unrealistic.
Read more →
About Tian Pan
I'm Tian Pan, an engineer-founder focused on agentic engineering — building autonomous AI systems and scaling engineering teams. I write practical guides on system design, technical leadership, and shipping with AI agents. Previously an early engineer at Uber, Brex, and IoTeX.
