01
Backend•7 min
What actually happens between an API request and a database
A practical mental model for the path from HTTP request to controller, service, validation, SQL and the response that finally comes back.
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Notes · backend · systems · AI
Things I'm
learning.
Practical notes while going deeper into backend engineering, systems, cloud, and AI. Written to understand the idea, not to sound like documentation.
02
AI engineering•6 min
RAG without the magic: retrieve first, generate second
Why retrieval-augmented generation is really a data-flow problem, and where the interesting engineering decisions sit.
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03
Building•8 min
Building software that survives beyond the demo
The gap between a convincing demo and a useful system is mostly made of boring details: state, permissions, failure handling and observability.
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04
Systems•6 min
How I'm starting to think about system design
A beginner-friendly framework: start with the request path, define the state, find the bottleneck, then decide what actually needs to be distributed.
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These are intentionally practical learning notes. No fake production claims, no inflated metrics. Just concepts worth understanding.