This edition of the newsletter contains
Btw, enrollments are open for my Systems Design December cohort (sessions start 6th Dec, ~16 seats left). If you’d like to dig deeper into systems, their implementation, and how to design them the way they actually run in production, check out:
The course is completely no-fluff and packed with brainstorming and discussions that will shape your thought process and intuition. You’ll feel like you’re part of a real technical discussion happening at your workplace.
A few years ago, I proposed a “brilliant” idea to my leadership, but it was rejected. That day, I learnt what turns an idea into a funded project.
Find what matters to leadership and pitch that as the key advantage
Your idea should tie directly into current business priorities, be it growth, efficiency, scalability, user retention, etc. Pitch it accordingly. If needed, tweak your idea to make that alignment stronger.
Show that you care, so do your homework well
If others already believe in it, say so. Build a quick proof of concept or present a detailed idea, market study, potential impact, and execution plan. If you have support from some people, leverage it; remember, people trust ideas that others already back.
Understand who makes the decision and persuade them
Map out the decision-makers and tailor your pitch to what matters most to them, not just to you. Persuade them and take early feedback. Keep them informed from the start (t = 0).
Show why customers need it now, have proofs ready
Have real signals ready, like user feedback, survey data, and public reviews. If it’s an internal tool or system, bring quotes or examples from internal users that highlight the pain point and urgency.
Identify skeptics early and get them excited
Every idea has potential detractors. Find them, talk to them, and bring them on board. For example, if you’re proposing a new real-time analytics system, involve the team that owns the current analytics charter, as they’re likely to push back. Their buy-in is essential, so get them on your side early.
Being hands-on is the best way for you to learn. Practice interesting programming challenges like building your own BitTorrent client, Redis, DNS server, and even SQLite from scratch on CodeCrafters.
Sign up, and become a better engineer.
I published a video - Kademlia - a Distributed Hash Table implementation | Paper Dissection and Deep-dive
BitTorrent uses Kademlia - a Distributed Hash Table to route your request to the appropriate node.
This is interesting and challenging because it is literally a massive network where every single node knows where to route a request, without ever relying on a central server.
In this video, we dissect the genius behind it: using the simple XOR function as a distance metric for a perfect, guaranteed routing strategy. We dig deeper and understand the architecture, k-buckets, and the beautiful, deterministic convergence logic.
Give it a watch.
I spent some time reading Classifying YouTube Channels: a Practical System
Some time back, I read a pretty chill paper on how YouTube categorizes channels :) Was really curious about what they are doing with mine :)
Google published a paper in 2013 that covered how they transitioned from manually curated channel lists to a fully algorithmic classification system, deployed across the entire YouTube corpus.
When they built this system in 2013, they shipped the most basic version possible - no audio and video understanding, no image models, no ASR. They did it with just metadata, entities, and smart aggregation.
The flow is simple - the pipeline annotates videos with semantic entities (via Freebase), classifies those into categories, and aggregates them up to the channel level. This approach is fast, scalable, and reliable :) ofc things would have changed today.
Apart from this, they analyze query logs, process co-watch sessions, and refer to the uploader history to refine entity disambiguation. This was their first attempt at channel classification with “no humans in the loop”.
Give it a read; it is a pretty simple paper to read, and it almost reads like a story.
You can download this and other papers I recommend from my papershelf.
I read a few engineering blogs almost every day, and here are the three articles I read and would recommend you read.
Thank you so much for reading this edition of the newsletter 🔮 If you found it interesting, you will also love my courses
I keep sharing no-fluff stuff across my socials, so if you resonate, do give me a follow on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and GitHub.
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