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Real-world Case Studies

Learn from the world's most successful tech companies. Dive deep into their architectures, challenges, and the engineering decisions that power billions of users.

20
In-depth Studies
NaNB+
Combined Users
Real
Production Systems

Uber

Advanced

Uber Ride Sharing Platform

Deep dive into Uber's architecture evolution from monolith to microservices, handling millions of rides globally.

SCALE
118M+ users
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed systems
ubermicroservicesscalegeospatial
25 min

Netflix

Advanced

Netflix Streaming Architecture

Explore Netflix's streaming architecture, CDN strategy, and how they serve billions of hours of content globally.

SCALE
230M+ subscribers
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Global CDN
netflixstreamingcdnscale
30 min

GitHub

Advanced

GitHub Collaboration Platform

Deep dive into GitHub's platform architecture, Git at scale, and collaboration tools for millions of developers.

SCALE
Massive scale
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed systems
githubgitcollaborationversion-control
25 min

Instagram

Advanced

Instagram Photo Sharing at Scale

How Instagram handles billions of photos: storage, processing, delivery, and scaling challenges.

SCALE
2B+ users
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed systems
instagramphoto-sharingcdnmedia-processing
25 min

Redis

Advanced

Redis Distributed Key-Value Store

Design a distributed key-value store: partitioning, replication, consistency, and fault tolerance.

SCALE
Massive scale
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed systems
key-value-storedistributed-systemsconsensusreplication
25 min

Discord

Advanced

Discord Real-time Communication

How Discord scales real-time messaging to millions of concurrent users using Elixir and distributed systems.

SCALE
Massive scale
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed systems
discordreal-timemessagingelixir
25 min

OpenAI

Advanced

ChatGPT Architecture

How OpenAI built and scaled ChatGPT: model serving, infrastructure, and handling millions of AI conversations.

SCALE
Massive scale
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
AI/ML infrastructure
openaichatgptllmai-infrastructure
25 min

Twitter

Advanced

Twitter Snowflake ID Generator

Design a distributed unique ID generator like Twitter Snowflake: requirements, algorithms, and trade-offs.

SCALE
Massive scale
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed systems
unique-idssnowflakedistributed-systemsid-generation
25 min

Google

Advanced

Google Search Crawler Architecture

Build scalable web crawlers: distributed architecture, rate limiting, politeness policies, and data processing.

SCALE
Massive scale
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed search
web-crawlerdistributed-systemsrate-limitingscraping
25 min

WhatsApp

Advanced

WhatsApp Messaging at Scale

WhatsApp messaging architecture: Erlang concurrency, end-to-end encryption, and handling billions of messages daily.

SCALE
Massive scale
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed systems
whatsappmessagingerlangencryption
25 min

Zoom

Advanced

Zoom Video Infrastructure

Zoom's video conferencing infrastructure: scaling to millions of concurrent meetings with low latency.

SCALE
Massive scale
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed systems
zoomvideowebrtcconferencing
25 min

Spotify

Advanced

ML Recommendation Engine

Spotify's ML recommendation system: collaborative filtering, NLP analysis, and personalized playlist generation.

SCALE
574M+ users
2B+ streams/day
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed systems
spotifyrecommendationsmachine-learningmusic
30 min

Tesla

Advanced

Autopilot Vision System

Tesla Autopilot vision system: neural networks, computer vision, and real-time autonomous driving.

SCALE
5M+ vehicles
1TB+ per vehicle/day
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Edge computing
teslaautopilotcomputer-visionautonomous-driving
35 min

Meta

Advanced

Feed Ranking Algorithm

Meta's feed ranking system: machine learning pipeline, A/B testing, and personalized content delivery at scale.

SCALE
3B+ users
100B+ posts/day
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed systems
metafacebookfeed-rankingmachine-learning
35 min

Airbnb

Advanced

Search & Pricing Engine

Airbnb's search and pricing system: ranking algorithms, dynamic pricing, and personalized recommendations.

SCALE
7M+ listings
100M+ searches/day
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
AI/ML infrastructure
airbnbsearchpricingmachine-learning
30 min

Anthropic

Advanced

Constitutional AI

Scalable oversight and harmlessness training for large language models

SCALE
Massive scale
High throughput
CHALLENGE
AI alignment, safety at scale, human preference learning
INFRASTRUCTURE
AI/ML infrastructure
Constitutional AIRLHFScalable OversightSafety Training
30 min

TikTok

Advanced

TikTok Short Video Platform

TikTok's architecture: short video processing, real-time recommendations, global CDN, and viral content distribution.

SCALE
Massive scale
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed systems
tiktokvideo-platformrecommendation-systemreal-time-processing
35 min

Uber

Advanced

Uber MLOps Production Pipeline

End-to-end MLOps pipeline: automated training, deployment, monitoring, and continuous delivery for production ML systems.

SCALE
118M+ users
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
Distributed systems
mlopsproduction-mlmodel-deploymentci-cd
40 min

Google

Advanced

Google Pixel Camera AI Pipeline

Edge AI deployment: mobile and IoT constraints, model compression, offline capability, and distributed edge inference systems.

SCALE
Massive scale
High throughput
CHALLENGE
Scalability, reliability, performance
INFRASTRUCTURE
AI/ML infrastructure
edge-aimobile-deploymentiotmodel-compression
35 min

Google

Advanced

Gmail Smart Compose GenAI System

Real-time AI system with transformer architecture and privacy-preserving ML

SCALE
300M+ users
120B+ emails/day
CHALLENGE
Sub-100ms latency, privacy, content quality, personalization
INFRASTRUCTURE
AI/ML infrastructure
Transformer ArchitectureReal-time InferencePrivacy-preserving MLFederated Learning
40 min

Study Methodology

Each case study includes architecture diagrams, scaling challenges, key design decisions, lessons learned, and actionable takeaways you can apply to your own systems.

Deep Dive:

Technical architecture and implementation details

Real Numbers:

Actual performance metrics and scale data

Lessons:

Key takeaways and design principles