Advanced TrackAdvanced

Database Engineering Mastery

Storage engines, sharding, indexing, and data-system trade-offs.

An advanced database track for engineers who want to reason about storage internals, scaling, modeling, and data-access performance deeply.

41 lessons•4 modules•375 min
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Designed for

Engineers designing or operating data-heavy backend systems.

You leave with

  • Sharper intuition around indexing, storage engines, and consistency trade-offs
  • A stronger toolkit for sharding, schema evolution, and database scalability
  • A deeper understanding of how databases behave under real production load

Curriculum Map

A structured path that feels worth paying for

Every module is ordered to build confidence, not just collect content. Start with the right fundamentals, deepen into the mechanics, then pressure-test your thinking with realistic engineering trade-offs.

Module 1

0. Roadmap

1 lessons•7 min
1

Database Engineering Mastery: Roadmap and Learning Path for Backend Engineers

Beginner • 7 min read

Module 2

Data Storage & Scaling

27 lessons•258 min
1

Bloom Filters: The Speed Secret of Modern NoSQL Databases

Beginner • 8 min read

2

Cassandra Gotchas: Dealing with Tombstones and Wide Partitions

Advanced • 9 min read

3

Cassandra Internals: LSM-Trees, Gossip, and Eventual Consistency

Advanced • 8 min read

4

Cassandra Multi-Region Architecture: Designing for Global Scale

Advanced • 8 min read

5

DynamoDB Pitfalls: Throttling, Hot Partitions, and the 400KB Limit

Advanced • 8 min read

6

DynamoDB Single Table Design: Advanced Modeling Patterns

Advanced • 8 min read

7

MongoDB Aggregation Pipeline: Optimization and Performance

Advanced • 8 min read

8

MongoDB Anti-Patterns: From Unbounded Arrays to Shard Imbalance

Intermediate • 9 min read

9

Negative Result Caching: Protecting Databases

Advanced • 7 min read

10

NoSQL Schema Evolution: Strategies for Zero-Downtime Data Growth

Advanced • 8 min read

11

PostgreSQL JIT Tuning: Understanding the Cost

Advanced • 7 min read

12

Redis in Production: 5 Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Advanced • 8 min read

13

Redis Internals: Event Loop, Data Structures, and Persistence

Advanced • 8 min read

14

Redis Lua Scripting: Ensuring Atomicity in Complex Workflows

Advanced • 8 min read

15

B-Trees vs. LSM-Trees: The Battle of Storage Engine Internals

Advanced • 8 min read

16

Vector Search in NoSQL: Redis and MongoDB as Vector Databases

Advanced • 8 min read

17

Zero-Downtime Migration: Moving from SQL to NoSQL

Advanced • 8 min read

18

PostgreSQL Locking Playbook: Deadlocks, Blocking Queries, and Timeouts

Advanced • 12 min read

19

DynamoDB Advanced Patterns: Single-Table Design and Beyond

Advanced • 11 min read

20

Zero-Downtime Database Migrations: Patterns for Production

Advanced • 10 min read

21

PostgreSQL Performance Tuning: From Slow Queries to Sub-Millisecond Reads

Advanced • 11 min read

22

Elasticsearch Query Optimization: From Slow to Sub-100ms

Advanced • 10 min read

23

Redis Caching Strategy at Scale: Beyond Simple Key-Value

Advanced • 14 min read

24

Time-Series Databases: InfluxDB vs TimescaleDB vs Prometheus

Intermediate • 13 min read

25

Elasticsearch Deep Dive: Inverted Index, Mappings, and Query DSL

Advanced • 13 min read

26

Redis Beyond Cache: Sorted Sets, Streams, and Pub/Sub Patterns

Advanced • 15 min read

27

PostgreSQL vs MongoDB vs DynamoDB: When to Use Which Database

Advanced • 13 min read

Module 3

Database Engineering Mastery

8 lessons•67 min
1

SQL vs NoSQL: Which One for Your Next Production MVP?

Advanced • 9 min read

2

The Write-Ahead Log (WAL): The Universal Engine of Data Durability

Advanced • 8 min read

3

PostgreSQL MVCC: How Transactions Work Without Locking

Advanced • 8 min read

4

MongoDB Internals: Deep Dive into WiredTiger and Replication

Advanced • 8 min read

5

Database Sharding Part 1: The Vertical Ceiling

Intermediate • 7 min read

6

Cassandra Data Modeling: Design for Queries, Not Entities

Advanced • 12 min read

7

Distributed Caching at Scale: Mitigating the Thundering Herd

Advanced • 8 min read

8

The Expand-Contract Pattern: Zero-Downtime Database Schema Changes

Advanced • 7 min read

Module 4

Database Sharding Mastery

5 lessons•43 min
1

Database Sharding Part 4: Consistent Hashing Internals

Advanced • 7 min read

2

Database Sharding Part 5: The Scatter-Gather Problem

Advanced • 6 min read

3

Database Sharding Part 6: Zero-Downtime Re-sharding

Advanced • 7 min read

4

Database Sharding Part 7: Case Study - Scaling Discord to Billions

Advanced • 16 min read

5

Query Optimization: The Hidden Cost of Cross-Shard Joins

Advanced • 7 min read