Insights into Serverless and modern backends
Learning from tutorials is great! You follow some steps, learn a smol lesson, and feel like you got this. Then you go into an interview, get a question from the boss, or encounter a new situation and o-oh.
Shit, how does this work again? 馃槄
That's the problem with tutorials. They're not how the world works. Real software is a mess. A best-effort pile of duct tape and chewing gum. You need deep understanding, not recipes.
I've been building web backends since ~2004 when they were just called websites. With these curated essays I want to share the hard lessons learned. Leave your email and get the Serverless and Modern Backend email series.
Latest Serverless and Backend articles from Swizec
4 articles from 2025 路 show all
August 2025
Quick tips for distributed event-based systems
Hidden lessons painfully learned over the years.
February 2025
I was wrong about databases
The best part about writing is that you get to learn new and exciting ways you were wrong. Databases are smarter than I thought!
*Why* the relational data model is so good
You've heard that array or list columns in a database are bad. But why? Yesterday it clicked for me
January 2025
Why you need a task queue
Task queues have been on my mind lately so here's a little primer on what they are, how they work, and why you need them when your project starts to grow.