McDonald’s Event Architecture & $1M WebSocket Oversight

Hi there!

I’ve pulled together some interesting stories, including how McDonald's scales to millions of transactions daily with event-driven architecture, a costly $1M WebSocket oversight, and why more companies are leaving cloud services in favor of on-premises solutions in the repatriation trend.

In other news, Vercel has made self-hosting with Next.js easier, Google’s AI learned to find code vulnerabilities and to top it off, read a case study of how an interactive guide helped a CMS attract new subscribers and strong leads.

Grab a coffee, settle in, and enjoy this week’s Frictionless!

Also in the Queue

• Pre-Rendering and Data Fetching in Next.js

• New Expo SDK Release

• Stop Listening (Only) to Your Gut Feeling

• Mistakes Made by Leaders

• How Cloudflare Protected Election Day

Reduce Friction

Why "Bias For Action" Is Not Good Enough

Sometimes, the "bias for action" mantra can backfire. Acting without enough thought can lead to poor outcomes and pushback. Knowing when to act fast and when to slow down and strategize can have much better results.

How I Ship Projects at Big Tech Companies

In Big Tech shipping a product isn't just about finishing code, but actively pushing it across the finish line. Having a single responsible lead ensures nothing slips through the cracks. And remember, a project is only truly "shipped" when all stakeholders recognize it as complete. 

The Slow Death of The Hands-On Engineering Manager

The role of engineering managers has changed a lot in recent years, with hands-on technical involvement in code and product development often abandoned in favor of managerial responsibilities. Balancing leadership responsibilities with technical expertise is essential to stay connected with your team and drive them. 

Stop Analyzing Your Gut Feelings: A Counter-intuitive Guide to Better Leadership

“Trust your gut” is popular advice, but few people warn against overreliance on intuition. Although it’s an invaluable tool for leadership and career choices intuition works best as an advisor, not a primary decision-maker.

Dumb Leadership Mistakes I’ve Made by Laura Tacho

Learning from your own mistakes is important, but I can’t deny that reading about someone else’s feels just as educational. Have you ever dismissed the potential of experts or relied solely on your own experience? Even if you didn’t, consider giving this article a try.

Deepen Your Expertise

Why Software Only Moves Forward

Software is built to keep moving forward. In important systems like billing, where every new data format or feature has to stay accessible, rolling back isn’t an option without causing data issues. As a result, constantly evolving the software is the only way to keep everything running.

Next.js Pre-Rendering and Data Fetching Methods

Pre-rendering and data-fetching in Next.js can be the answer to your performance problems. Enjoy this detailed guide on modern techniques in Next.js, explaining how to reduce load times and create great user experiences in projects where performance and retention are the key.

Expo SDK 52 Release

Expo SDK 52, released on November 12, 2024, is Expo’s biggest update yet. It features the New Architecture being enabled by default in all new projects, updates to iOS and Android minimum supported versions, and many library enhancements, like stable release of expo-video with additional functions.

Vercel Makes Changes to Next.js To Simplify Self-Hosting

Vercel’s latest updates to Next.js make it more accessible for those who prefer self-hosting. It’s a great development for flexibility and control over deployment.

Architecting for Agentic AI – Moving from Simple Automation to Autonomous Decision-Making

Agentic AI takes automation up a notch, letting systems make decisions and act across applications without constant prompting. To make this happen, businesses need an architecture where AI agents can connect and respond in real time across different departments.

Top 9 React Component Libraries for 2025

Are you looking for components to improve UI or performance? Find out which React component libraries are worth using in 2025, and how they can improve your project. 

Increase Scalability

Building an Interactive CMS Guide with Next.js

To make their CMS more accessible and engaging for developers, Amplience teamed up with Pagepro. Using Next.js and React.js, they created an interactive, easy-to-navigate “Get Started” guide that allowed users to freely explore the platform. Despite a rebrand partway through, the guide launched smoothly, drawing in new subscribers and generating strong leads.

Why Companies Are Ditching the Cloud: The Rise of Cloud Repatriation

While external cloud storage is essential for many businesses, a growing number are shifting back to on-premises or private cloud environments. For example, 37signals expects to save $2 million annually by leaving AWS, and rising costs combined with reliability issues convinced GEICO to repatriate workloads.

How McDonald Sells Millions of Burgers Per Day With Event-Driven Architecture

Ever wondered how a giant like McDonald’s manages to keep up with millions of daily transactions? The company uses an event-driven system to keep its massive global operations running. The setup supports everything -  from mobile orders to marketing.

Google's 'Big Sleep' AI Project Uncovers Real Software Vulnerabilities

Google's 'Big Sleep' AI project managed to identify a vulnerability in SQLite, which marks an important milestone in AI’s capabilities. The AI’s ability to detect software flaws could improve our current cybersecurity practices.

How WebSockets Cost Us $1M on Our AWS Bill

Recall.ai faced a massive AWS bill of around $1 million a year due to using WebSockets for internal data handling in their meeting bots. Luckily, a small fix managed to cut costs and even improved the performance of their bots.

Just Cool

Exploring Internet Traffic Shifts and Cyber Attacks During the 2024 US Election

On Election Day November 5, 2024, Cloudflare mitigated over 6 billion DDoS attacks targeting U.S. election websites, to ensure undisturbed operation. Internet traffic spiked by 15% after polls closed, with visits to polling and news sites surging.

Let’s Stay in Touch! 📨 

Do you have any comments about this newsletter issue or questions you want to ask? Drop me a message or book a meeting.