Lead Projects That Land, Execution Over Everything

This edition of the newsletter contains

• one quick write-up that will help you grow faster in your career

• a video I posted

• a paper I read

I have also shared 3 super-interesting articles to read over the weekend. Thank you once again for reading this edition of my Newsletter. Now, without further ado, let’s jump right in.

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By the way, the admissions for my System Design June cohort are open. If you are SDE-2, SDE-3, and above, and looking to build a rock-solid intuition to design any and every system, you will find my course super interesting.

Instead of drawing boxes, we go into the intricate details of every single system and build an end-to-end understanding. The learnings from the course can be applied at your workplace from day 1. So, if you are looking for some real engineering discussions or brainstorming, do check out my course.

Course curriculum and other key details: https://arpitbhayani.me/course

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Lead Projects That Land, Execution Over Everything

If you are leading a project, your only responsibility is to ensure it is delivered, whatever it takes. Here are a few pointers that I have followed

1. never stay blocked, always find a way out

2. if there is a chance of a delay, communicate early

3. always look for trade-offs and make sure we pick the right one

4. estimate timelines well; good estimation reduces chaos

5. influence others so that they prioritize our tasks

6. always reiterate key details to ensure alignment; there is no such thing as over-communication.

On the technical and execution side, here's what I ensure

1. form a deep understanding and high clarity about the project

2. create a solid plan, reduce ambiguity, and keep the team focused

3. be agile, monitor progress, and revise the plan if required

4. make sure every single person involved in the project is aligned

Delivering a project requires very high focus, clarity, and persistence. Keep the big picture in mind, but execute with attention to detail. Even if you are early in your career, follow the above and earn some leadership brownie points.

Lead with clarity, communicate like it’s your job (because it is), and keep delivering consistently. That’s how you earn trust and grow fast.

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By the way,

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.

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Here's the video I posted

I published a video - Why Do Programming Languages Need Garbage Collection?

Garbage Collection is critical for any programming language, be it manual or automatic. In this video, I have explored and explained why programming languages need automatic garbage collection in the first place. And through this, I have touched upon

• the basics of memory management,

• the need of allocating objects on the heap,

• the constructs of explicit deallocation,

• what happens when we do not do our garbage collection well

• why do we need automatic garbage collection

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Paper I read and would highly recommend

I spent some time reading Simple Efficient Load Balancing Algorithms for Peer-to-Peer Systems

P2P systems are amazing and a couple of years back I spent a month going through BitTorrent and its internals (videos on my YT), but a few weekends back I read something more related but much more fascinating ...

I read a paper from Google about load balancing in peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, which introduces two protocols that refine Chord's consistent hashing model. It improves load distribution while reducing query times and minimizing data movement.

You will have a great time if you like distributed hash tables or are even fascinated by them. The approaches fix inefficiencies in existing DHTs and offer a much simpler and more practical way to maintain balance dynamically.

I would recommend you to watch my video on Kademlia before digging deeper, but still no hard pre-requisite.

You can download this and other papers I recommend from my papershelf.

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Three interesting articles I read

I read a few engineering blogs almost every day, and here are the three articles I would recommend you read.

• A leap year check in three instructions

• I don't like NumPy

• Wavelet Trees: an Introduction

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Thank you so much for reading this edition of the newsletter 🔮 If you found it interesting, you will also love my courses

1. System Design Course for Beginners

2. System Design Course for SDE-2, SDE-3, and above

3. Redis Internals Course

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I keep sharing no-fluff stuff across my socials, so if you resonate, do give me a follow on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and GitHub.