About StackMonkey

StackMonkey is a playground for learning system design through hands-on experimentation.

This publication explores system design, distributed systems, and backend engineering beyond diagrams and theory.

Here, you'll find:

• System design: Breakdowns of common architectures and the trade-offs behind them.
• Distributed systems: Explore caching, databases, queues, load balancing, and failure handling.
• Performance and bottlenecks: Understand what happens when traffic increases and components reach their limits.
• Hands-on experiments: Learn by simulating traffic, testing assumptions, and seeing how systems behave under load.

The goal is simple: understand not just how systems are designed, but why they behave the way they do.

I'm building StackMonkey and sharing what I learn along the way. If you're a developer preparing for system design interviews or curious about how distributed systems work, you're welcome here.

Try the free playground at stackmonkey.dev.