project-name
A short, direct sentence explaining what this project does.
- Language
- Database
- Tool
backend • systems • infrastructure
Hey, I'm Harshal.
I Code.
I like building systems and messing with infrastructure. In my free time, I read research papers to keep learning cool stuff.
// what I like
What I like
- Backend Engineering
- Services that stay understandable as they grow.
- Distributed Systems
- Coordination, failure modes, and useful trade-offs.
- Infrastructure
- The machinery between source code and production.
- Databases
- Storage engines, queries, consistency, and data models.
- Networking
- Protocols, packets, and what happens between two machines.
- Research / Papers
- Ideas worth reading slowly and testing in practice.
// projects
Selected work
// now
Currently
- learning / exploring
- distributed systems
- reading
- research papers
- building
- things that probably don't need a frontend
// writing
Field notes
What a timeout actually guarantees
A timeout tells you when to stop waiting. It never tells you whether the work happened — and that distinction shapes every retry you write.
The write-ahead log, and why databases trust it
Durability rarely comes from writing data where it belongs. It comes from writing an append-only record of intent first, then catching up at leisure.
How to read a systems paper without drowning
Three passes, each with a different question. Most papers can be dismissed in ten minutes; the rest deserve far more than one sitting.