Designing software systems that gracefully handle growth in users, data, and complexity is a top concern for engineers everywhere. Whether you’re building the next social media juggernaut or a data aggregation platform, the architectural decisions you make early can have long-lasting impacts on maintainability, cost, and performance. In this article, we’ll explore the core principles of scalable system design and break down architectural patterns that have proved effective in real-world scenarios. What is Scalability? Scalability is the ability of a system to handle a growing amount of work, or its potential to be enlarged to accommodate that growth. There are two primary dimensio ...