A six-part build log of one live system, Bullpen, a paper-trading league on real market data, used to test which microservice and distributed-systems decisions still hold in 2026, cost included. It records my take at this moment: the platforms under it change monthly, and some of it will age.
I am building a real distributed system in public and making every split earn its place with a check, a measurement or a bill. This is a dated snapshot of how I would architect software in 2026, not a timeless rulebook.
Companion project
GitHub
Source Code and plan for this project
The parts
- 01When to Use Microservices in 2026: Scaling Alone Is No Longer the Reason
On the day the Dow posted a then-record gain, Robinhood's customers could not trade from the open to the close. Splitting out the hot part so it scales alone was the old answer; a serverless platform now does that per function. I open this series with Bullpen, a paper-trading league on live market data, and argue when to use microservices in 2026: only for a reason I can name, with a check, a measurement or a bill behind it.
EngineeringOct 4 · 11 min read - 02Not yet publishedNext
- 03Not yet publishedPlanned
- 04Not yet publishedPlanned
- 05Not yet publishedPlanned
- 06Not yet publishedPlanned
5 parts to go. New parts land on Mondays, 9am Pacific — leave an address and I'll send each one the day it ships. Nothing else.