Smooth Scaling: System Design for High Traffic
Episodes
Autoscaling in Production: When It Works and When It Doesn't with Zaigham Sarfaraz and Šimon Bučko
09 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, José Quaresma sits down with two Queue-it engineers — Zaigham Sarfaraz, Engineering Manager, and Šimon Bučko, Senior Software En...
Observability as a Product — Building Platforms Engineers Actually Use with Iris Dyrmishi
17 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, José Quaresma speaks with Iris Dyrmishi, Senior Observability Engineer at Miro, about building an observability platform that hundre...
Online Traffic in the Age of Agentic AI with Hans Skovgaard
24 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Smooth Scaling, José Quaresma speaks with Hans Skovgaard, Chief Technology and Product Officer at Queue-it, about a shift that is ...
Running High-Traffic Product Launches at Build-A-Bear with Art Huggard
03 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Smooth Scaling, José Quaresma sits down with Art Huggard, former VP of E-Commerce at Build-A-Bear, who transformed the company's o...
Database Scaling at Intercom: Aurora, PlanetScale & Incident Response with Engineering Director Ryan Sherlock
13 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Smooth Scaling, José Quaresma talks with Ryan Sherlock, Director of Engineering at Intercom, about the realities of scaling databa...
Infrastructure as the Product: Designing Data-Heavy Systems with Product VP Maria Petrova
16 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Infrastructure is often treated as a backend concern, but in practice it shapes how users experience a product. In this episode of Smooth Scaling, Pro...
Queue-it’s Virtual Waiting Room System Design with Product Architect Moji Sarooghi
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Moji Sarooghi, Distinguished Product Architect at Queue-it, breaks down the design principles and distributed systems behind Queue-it...
Trustpilot’s Journey From Monolith to Event-Driven with Engineering VP Angela Timofte
18 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Angela Timofte, former VP of Global Engineering at Trustpilot, shares the decade-long journey of evolving Trustpilot’s architecture...
Navigating ISO 27001 and Multi-Cloud with Security Architect Gabor Sivók
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Gabor Sivók, Cloud Security Architect at Queue-it, shares a practical look at what it takes to secure large-scale systems in today’...
Mastering MACH Architecture & Orchestration with Sezin Cagil of Dr. Martens & the MACH Alliance
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Sezin Cagil, Head of Unified Commerce Technology at Dr. Martens and MACH Alliance ambassador, shares hard-won insights on implementin...
Hype Event Protection: How Akamai & Queue-it Stop Bots at Scale, with Ilia Bromberg & Martin Larsen
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of the Smooth Scaling Podcast, Ilia Bromberg (Akamai) and Martin Larsen (Queue-it) explore the evolution of bots, the growing complexi...
Handling 200k Requests Per Second Surges with Zalando SRE Manager Johannes Boumans
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Johannes Boumans, Engineering Manager in Zalando’s SRE team, shares how Lounge by Zalando handles daily surges of up to 200,000 req...
Special Episode: The Digital Experiences that Build & Break Trust, with CMO Jillian Als
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Smooth Scaling, Jillian Als, CMO at Queue-it, unpacks The Age of Online Trust report. She explores why reliability is the license t...
Lessons from Supporting Hundreds of Peak Traffic Events with Praveen Thakur
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Smooth Scaling, Jose is joined by Praveen Thakur, Queue-it’s Head of Technical Engagement, APAC who shares what it takes to prepa...
Scaling Ticketing Systems for traffic bursts & bots with Line-Up's Barnaby Clark
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Barnaby Clark, CEO of Line-Up, reveals the engineering practices behind resilient ticketing systems that handle real-world demand. Ba...
Multi-Cloud & Hybrid Cloud Strategies & Considerations with Usman Mir
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Usman Mir, Senior Engineering Manager at Queue-it, shares insights into how to evaluate and implement hybrid and multi-cloud strategi...
From Chaos to Reliability with Gremlin CEO Kolton Andrus
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Kolton Andrus, Founder and CEO of Gremlin deep dives into all things chaos engineering and reliability testing. Kolton shares his jou...
The Cost of Scaling for Peak Demand with Head of Engineering Martin Jensen
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Martin Jensen, Head of Engineering, breaks down the true cost of scaling for peak demand. He explains the limits of autoscaling, when...
Running High-Traffic Product Drops at Rapha with Tristan Watson
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, seasoned platform engineer Tristan Watson shares his learnings from handling peak traffic at Rapha and Booking.com. Tristan reveals t...
Designing Features For Scale with Head of Product & UX Karen Risvig
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What does it take to build product features that hold up under massive traffic while still delivering a great user experience? Karen Risvig, Head of P...
Load Testing for Peak Traffic with Radview's Yam Shal-Bar
05 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Yam Shal-Bar, CTO at Radview, discusses the the evolving world of load testing and how it's used to prepare for peak traffic. He cove...
Simple is Scalable with Product Architect Mojtaba Sarooghi
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What makes a system scalable? In this episode, Mojtaba Sarooghi explains why simplicity is the secret to scalability. Saroonghi explains why avoiding ...
Design for Failure with Product Architect Martin Larsen
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
No system has 100% reliability. Failures and faults are inevitable. At scale, everything breaks. In this episode, Martin Larsen explains the design fo...