// Software Engineer

Aryan
Khandelwal

Buildingdistributedsystemsatscale.Writingaboutthearchitecturedecisions,tradeoffs,andfailuresthatshapehowweengineersoftware.
StackJava · Python · React · MongoDB
FocusDistributed Systems · AI Infra
Based inIndia
Engineer Specification

About

engineer.spec
nameAryan Khandelwal
roleSoftware Engineer
employerAkto (akto.io)
stackJava · Python · React · LangGraph · MongoDB · Kafka · Docker · Redis
domainAPI Security · Distributed Systems · AI Infra
locationIndia
contactkr.aryan2307@gmail.com

I care deeply about writing systems that other engineers can understand, debug, and extend. My technical writing is an extension of that — turning complex systems into clear mental models.

Career Journey

How I Got Here

Scroll through the versions — each one shipped something that changed how I build.

2020
Foundations
Systems Exploration

Started competitive programming and exploring how systems actually work under load.

2022
Hackathon Winnings
Solving problems

Won a silver medal in Celesta, a hackathon hosted by IIT Patna.

2023
Joined Akto
API Security

Moved into open-source API security — built the UI in Vue, my first contribution to the company. Later revamped the entire dashboard UI.

2024
Dashboard Ownership
Multi-tenant Platform

Took complete ownership of features in the Dashboard, from design to production.

2025
Entry to Agentic World
AI projects and RAG systems

Building AI solutions for red-teaming and guardrail AI agents.

2026
Today
Writing · Building

Writing about the architecture decisions and tradeoffs behind the systems I build.

Architecture Notes

Latest Technical Writing

SEVEN DATABASES · SIX STORAGE ENGINES · ONE COST EACHAPP DATAMongoDBtrades joinsRELATIONALPostgreSQLtrades scale-outSEARCHElasticsearchtrades freshnessCACHERedistrades durabilityMETRICSPrometheustrades detailANALYTICSClickHousetrades updatesWRITESCassandratrades readsENGINEB-Treesorted · balancedpays on writeENGINEInverted Idxword → docspays on mergeENGINEHash Slots16,384 · in-mempays on durabilityENGINETime Seriesscrape · compresspays on cardinalityENGINEColumn StoreMergeTree · sparsepays on updatesENGINELSM-Treememtable → SSTablepays on read+ DynamoDBEVERY ENGINE PAYS SOMEWHERE — AT WRITE TIME, AT READ TIME, OR IN HOW BYTES SIT ON DISKTHE THREE COSTSwrite · read · layoutTHE ACTUAL QUESTIONwhat is it refusing to be good atFAILURE MODEShot keys · cardinalityaryan.devdatabases · distributed-systems
databasesdistributed-systems

Why Every Backend Engineer Eventually Ends Up Learning 7 Different Databases

Jul 30, 2026· 8 min
AGENT LOOPS · THE LIMIT IS THE HYPERPARAMETERSCOPEpromptnarrow the spaceRETRIEVEtop-Nno rerankerPLANdecomposesteps up frontReActstepreason · actTOOLobserveback into stateobserve → re-act, unbounded by defaultMIDDLEWARE AGENTcap 8PATH RESOLVERcap 27DEEP LOOKUPcap ~100SUMMARIZE-ON-LIMIT FALLBACKpresent in 1 of 6 agents · the other 5 return emptyBOUNDING THE LOOP IS HALF THE JOB · THE OTHER HALF IS WHAT HAPPENS AT THE CEILINGaryan.devai-infrastructure
ai-infrastructure

Nobody Tunes the Recursion Limit

Jul 26, 2026· 4 min
AI AGENT OBSERVABILITY · SIX SOURCES, ONE SPAN SHAPEBORROWClaudeTRUSTCursorINVENTCopilotINVENTCodexINVENTGeminiINVENTLangChainNORMALIZEDone span shapeQUEUEKafkapartitioned by tenantASYNC WRITERSconsumersflush · 5s or 100 eventsRECONSTRUCTED CONVERSATION · QUERY TIMEmsg_01H8…promptborrowed idappend-onlymsg_01H8…tool_callsame sessionappend-onlymsg_01H9…responseordered by seqappend-onlyaryan.devai-infrastructure · observability
ai-infrastructureobservability

Six AI Agents, Three Ways to Find a Message ID

Jul 12, 2026· 5 min