https://www.yendluri.com/blog Technical writing on software engineering, cloud architecture, AI tooling, and engineering leadership — 20 years of real-world experience from a hands-on CTO. en-gb contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) Sat, 18 Apr 2026 21:38:03 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/gopal-yendluri.jpeg https://www.yendluri.com/blog https://www.yendluri.com/blog/ai-editor-comparison-cursor-claude-code-kiro I've used Cursor daily for over a year, experimented extensively with Claude Code, and evaluated Kiro since its launch. Here's my honest take — not a marketing comparison, but a practitioner's view from a CTO who still writes code. Sun, 01 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/ai-editor-comparison-cursor-claude-code-kiro AI & Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/ai-adoption-strategy-engineering-teams Introducing AI tooling to an engineering team is easy. Getting the team to use it well — maintaining quality, developing good intuitions about AI output, not creating a dependency — is hard. Here's our approach. Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/ai-adoption-strategy-engineering-teams AI & Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/22-years-building-engineering-teams From writing C for Microsoft's disaster recovery software in 2006 to running AI-assisted agentic engineering workflows at Freddie's Flowers in 2025 — here's what 22 years has actually taught me about building engineering teams. Mon, 20 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/22-years-building-engineering-teams CTO Craft contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/platform-replatforming-freddies-flowers Replatforming a production subscription e-commerce business without disrupting operations is one of the most complex engineering programmes a CTO can run. Here's the decision-making framework we used at Freddie's Flowers. Tue, 05 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/platform-replatforming-freddies-flowers Architecture contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/pennies-unsung-hero-award-micro-donations In October 2024, I received the Unsung Hero Award from Pennies at their 5th Annual Awards ceremony. This is what micro-donations look like from the engineering side — and why it matters. Sun, 20 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/pennies-unsung-hero-award-micro-donations CTO Craft contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/typeorm-vs-prisma-typescript-orm-comparison During a platform replatforming, we ended up using two different ORMs in the same project — TypeORM for the core backend API, Prisma for the admin panel. Here's why, and what each is genuinely better at. Tue, 10 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/typeorm-vs-prisma-typescript-orm-comparison Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/multi-repo-vs-monorepo-decision-framework The monorepo vs multi-repo debate generates more heat than light. Here's the framework I used — and why multi-repo won for a subscription platform replatforming with four applications and a lean team. Mon, 15 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/multi-repo-vs-monorepo-decision-framework Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/two-tier-feature-flag-strategy Feature flags are non-negotiable for safe deployments. But commercial feature flag platforms have convinced teams that a £50K/year SaaS is the only way. Here's the two-tier approach that covers 95% of use cases at a fraction of the cost. Fri, 05 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/two-tier-feature-flag-strategy Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/sqs-queue-architecture-async-processing The most impactful architectural decision in our replatforming wasn't the language choice or infrastructure — it was systematically moving everything non-critical out of the synchronous request path and into SQS queues. Tue, 20 Feb 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/sqs-queue-architecture-async-processing Architecture contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/product-engineering-working-relationship The tension between product and engineering is one of the most commonly cited challenges in tech companies. After 22 years — and a lot of hard-won lessons — here's what I've come to believe about getting this relationship right. Mon, 15 Jan 2024 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/product-engineering-working-relationship CTO Craft contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/serverless-vs-containers-vs-ec2-lean-team The infrastructure decision for a replatforming project forces you to answer a question with no universal answer: what's right for your specific team, workload, and economics? Here's the framework I used — and why serverless won. Fri, 10 Nov 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/serverless-vs-containers-vs-ec2-lean-team Infrastructure contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/cto-infrastructure-review-stakeholder-alignment A platform infrastructure review that produces the right technical answer but fails to bring stakeholders with it is a failed review. Here's the process I use — structured to produce decisions that the board, product leadership, and engineering teams can all trust. Fri, 01 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/cto-infrastructure-review-stakeholder-alignment CTO Craft contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/php-to-typescript-subscription-platform-migration Migrating a production subscription platform from PHP to TypeScript is not a decision taken lightly. Here's the honest case for why we did it, the alternatives we rejected, and what the migration actually delivered. Sun, 20 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/php-to-typescript-subscription-platform-migration Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/build-vs-buy-cto-framework Every CTO faces the build vs buy decision repeatedly. After 22 years of making these calls, I've developed a framework that goes beyond the surface-level cost analysis most teams do. Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/build-vs-buy-cto-framework CTO Craft contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/transaction-fees-hidden-platform-cost When teams evaluate SaaS e-commerce platforms vs custom builds, they focus on the obvious costs: subscription fees, development time, staff. The number that actually swings the decision is almost always the one buried in the small print: transaction fees. Wed, 05 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/transaction-fees-hidden-platform-cost CTO Craft contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/core-web-vitals-replatforming-success-metric When running a platform infrastructure review, you need objective metrics to evaluate options and measure success. Core Web Vitals gave us exactly that — here are the actual before/after numbers from a full replatforming, and why they mattered more than we expected. Sat, 10 Jun 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/core-web-vitals-replatforming-success-metric Scale & Performance contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/build-vs-buy-subscription-ecommerce-cost-analysis After running a rigorous build vs buy analysis for a subscription e-commerce platform, the numbers told a clear story. Here's the full framework, the cost breakdown, and why 'just use Shopify' is the wrong answer for complex subscription models. Mon, 15 May 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/build-vs-buy-subscription-ecommerce-cost-analysis Architecture contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/monolith-tipping-point-when-to-stop-patching Every monolith reaches a tipping point — the moment when the next patch costs more than it saves. I've run several platform reviews at this point. Here are the six signals that tell you incremental improvement is no longer the right answer. Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/monolith-tipping-point-when-to-stop-patching Architecture contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/feature-flags-safe-deployments Feature flags changed how we deploy at Freddie's Flowers more than any other single practice. Here's how we implemented them, what went wrong early on, and why I'd never run a production system without them. Tue, 15 Jun 2021 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/feature-flags-safe-deployments Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/home-office-ergonomics-engineers Six months into remote work, half the team had back pain. We learned the hard way that kitchen tables aren't workstations. Here's the equipment list that actually matters. Thu, 05 Nov 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/home-office-ergonomics-engineers Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/maintaining-engineering-culture-remote Engineering culture is built through hundreds of small interactions. When those interactions moved to Slack and Zoom, we had to be deliberate about preserving what made us us. Thu, 10 Sep 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/maintaining-engineering-culture-remote CTO Craft contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/remote-pair-programming-guide Pair programming is hard enough in person. Remote pair programming seemed impossible until we figured out the right tools, practices, and rhythms. Here's our playbook. Sat, 20 Jun 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/remote-pair-programming-guide Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/overnight-shift-remote-engineering-covid In March 2020, we sent everyone home with 48 hours notice. Here's what we learned about leading engineering teams through sudden, fundamental change — and what stuck permanently. Wed, 15 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/overnight-shift-remote-engineering-covid CTO Craft contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/kubernetes-ec2-common-pitfalls After two years of running Kubernetes on EC2, here are the failure modes that caught us out — OOMKilled pods, node pressure, IMDS conflicts, and more. Save yourself the pain. Sun, 15 Sep 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/kubernetes-ec2-common-pitfalls Infrastructure contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/data-platform-redshift-looker-dbt In 2018-19, TouchNote needed to move from ad-hoc SQL queries to a proper analytics platform. Here's how we built our data stack with Redshift, Looker, and dbt — and what we'd do differently. Wed, 20 Mar 2019 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/data-platform-redshift-looker-dbt Data Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/production-observability-grafana-newrelic After running production services across AWS and Kubernetes, I've developed strong opinions about what monitoring actually helps during incidents. Here's the setup that's worked for us. Mon, 05 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/production-observability-grafana-newrelic Infrastructure contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/kubernetes-on-ec2-before-eks We ran Kubernetes on bare EC2 instances from 2017. EKS launched in 2018. The things we learned self-managing Kubernetes are things EKS users take for granted — hard-won lessons worth sharing. Tue, 10 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/kubernetes-on-ec2-before-eks Infrastructure contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/choosing-go-for-touchnote-backend In 2016-17, TouchNote's backend was a mix of PHP and a growing need for high-concurrency services. Go was the answer — but the migration surfaced surprises we didn't anticipate. Thu, 20 Jul 2017 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/choosing-go-for-touchnote-backend Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/meta-search-engines-caching-strategy Building a travel meta-search engine at Da!Travel was an exercise in caching as a first-class design concern. Here's the architecture that let us serve fast results from slow, expensive upstream APIs. Sun, 01 Jun 2014 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/meta-search-engines-caching-strategy Travel Tech contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/gds-integrations-amadeus-sabre-travel-api At Da!Travel, I built integrations with the world's major GDS providers — Amadeus, Sabre, Sirena, and others. The travel industry's data infrastructure is unlike anything else in software. Here's why. Sun, 15 Sep 2013 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/gds-integrations-amadeus-sabre-travel-api Travel Tech contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/aws-elb-mysql-replication-lessons Running MySQL replication and AWS ELB in production teaches you things the documentation doesn't cover. Here are the hard-won lessons from scaling TouchNote through the 2012 Olympics period. Tue, 20 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/aws-elb-mysql-replication-lessons Infrastructure contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/london-olympics-samsung-100k-transactions During the London 2012 Olympics, Samsung ran a major digital campaign on TouchNote. We processed 100K transactions per hour at peak. Here's the AWS architecture that made it possible — and what nearly failed. Mon, 10 Sep 2012 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/london-olympics-samsung-100k-transactions Scale & Performance contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/zendmvc-rebuilding-touchnote Rebuilding a production platform while the business keeps running is one of engineering's hardest challenges. Here's how we used ZendMVC and AngularJS to transform TouchNote's architecture without breaking it. Sat, 15 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/zendmvc-rebuilding-touchnote Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/api-and-website-isolation In 2011, rebuilding TouchNote's architecture to support iOS, Android, and HP webOS taught me a lesson I've never forgotten: your website and your API must be independent systems. Here's why. Tue, 10 May 2011 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/api-and-website-isolation Architecture contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/40-million-sms-political-campaign In 2009, the Telugu Desam Party wanted to send campaign messages to 4 crore voters across Andhra Pradesh — multiple times. Here's the infrastructure we built to make it happen, and what nearly broke us. Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/40-million-sms-political-campaign Telecom contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/kannel-open-source-sms-gateway At Airhub in Hyderabad, I ran our bulk SMS infrastructure on Kannel — a C-based open source gateway that could handle extraordinary throughput on modest hardware. Here's what made it exceptional. Mon, 15 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/kannel-open-source-sms-gateway Telecom contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/developers-guide-to-iptv IPTV in 2007 was engineering at the intersection of telecoms, media, and software. My stint at TCS's IPTV Centre of Excellence was a masterclass in the complexity of real-time media delivery at scale. Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/developers-guide-to-iptv Telecom contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/sql-server-continuous-data-protection Continuous Data Protection promised zero-RPO recovery. Building it for SQL Server at Microsoft taught me the gap between a promising architecture and a production-grade implementation. Mon, 20 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/sql-server-continuous-data-protection Infrastructure contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/resilient-software-c-enterprise-patterns Working on Microsoft's disaster recovery platform in C taught me lessons about reliability engineering that I still apply at every level of the stack — from kernel modules to cloud-native applications. Wed, 15 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/resilient-software-c-enterprise-patterns Engineering contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri) https://www.yendluri.com/blog/file-based-vs-volume-based-disaster-recovery Early in my career at Inmage Systems, I worked on enterprise disaster recovery software. Here's what I learned about the two fundamental approaches to DR — and why the distinction still matters today. Fri, 01 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT https://www.yendluri.com/blog/file-based-vs-volume-based-disaster-recovery Infrastructure contact@yendluri.com (Gopal Yendluri)