/Glimmer

Overview

Glimmer is a social web platform that faced significant scaling challenges. As Technical Lead, my primary mission was "Performance Rescue" — bringing the dashboard load time down from an unusable 15 seconds to under 2 seconds.

The Performance Problem

The platform suffered from:

• N+1 Query Issues: Database calls were unoptimized.
• Frontend Bloat: Excessive data payloads slowing down rendering.
• Infrastructure Bottlenecks: Inefficient server configurations.
  
  

The Solution: Deep Optimization

1. Database Tuning

• Analyzed slow query logs and added missing indexes.
• Refactored complex joins into optimized aggregations.
• Implemented caching layers for frequently accessed social graphs.
  
  

2. Architecture Refinement

• Decoupled heavy computation from the main request thread.
• Optimized the Node.js event loop handling.
  
  

Impact

"From 15s to <2s — a game changer for user retention."

• 7x Speed Improvement: Achieved the <2s target for key user journeys.
• Scalability: Prepared the infrastructure to handle 10x concurrent user growth.
• Stability: Significantly reduced timeout errors during peak traffic.
  
  

Technology Stack

• Backend: Node.js
• Frontend: Next.js
• Database: SQL / NoSQL Hybrid, Redis