# TechUnfiltered.dev
# https://techunfiltered.dev

> A tech blog covering AWS, DevOps, system design, databases, and CI/CD.
> Practical deep dives into cloud infrastructure, backend engineering, and distributed systems. Written for engineers who build and operate production systems. No fluff - real problems, real solutions, real trade-offs.

Practical deep dives into cloud infrastructure, backend engineering, and distributed systems. Written for engineers who build and operate production systems. No fluff - real problems, real solutions, real trade-offs.

## Blog Posts

- [Why Your Database Indexes Are Not Working (And How to Fix Them)](https://techunfiltered.dev/why-your-database-indexes-are-not-working): You added an index. Your query is still slow. This article covers the debugging mindset - why indexes fail in real systems, how to diagnose the problem, and how to fix it.
- [SQS vs Kafka: When to Use What in Real Systems](https://techunfiltered.dev/sqs-vs-kafka-when-to-use-what-in-real-systems): Both SQS and Kafka solve similar problems - until your system scales and the differences start to hurt. This article covers when each one breaks and how to make the right call.
- [Caching Strategies That Work (And When They Fail)](https://techunfiltered.dev/caching-strategies-that-work-and-when-they-fail): Caching improves performance - until it starts serving stale data or becomes your biggest bottleneck. This article covers the real decisions you'll face in production.
- [How to Design a Rate Limiter That Actually Works at Scale](https://techunfiltered.dev/how-to-design-a-rate-limiter-that-works-at-scale): Rate limiting looks simple - until you deploy it across multiple servers and it starts failing silently. This article covers what breaks in production and how to fix it.

## Pages

- [About](https://techunfiltered.dev/author/raunak-gupta): About the author
- [Categories](https://techunfiltered.dev): Browse articles by category
- [Tags](https://techunfiltered.dev): Browse articles by tag

## Optional

- Canonical: https://techunfiltered.dev
- [Sitemap](https://techunfiltered.dev/sitemap.xml): XML sitemap of all pages

User-Agent: *

Usage:
- Summarization: Allowed
- Embedding: Allowed
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Attribution-Format: "Source: TechUnfiltered.dev"

# Crawl delay
Crawl-delay: 5

Content-Update-Frequency: Weekly
Last-Updated: 2026-03-22

Topics:
- AWS
- System Design
- Distributed Systems
- Databases
- DevOps
- CI/CD