Last week, I was chatting with a lead developer at a growing DTC brand.
They were proud of the backend they’d built – solid tests, clean code, “event-driven everything.” But when I asked how their systems would handle a 10x spike during Black Friday, the vibe shifted.
“We’re confident,” they said. “Our infrastructure auto-scales.”
I nodded – but I’ve heard this tune before. Too many devs think they’ve built for scale… but they haven’t.
So today, I want to talk about what real scalability looks like – and why it’s not something you “add later.”
It’s a mindset. One you need from day one.
The Myth of Scaling “When We Need It”
Let’s bust a common myth: Scaling is not just about adding more servers.
Most dev teams think scale = infrastructure. More containers. Bigger databases. Autoscaling groups. But that’s just the surface layer.
The real bottlenecks come from how your code is structured, how your queues are prioritized, and how your systems handle failure.
These are decisions you make long before traffic hits.
By the time you need to scale, it’s often too late.
What Scaling-First Teams Do Differently
Teams that actually scale don’t build like everyone else. They make fundamentally different choices, right from the start:
1. They Build for Failure
Most teams build for the “happy path.” But in high-scale systems, failure isn’t a bug – it’s the default state.
Scaling-first teams:
- Use timeouts and retries everywhere
- Make sure repeated requests don’t cause duplicate actions
- Design with dead-letter queues from the beginning
Every component is disposable. If a service crashes, it shouldn’t take the whole system down with it.
2. They Embrace Asynchronous Everything
Synchronous APIs are fine – until they aren’t.
Scaling teams aggressively decouple systems using:
- Message queues (Kafka, SQS, etc.)
- Event buses to distribute logic
- Background jobs for anything non-blocking
If your checkout process has to wait on six internal services to respond… it will break under pressure. Guaranteed.
3. They Design for Throttling, Not Just Autoscaling
Autoscaling is reactive. But by the time you react, you’ve already dropped requests.
Great teams throttle gracefully:
- They reject or delay non-essential traffic
- They use circuit breakers to prevent cascading failures
- They degrade UX intelligently (e.g., hide non-critical recommendations)
It’s not just about staying online – it’s about delivering something useful, even under load.
4. They Think in “Growth Multipliers,” Not MVPs
MVP thinking is great for startups. But scaling requires you to zoom out.
Instead of “what’s the simplest thing that works?” ask:
- What happens if this runs 10,000 times a minute?
- What if this fails silently 0.01% of the time?
- What if our upstream provider throttles us?
MVPs get you to launch. Scalability gets you through Prime Day.
Why Most Teams Miss This
Because honestly? Building for scale is harder up front. It takes longer. It feels over-engineered when traffic is low.
And product managers hate it.
But when the flash sale hits and your site goes down, no one blames the PM.
They blame you.
Final Thought: Scaling Is a Culture, Not a Feature
If you’re serious about e-commerce growth, you can’t afford to “hope it holds.” Scale isn’t a switch you flip – it’s a habit. A way of thinking. A discipline your team practices every day.
So next time you build a new service, ask yourself:
“If this were hit 10,000 times a minute tomorrow, would it survive?”
If the answer is “probably not,” then you’re not building for scale – yet.
That’s all for this week.