TalksEngineering in productionEarlier version
Caching, Payloads, and Other Dark Arts: A Frontend Engineer's Journey
Recording on YouTube
An earlier version of this talk.
A frontend-focused talk about improving user experience and performance when the backend cannot be changed, with an emphasis on pragmatic caching and payload decisions. The talk has moved on: book Built for Turbulence: Architecting Full-Stack Web Experiences That Hold Up in Any Environment.
The premise
When your backend is untouchable but your frontend is falling apart—how do you fix the UX?
Who it's for
Frontend engineers improving UX without control over the backend
You leave with
- Frame frontend UX improvements around the constraints of an existing backend
How this talk evolved
- 2026
Built for Turbulence: Architecting Full-Stack Web Experiences That Hold Up in Any EnvironmentCurrent
An advanced full-stack architecture case study exploring how backend services, APIs, infrastructure and frontend decisions shape user experience. Covers caching, data fetching, streaming, payload design and resilience under slow networks, partial failures and changing requirements.
- 2025–2026
Caching, Payloads, and Other Dark Arts: Optimizing UX in Suboptimal Conditions
A practical architecture case study in data fetching, caching and payload design. Explores BFF proxy handlers, server prefetching, critical versus optional queries and resilient fallbacks, with demonstrations recorded on unreliable in-flight Wi-Fi.
- 2025
Caching, Payloads, and Other Dark Arts: A Frontend Engineer's Journey
A frontend-focused talk about improving user experience and performance when the backend cannot be changed, with an emphasis on pragmatic caching and payload decisions.
- 2024–2025
Solving Real World Data Fetching Challenges with Next.js and TanStack Query: A Pragmatic Case Study
A pragmatic fintech case study of frontend performance and resilient data fetching using Next.js, TanStack Query and the Backend-for-Frontend pattern.
- 2024
Data Fetching Unleashed: Next.js, React Query and their BFF
A fintech case study on improving frontend data fetching and resilience with Next.js, TanStack Query and a Backend-for-Frontend layer.