Open Source Summit North America 2025

As a former FAANG engineering leader who's interviewed 100s of candidates, I've seen brilliant engineers  struggle to communicate system design concepts under pressure. In this session, I'll introduce SDL -   an open source tool that makes distributed systems tangible and interactive.

What We'll Explore Together

- System Modeling
- Watch how architectures like Uber and Bitly actually behave under load
- Interactive Failure Scenarios
- Kill components and see cascading failures in real-time
- Trade-off Analysis
- Adjust consistency/latency sliders and watch system behavior change
- Probability-based Modeling
- Pattern Recognition

Why this matters?

Candidates often fail not from lack of knowledge, but inability to visualize and communicate complex systems under pressure. The market is competitive & rife with layoffs. These tools aren't just about getting hired - they're about ensuring talented engineers find positions where they'll thrive.

Key Takeaways:
- Understand SDL's simple grammar for modeling distributed systems
- See real architectural patterns emerge from constraints
- Learn to reason about system behavior probabilistically
- Build confidence by experimenting safely before interviews
- Looking forward to learn from you all too and collaborating in the future.

This isn't about memorizing answers - it's about building intuition through interactive exploration. Whether  you're preparing for interviews or teaching others, SDL transforms abstract concepts into tangible  experiences.

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