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FULL-STACK SYSTEMS

Web & Full-Stack Systems Projects

Avoid building trivial to-do lists or generic calculator clones. Employers and engineering teams evaluate candidates based on full-lifecycle development: database normalization, authentication, state synchronization, caching, and clean API design.

Coupled Learning Track
Full-Stack Systems Roadmap
View Roadmap Stages →

Why Build These Projects?

These projects show that you understand data flow, state reconciliation, network latency, and operational persistence beyond static HTML and CSS.

PROJECT 01·Advanced

Real-Time Collaborative Workspace & Document Editor

Architect a multi-user collaborative workspace with synchronized document state, presence indicators, and conflict resolution over WebSockets.

Prerequisites:TypeScript & React fundamentalsWebSocket event protocolsRelational database schema modeling

Recommended Tech Stack

TypeScriptReact / Next.jsNode.js or GoPostgreSQLRedis (Pub/Sub)WebSockets

Key Skills You Demonstrate

  • ✓State synchronization over bidirectional sockets
  • ✓Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDT) intuition
  • ✓Redis pub/sub for horizontal multi-server scaling
  • ✓Optimistic UI mutations and error rollbacks

Core Features to Implement

1.Live collaborative cursor positions and typing presence
2.Markdown parsing with live block rendering
3.Automatic document versioning and revision history rollback
4.Workspace permission tiers (Owner, Editor, Viewer)
💡 Architecture Tip

Decouple socket handlers from database writes. Buffer edits in memory or Redis and flush periodically to PostgreSQL to prevent database bottlenecking.

Seniority Extension Ideas (To Stand Out in Interviews)
  • →Implement offline-first syncing using IndexedDB with reconnection catchup
  • →Export documents to clean PDFs using headless Chromium workers
Reference Docs:MDN WebSockets API Reference↗PostgreSQL Official Documentation↗
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PROJECT 02·Intermediate

In-Memory Key-Value Store with LRU Cache Eviction

Implement an in-memory caching engine using custom doubly linked lists and hash maps, complete with a TCP wire protocol.

Prerequisites:Data structures (Linked lists, Hash tables)Basic socket networking in Node.js, Go, or Python

Recommended Tech Stack

Node.js, Go, or PythonTCP SocketsBenchmarking test suites

Key Skills You Demonstrate

  • ✓O(1) time complexity cache eviction with Hash Map + Doubly Linked List
  • ✓Parsing low-level binary or text protocols over raw TCP sockets
  • ✓Memory leak detection and heap profiling
  • ✓Concurrency locking and race condition prevention

Core Features to Implement

1.SET, GET, DEL, and EXPIRE commands with TTL timestamps
2.LRU (Least Recently Used) automatic capacity eviction
3.Background eviction sweep thread for expired keys
4.AOF (Append-Only File) persistence on disk for crash recovery
💡 Architecture Tip

Ensure atomic mutations to both the hash map pointers and the doubly linked list head/tail references during gets and sets.

Seniority Extension Ideas (To Stand Out in Interviews)
  • →Add support for hash sets (HSET, HGET) and list queues (LPUSH, RPOP)
  • →Benchmark throughput using wrk or custom load generators
Reference Docs:MIT 6.006: Introduction to Algorithms↗
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PROJECT 03·Intermediate

Multi-Tenant SaaS API Platform with Rate Limiting & Webhooks

Build a production REST API featuring API key authentication, token-bucket rate limiting, Stripe billing webhooks, and audit logging.

Prerequisites:REST API design conventionsSQL relational schema designHTTP status codes and headers

Recommended Tech Stack

TypeScript / Node.js or FastAPIPostgreSQLRedisDocker

Key Skills You Demonstrate

  • ✓Token-bucket / sliding window rate limiting with Redis
  • ✓Idempotent webhook delivery with automatic exponential backoff retries
  • ✓Database migrations and indexing strategies
  • ✓Clean architecture and dependency injection

Core Features to Implement

1.API key generation with SHA-256 hashed storage
2.Tiered rate limiting (e.g. Free: 60 req/min, Pro: 1000 req/min)
3.Webhook dispatcher that signs payloads with HMAC-SHA256 signatures
4.Interactive Swagger / OpenAPI documentation endpoint
💡 Architecture Tip

Always verify Stripe webhook signatures before updating database subscription state to prevent forged requests.

Seniority Extension Ideas (To Stand Out in Interviews)
  • →Create a developer dashboard displaying hourly API request metrics and latency graphs
Reference Docs:Use The Index, Luke! — SQL Performance↗
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