Microservices

The architectural pattern where you trade one big problem for fifty small ones that talk to each other over the network. Microservices break a monolithic application into independent services, each owning its own data and deploying independently.

In theory: independent scaling, technology freedom, team autonomy. In practice: distributed debugging, network latency, eventual consistency, and the existential question of “how micro is micro?”

Why it matters: Microservices enable large teams to ship faster by reducing coordination costs. But they’re not free — you’re trading code complexity for operational complexity.