RTP: Real-Time Payments With Real-World Bottlenecks
Exploring the promise of real-time payments and the practical bottlenecks that limit their true potential in production systems.
Articles
Wallets & P2P Networks: Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, Zelle
Consumers think Venmo = cash. Engineers know better: wallets are ledger-first abstractions that sit on top of ACH and card rails. If you mistake 'instant...
Why Card Networks Don't Have NOCs (and How to Build Your Own Downgrade Feedback Loop)
Unlike ACH, where Notifications of Change (NOCs) tell you exactly what to fix, credit card networks provide no standardized correction feed. If your transactions downgrade...
Why Credit Card Interchange Fees Differ at Authorization vs Settlement (and How to Reconcile Them)
Understanding why credit card interchange fees change between authorization and settlement is crucial for payment system design. This article explores the reconciliation challenges and provides...
Stability Patterns Every Rails Fintech Engineer Should Know
Learn the four essential stability patterns for Rails fintech apps: Circuit Breakers, Timeouts, Retries, and Bulkheads. These patterns aren't optional for ACH payments — they're...
Why Apps Fail in Production (and What ACH Teaches Us)
Understanding why Rails apps fail in production using ACH payment processing as a case study, and how to apply Release It! principles for resilience.
Money Flows, Chargebacks, and Rails: A Leader's Guide to 3-D Secure
Understanding how 3-D Secure changes money flows, how to reason about chargebacks, and what to instrument in a Rails stack to defend disputes and protect...
Credit Cards: Swipe, Smile, Settle Later
Understanding the credit card payment flow from authorization to settlement, and why it's not as instant as it seems.
GitHub Copilot: Zero to Hero — Build Your First Ruby Project with AI Pair Programming
Learn GitHub Copilot by building a Ruby CLI project from scratch. A hands-on, end-to-end guide from installation to tests, persistence, and documentation.
Bulkheading Daemons and Jobs in Rails: Building Resilient Background Systems
How to use the bulkhead pattern with Sidekiq daemons and scheduled jobs in Rails to isolate failures and keep critical workloads running.
Optimizing Your Cursor Prompts: Stay Under API Limits While Maximizing AI Assistance
A practical guide to getting more done with fewer tokens - master the art of efficient AI-assisted development within Cursor's usage constraints.
Cursor Pro: Zero to Expert - The Complete Developer's Journey
A structured guide to mastering AI-powered development with Cursor Pro, from installation to expert-level workflows.
ACH Returns: The Compliance Survival Guide Every Fintech Needs
ACH returns are your early warning system for payment failures. But they're also your compliance nightmare if you don't handle them correctly. Learn how to...
The Engineering Leader's Survival Guide to Compliance
Compliance doesn't have to feel like shackles. When leaders bring compliance into design, translate between legal and engineering, and invest in automation, teams stop treating...
ACH: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Still powering trillions. Still moving like it's stuck in fax machine mode. ACH is the OG payments backbone that's both the foundation and frustration of...
Breaking Builds to Building Teams: How QA Sculpted Me Into an Engineering Leader
I started out breaking builds in QA. What I didn't realize was that QA was secretly sculpting me into an engineering leader — teaching me...
When a Supposedly Quarter-Long Project Became My Real EM Baptism
Sometimes the projects that look simple on paper become the most transformative experiences. Here's how what was supposed to be a straightforward quarter-long initiative became...
ACH Correction Codes: Fix It, Log It, Prove It
When it comes to ACH payments, mistakes happen. Instead of rejecting every transaction, the ACH Network gives us Notification of Change (NOC) codes. I learned...
SEC Codes in ACH: Authorization, Compliance, and How to Not Get Burned
SEC codes determine your compliance fate in ACH payments. Get them wrong and face chargebacks, fines, and regulatory headaches. This guide shows you how to...
NACHA File Demystified: Cracking the 94-Character Code
Every ACH transaction starts as a carefully crafted 94-character line in a NACHA file. Let's decode the cryptic structure that moves $72 trillion annually through...
Wire Transfers Explained: Fast, Final, and Expensive
Wire transfers are the express lane of money movement - fast, final, and irreversible. Unlike ACH's batch processing, wires move money in real-time through networks...
How Money Moves In And Out Of Your Bank Account?
Ever wonder how your paycheck shows up in your bank account on payday? Or how your gym magically pulls your membership fee every month? That's...