{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Beyond the Noise: Signals, Stories, and Spicy Takes","title":"The One-Second Surge: Debugging a Billion-Device Edge Case at Google with Jay Gengelbach","html":"<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https://share.transistor.fm/e/5cf6e43e\"></iframe>","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3114,"description":"In this episode, Jay Gengelbach, longtime Engineer at Alphabet and current Software Engineer at Vercel breaks down the story of a hard-to-track-down bug he encountered: a mysterious spike in server errors that hit exactly at the top of every hour (and other “round” time boundaries) across Google Now/Discover’s massive mobile footprint. Jay walks through how the team traced it to battery-saver behavior on certain devices/apps that effectively rationed background connectivity, causing synchronized bursts of requests the infrastructure couldn’t react to in time. The fix wasn’t just “handle more load,” but reshape it: using server-controlled scheduling to create intentional “load divots” so misbehaving clients could spike into empty space. The conversation wraps with Jay’s current work at Vercel scaling CI/CD reliability and speed, plus a measured take on AI: real value, real hype, and a looming reckoning when “free” stops being free.","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/YI0Unx6Qb9KLViuYiPEmdR6Iz3pDcmFiJ4_Mhk4teL0/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9kNzIw/MTRiOTUwM2NmNGNl/NzkyYzM4NzM3OTFm/NjUyMi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}