{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Smooth Scaling: System Design for High Traffic","title":"Handling 200k Requests Per Second Surges with Zalando SRE Manager Johannes Boumans","html":"<iframe width=\"100%\" height=\"180\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless src=\"https://share.transistor.fm/e/c7575740\"></iframe>","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2586,"description":"In this episode, Johannes Boumans, Engineering Manager in Zalando’s SRE team, shares how Lounge by Zalando handles daily surges of up to 200,000 requests per second. He discusses the shift from monoliths to microservices, the “you build it, you run it” model, SRE champions, and the trade-offs behind reliability, fairness, and cost. From bot defense to chaos engineering, it’s a deep dive into scaling one of Europe’s largest e-commerce platforms.\nEpisode page\n---\n\nJohannes Boumans is an Engineering Manager in the SRE organization at Zalando, where he leads reliability efforts for Zalando Lounge, the company’s off-price shopping destination. Over nearly 10 years at Zalando, Johannes has grown from product support into SRE leadership, where he now supports 25 engineering teams in building resilient, fair, and scalable systems. Johannes is passionate about the “you build it, you run it” philosophy and champions practices like chaos engineering, predictive scaling, and bot defense to keep systems reliable.\nThis podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.\n00:00 – Intro\n01:28 – Zalando: Europe's leading fashion destination\n02:42 – The company’s rapid tech evolution since 2008\n03:41 – From one team to 25: Johannes’ journey\n05:48 – How the SRE champions model works\n08:00 – What reliability really means at Zalando\n09:27 – From monolith to full DevOps accountability\n11:32 – What makes Lounge by Zalando unique\n12:50 – Dealing with massive daily traffic spikes\n14:05 – Predictive scaling and real-time cost control\n17:15 – First-come, first-served: fairness at scale\n22:11 – Solving the challenges of limited inventory\n25:09 – Combating bots with layered protections\n27:12 – Trade-offs: performance vs. experience\n29:38 – Why Lounge doesn’t have a search function\n31:17 – Advice for engineering managers facing traffic surges\n34:25 – Chaos testing in production—including turning off zones\n35:53 – Scaling advice for daily vs....","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/NUjWPZClJT8sBh8TJHB749aD71YNKszNFP0UX56QWiY/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9hY2Jj/MTdjYjIxN2VmOThi/N2NiNmM5NmI4OWEy/ZGFiNi5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}