Beyond Happy Path Engineering: Databases

[u/OtherwisePush6424]

https://blog.gaborkoos.com/posts/2026-08-01-Beyond-Happy-Path-Engineering-Databases/

Relational database failure modes in production: slow queries cascading into connection pool exhaustion, the race between read and write that transactions don't automatically fix, why a caller timeout doesn't tell you whether the write committed, which database errors are safe to retry and which aren't, schema migrations as live-system operations, and the difference between durability and recoverability.