# Personal Technical Blog - Content Index

Author: Technical Engineer
Description: Notes on engineering, systems, problems solved, and things learned.
Sitemap: https://www.vishaljoshi.me/sitemap.xml

## Articles

### Debugging International Payment Failures & Multi-Currency Routing
- URL: https://www.vishaljoshi.me/blog/how-i-solved-international-payment-failures
- Markdown URL: https://www.vishaljoshi.me/blog/how-i-solved-international-payment-failures/raw
- Date: 2026-08-30
- Category: FinTech & Product Architecture
- Tags: payments, django, postgres, analytics, architecture
- Description: How we engineered a pre-auth BIN gateway router, optimized 3DS2 authentication flows, and boosted cross-border checkout conversion by +24.5%.
- Problem: International users were experiencing elevated drop-off rates due to 3D Secure 2 authentication friction and cross-border bank rejections.
- Solution: Engineered a pre-auth gateway router that checks card country BINs, dynamically selects local gateway partners, and executes graceful fallback retries.
- Summary: Detailed case study on diagnosing cross-border payment failures, building a dynamic BIN-based gateway router, and boosting international transaction success rates.

### Optimizing PostgreSQL Connection Pooling for High Throughput
- URL: https://www.vishaljoshi.me/blog/optimizing-postgres-connection-pooling
- Markdown URL: https://www.vishaljoshi.me/blog/optimizing-postgres-connection-pooling/raw
- Date: 2026-08-28
- Category: Database
- Tags: postgres, pgbouncer, performance
- Description: A guide on managing database connections efficiently using PgBouncer and connection tuning.
- Problem: Backend microservices were exhausting PostgreSQL backend connection limits during traffic spikes.
- Solution: Introduced PgBouncer transaction-level pooling and tuned max_connections.
- Summary: How transaction pooling dramatically reduced memory overhead and connection churn in Postgres.

### Designing a Reliable Consultation Queueing Engine
- URL: https://www.vishaljoshi.me/blog/designing-a-reliable-consultation-queue
- Markdown URL: https://www.vishaljoshi.me/blog/designing-a-reliable-consultation-queue/raw
- Date: 2026-08-15
- Category: Backend Engineering
- Tags: redis, django, websockets, queueing, architecture
- Description: How we built a low-latency, turn-based consultation queue using Redis sorted sets, Django WebSocket consumers, and fallback push notifications.
- Problem: High drop-off rate during peak consultation surges when astrologers were overwhelmed with simultaneous incoming requests.
- Solution: Built a stateful Redis-backed queue router with heartbeat reconnection logic and dynamic wait-time estimation.
- Summary: Detailed case study on building a high-throughput, turn-based queue system for real-time mobile consultation applications.