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Software Letters

Sharing insights about Software engineering, Design patterns, AI applications and NoCode tools.

Written by

Houssem BEN SLAMA

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Featured Posts

SQS

SL#39 - Make Your Serverless Stack Observable—Before It Breaks

Oct 15, 2025

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4 min read

SL#39 - Make Your Serverless Stack Observable—Before It Breaks

Tracing async workflows, debugging across queues, and the metrics that actually matter—an advanced guide for serverless teams.

Houssem BEN SLAMA

AWS

SL#35 - Building a Serverless ETL Pipeline with AWS Glue: Integrating DynamoDB, S3, and OpenSearch

Aug 3, 2025

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7 min read

SL#35 - Building a Serverless ETL Pipeline with AWS Glue: Integrating DynamoDB, S3, and OpenSearch

AWS Glue is a fully managed ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) service designed to simplify data integration. It automates much of the effort in building, maintaining, and running ETL jobs by providing a serverless environment, built-in transformation logic, and native integration with other AWS services like S3, DynamoDB, and OpenSearch.

Houssem BEN SLAMA

DDD

SL#33 - Understanding the C4 Architecture Model: A Detailed Breakdown

Oct 3, 2024

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12 min read

SL#33 - Understanding the C4 Architecture Model: A Detailed Breakdown

Adapting the C4 Model for Serverless, Domain-Driven Design (DDD), and Event-Driven Architecture (EDA)

Houssem BEN SLAMA

Data-lake

Unleashing the Power of Real-Time Data: A Comprehensive Guide to Apache Kafka

Jul 2, 2024

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9 min read

Unleashing the Power of Real-Time Data: A Comprehensive Guide to Apache Kafka

Understanding Apache Kafka’s Architecture, Benefits, and How It Outperforms Other Data Platforms

Houssem BEN SLAMA

Kubernetes

Jun 5, 2024

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10 min read

Essential kubectl Commands: The Top 100 You Must Know for Effective Kubernetes Management

From Basic Operations to Advanced Techniques

Houssem BEN SLAMA

Containerization

Kubernetes and Docker: Revolutionizing Container Orchestration

Jun 4, 2024

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9 min read

Kubernetes and Docker: Revolutionizing Container Orchestration

Unleashing the Power of Containerization and Orchestration for Modern Applications

Houssem BEN SLAMA

SL#48 - Your Tests Pass. That Doesn't Mean Much Anymore.

When the same AI writes both the code and the tests from the same prompt, coverage stops being a signal. The green dashboard is a mirror, not a check.

Houssem BEN SLAMA

May 19, 2026

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5 min read

SL#47 - The Review Queue Nobody Warned You About AI coding assistants made writing code 60% faster. They also made your pull request queue 5x slower to process.

AI coding assistants made writing code 60% faster. They also made your pull request queue 5x slower to process. Here is what the numbers actually say - and what to do about the mismatch.

Houssem BEN SLAMA

AI Agents

SL#46 - Your LLM Agent Is Drowning in Its Own Context Window

May 18, 2026

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5 min read

SL#46 - Your LLM Agent Is Drowning in Its Own Context Window

Context windows just hit two million tokens. So why are 5% of production AI requests still failing? Because the industry confused having more space with knowing what to put in it.

Houssem BEN SLAMA

Open Source LLM

+17

May 17, 2026

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6 min read

SL#45 - The Enterprise Guide to Self-Hosting Open-Source LLMs: Model Selection, Fine-Tuning, RAG, and Production Architecture

A comprehensive enterprise-level walkthrough covering open-source LLM deployment, GPU infrastructure, fine-tuning strategies, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), inference optimization, and production AI architecture design.

Houssem BEN SLAMA

ReAct Framework

SL#44 - Building Agentic RAG Systems: Architecture, Reasoning Loops, and Production Considerations

Mar 9, 2026

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12 min read

SL#44 - Building Agentic RAG Systems: Architecture, Reasoning Loops, and Production Considerations

The transition from simple LLM wrappers to AI Agents represents the next frontier in software engineering. While traditional Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) improved LLM accuracy, Agentic RAG introduces a reasoning layer that allows the system to autonomously decide how to use data to solve a problem.

Houssem BEN SLAMA

Automation

SL#43 - Beyond the Chatbox: How MCP Turns LLMs into Autonomous Operators

Mar 5, 2026

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5 min read

SL#43 - Beyond the Chatbox: How MCP Turns LLMs into Autonomous Operators

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) dismantles the "data silos" of modern AI, providing a standardized bridge for LLMs to move beyond conversation and into direct, real-world execution.

Houssem BEN SLAMA

ReAct Framework

SL#42 - From Passive LLMs to Autonomous Agents: The Evolution of AI Workflows

Mar 5, 2026

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5 min read

SL#42 - From Passive LLMs to Autonomous Agents: The Evolution of AI Workflows

The field of Artificial Intelligence is rapidly evolving from simple text generation to autonomous problem-solving. To understand where the industry is heading, technical professionals must distinguish between three distinct levels of AI implementation: Passive LLMs, AI Workflows, and Autonomous AI Agents.

Houssem BEN SLAMA

PEngSeries

SL#41 - What Is a Product Engineer and Why the Industry Suddenly Needs Them

Nov 29, 2025

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6 min read

SL#41 - What Is a Product Engineer and Why the Industry Suddenly Needs Them

The evolution of modern engineering: fewer handoffs, more ownership, faster products.

Houssem BEN SLAMA

AWS

SL#40 - Building a Secure AWS Foundation for SaaS Migration

Oct 17, 2025

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5 min read

SL#40 - Building a Secure AWS Foundation for SaaS Migration

Securing root, structuring accounts, enabling Control Tower — the groundwork I’m laying for long-term SaaS scalability on AWS.

Houssem BEN SLAMA

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Featured Posts

SL#39 - Make Your Serverless Stack Observable—Before It Breaks

SL#35 - Building a Serverless ETL Pipeline with AWS Glue: Integrating DynamoDB, S3, and OpenSearch

SL#33 - Understanding the C4 Architecture Model: A Detailed Breakdown

Unleashing the Power of Real-Time Data: A Comprehensive Guide to Apache Kafka

Essential kubectl Commands: The Top 100 You Must Know for Effective Kubernetes Management

Kubernetes and Docker: Revolutionizing Container Orchestration

Archive

SL#48 - Your Tests Pass. That Doesn't Mean Much Anymore.

SL#47 - The Review Queue Nobody Warned You About AI coding assistants made writing code 60% faster. They also made your pull request queue 5x slower to process.

SL#46 - Your LLM Agent Is Drowning in Its Own Context Window

SL#45 - The Enterprise Guide to Self-Hosting Open-Source LLMs: Model Selection, Fine-Tuning, RAG, and Production Architecture

SL#44 - Building Agentic RAG Systems: Architecture, Reasoning Loops, and Production Considerations

SL#43 - Beyond the Chatbox: How MCP Turns LLMs into Autonomous Operators

SL#42 - From Passive LLMs to Autonomous Agents: The Evolution of AI Workflows

SL#41 - What Is a Product Engineer and Why the Industry Suddenly Needs Them

SL#40 - Building a Secure AWS Foundation for SaaS Migration

Software Letters