Ryan Stawarz & Austin Story: Inside Doximity’s 15-Year Rails Monolith
In this episode of On Rails, Robby is joined by Ryan Stawarz and Austin Story from Doximity, where Ruby on Rails has powered the core of their platform for over 15 years. The trio digs into how a single Rails monolith has evolved to support 100+ engineers and a mobile-first experience for millions of healthcare professionals. From front-end framework migrations to API architecture, they explore the real-world decisions required to keep a large Rails app resilient and fast-moving.Ryan and Austin walk us through the team’s adoption of GraphQL, what led them to introduce GraphQL Federation, and how they balance speed with reliability when scaling APIs across domains. They talk about the tradeoffs of maintaining both GraphQL and REST, and how Doximity avoids N+1 query pitfalls using BatchLoader. The conversation also touches on the evolution of their front-end—from Backbone to Vue.js—and why Rails’ flexibility still gives them an edge.Throughout the episode, they share pragmatic insights into debugging at scale, managing one-off data migrations, and determining when a service should live inside or outside the monolith. They also reflect on their use of tools like Packwerk, AnyCable, and Departure, and how a culture of trust, documentation, and lightweight planning helps Doximity move fast without breaking things.🧰 Tools & Libraries Mentioned- Ruby on Rails – The web framework powering Doximity’s monolith and many of their services. - GraphQL-Ruby – Ruby gem for building GraphQL APIs in Rails. - BatchLoader– Helps reduce N+1 queries in GraphQL. - Vue.js – Their chosen frontend framework for building single-page applications. - Packwerk – Helps enforce modular boundaries in their Rails monolith. - Departure – Used for safe database migrations on large datasets. - Thor – Used to run one-off CLI scripts with easier testability. - rake-ui – Internal tool for triggering Rake tasks via a web UI. - AnyCable – Go-based replacement for ActionCable to support realtime features at scale. - Docker – Powers consistent local dev and containerized environments. - Firebase – Used for push notifications in mobile apps. Send us a textOn Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon.
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Nadia Odunayo & Scaling Rails for Millions of Users as a Solo Dev
In this episode of On Rails, Nadia Odunayo, founder and solo developer of The StoryGraph, joins us to share what it really takes to build and maintain a Rails application used by over four million readers across web and mobile.We discuss lessons from launching a PWA, shifting to Turbo Native for cross-platform support, and navigating challenges like in-app purchases and data syncing between systems. Nadia also talks about the bold decision to move from Heroku to YugabyteDB to support growing workloads, and why she decided against hiring a team to manage it.We also explore what it means to remain a solo developer by choice, the value of the Rails community, and why Ruby on Rails continues to be the framework that powers her entire business. Platforms & DistributionThe StoryGraph – Nadia’s solo-built reading and book tracking platform Apple App Store – The StoryGraphGoogle Play Store – StoryGraph Progressive Web Apps (MDN) – Alternative mobile delivery method initially exploredTools, Libraries & ServicesRuby on Rails – The primary framework powering The StoryGraph Turbo / Hotwire Native – Used to support mobile apps with shared Rails backend Devise (GitHub) – Authentication library for Rails Sidekiq – Background job processor Makara (GitHub) – Database proxy for master/replica load splitting Heroku – Former hosting platform for The StoryGraph YugabyteDB – Postgres-compatible distributed database chosen for scaling CTEs (Common Table Expressions) – Used for optimizing queries across distributed dataLinear – Project management tool currently used by NadiaBooksRuby Under a Microscope by Pat Shaughnessy – A deep dive into Ruby internals Send us a textOn Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon.
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Jean Boussier & IO-Bound Misconceptions
Jean Boussier, Senior Staff Engineer at Shopify and member of the Rails Core team, joins Robby to dig into the performance realities behind modern Rails apps.They explore what it means to be IO-bound or CPU-bound, how Ruby’s Global VM Lock affects concurrency, and why "fast" is too vague to be useful. Jean explains why instrumentation is often the missing piece and shares thoughtful approaches to using background jobs with intention.They also talk about gem dependencies. The gems in your `Gemfile` are not magic. If your app depends on them, you should understand them. You can read the code. You can patch it. You can make it your own.This episode is a reminder that Rails is not a black box. It is a system you can study, shape, and improve. The more you learn how it works, the more confidently you can build with it.🔗 References & Resources Mentioned- 📖 Crafting Interpreters – A book Jean recommends for understanding how interpreters and Ruby internals work - 🧵 GVL Tools (Shopify gem) – A tool for measuring thread contention in Ruby apps - 📊 AppSignal – Monitoring platform that integrates with GVL instrumentation - 🚢 ShipIt Engine – Shopify’s open-source deployment tool - 🔒 Ruby’s Global VM Lock – Overview of what the GVL is and how it works - 🦄 Unicorn – A classic preforking Ruby web server - 🐆 Puma – A multi-threaded Ruby/Rack web server - 🔀 Pitchfork – Shopify’s fork of Unicorn, optimized for their infrastructure - ⚙️ ActiveRecord Async Queries – Jean’s Rails Core contribution for backgrounding slow queries - 🔗 GraphQL – Used at Shopify to structure and query API dataSend us a textOn Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon.
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Rosa Gutiérrez & Solid Queue
In this episode of ‘On Rails’, host Robby Russell (@planetargon) chats with Rosa Gutiérrez, Principal Programmer at 37signals, about the technical decisions behind Solid Queue - a database-backed job queue replacing Resque in their Rails apps.Rosa dives into why her team built Solid Queue, how it improves reliability, visibility, and maintainability, and the challenges of migrating live apps like Hey during active development. Learn how they tackled recurring jobs, long-running tasks, and testing strategies, plus insights on system design, scaling, and the joy of deleting old code.Topics:Why 37signals replaced ResqueBuilding a job queue with ActiveJob + MySQLTransparent job states & using Mission Control as a dashboardMigrating with minimal impactBest practices for recurring and long-running jobsRecommended tools, testing gems, and dev booksLinks:Rosa's migration script for scheduled jobs from Resque to Solid QueueAcidic JobChaotic JobRosa.codesRosa’s videos on Ruby EventsRosa on the 37signals Dev blogRosa on GithubRosa on LinkedInBook Recommendation: Refactoring, Second Edition by Martin Fowler#RubyOnRails #SolidQueue #BackgroundJobs #37signals #OnRailsPodcastSend us a textOn Rails is a podcast focused on real-world technical decision-making, exploring how teams are scaling, architecting, and solving complex challenges with Rails. On Rails is brought to you by The Rails Foundation, and hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon.
On Rails invites Rails developers to share real-world technical challenges and solutions, architectural decisions, and lessons learned while building with Rails. Through technical deep-dives and retrospectives with experienced engineers in the Rails community, we explore the strategies behind building and scaling Rails applications.Hosted by Robby Russell of Planet Argon.
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