Software engineer

About

I’m Nga Tran, and I focus on the internals of distributed databases — query optimizers, execution engines, storage layers, and coordination mechanisms — because this is where I can contribute the most depth and real‑world experience. My writing centers on practical, production‑tested engineering and well‑known benchmarks: the tradeoffs behind query planning, the realities of distributed execution, the patterns that emerge as systems scale, and the lessons learned from building and operating systems like Vertica, InfluxDB IOx, DataFusion, and Distributed DataFusion.

These posts are written for my own enjoyment, shaped by years of hands‑on work and continuous reading. Most have been reviewed by experts in their respective areas, though it’s inevitable that some details may occasionally miss the mark — distributed systems are complex, and we’re all still learning. All content here is grounded in publicly available information. New writing is on this site; start from Posts. I also build tools; those are on Apps. An earlier collection of annotated papers, classes, and talks still lives on GitHub. I keep that older library there, and this site only links to it from Other Readings.