[SQueeeeeL]

That's a very specific meaning, like in terms of scaling maybe? But in terms of actually meaningful problems solved for end users... But there very nature large scale systems aren't very common, but everyone is chasing that unicorn startup which can serve 10 million users; so scalable APIs are more "practical" then simple workflows

[phkahler]

Scalability seems overhyped. If you write small efficient systems they can handle a lot of work. If you use big clunky frameworks that convert simple things into map-reduce style problems of course you're going to care about scalability and how much your AWS bill is going to be.

[ditonal]

I could not agree more.

In many technical interviews, they want to talk about "scalability", using fancy big data software for horizontal scalability etc

But I also know from experience that many, many of these problems would be more elegantly solved by more traditional tools like Postgres, especially since servers have gotten more powerful, the cloud service options more plentiful and reliable, and the software more optimized. The "scalable" approach can lead to massive amounts of wasted person hours unless you're sure you really need it. But if you say, "just use RDS or CloudSQL, or maybe BigQuery", you get perceived as a newb by the 24 year old who just got his MS doing Spark work on toy problems.