Prince Pal — Engineering Blog https://princepaldev.engineer/blog Deep dives into system design, hackathon-winning architectures, microservices synchronization, and real-time multiplayer systems by Prince Pal. en-us Sat, 03 Oct 2026 07:35:59 GMT https://princepaldev.engineer/pixel-avatar.png Prince Pal — Engineering Blog https://princepaldev.engineer/blog How to Win Hackathons Like Crazyyy: The 7x National Champion Playbook https://princepaldev.engineer/blog/how-to-win-hackathons-like-crazy https://princepaldev.engineer/blog/how-to-win-hackathons-like-crazy Winning 7 national offline hackathons isn't luck—it's an engineering and psychological formula. Here is the exact blueprint on team composition, beating generic AI ideas, killer UI polish, and creating unforgettable moments. Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT Hackathons & Strategy Prince Pal Building a 2D Arcade Game in 24 Hours with Gemini AI at Google Prompt Wars (1st Runner Up) https://princepaldev.engineer/blog/winning-google-prompt-wars-snow-bros https://princepaldev.engineer/blog/winning-google-prompt-wars-snow-bros A deep dive into our 24-hour sprint at Google Prompt Wars where we secured 1st Runner Up building a multiplayer 2D Snow Bros game powered by prompt engineering and Google Gemini API. Sun, 01 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT Hackathons & AI Prince Pal Centralizing Configuration Across 10+ Microservices with Java Spring Cloud Config https://princepaldev.engineer/blog/centralizing-microservices-config-spring-cloud https://princepaldev.engineer/blog/centralizing-microservices-config-spring-cloud Managing environment variables and secret properties across a distributed cluster gets chaotic fast. Here is how we implemented a unified Spring Cloud Config Server at AstroRaag. Mon, 01 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT Distributed Systems Prince Pal Building Upbot: Handling 50,000+ Daily Health Checks on Serverless Cold Starts https://princepaldev.engineer/blog/building-upbot-monitoring-serverless-endpoints https://princepaldev.engineer/blog/building-upbot-monitoring-serverless-endpoints Serverless functions are cost-effective but suffer from cold starts. Here is how we engineered Upbot to monitor endpoints and maintain high availability. Fri, 01 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMT Backend Engineering Prince Pal Architecting SocketDrop: Real-Time Hybrid HTTP + WebSocket File Distribution https://princepaldev.engineer/blog/real-time-file-sharing-websockets-socketdrop https://princepaldev.engineer/blog/real-time-file-sharing-websockets-socketdrop Why mixing WebSockets with chunked HTTP uploads is the optimal architecture for concurrent ephemeral file sharing rooms. Wed, 01 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT Systems & WebSockets Prince Pal