Freelance backend engineer Merlijn van den Berg. A €2,500 performance audit and fix sprint for slow SaaS backends, with pull requests and before-and-after measurements.https://iammerlijn.com/https://iammerlijn.com/blog/pagination-total-count/https://iammerlijn.com/blog/pagination-total-count/Every list request ran a second COUNT query for a total at the top of the list. Moving it to a cached endpoint made the issue list 46% faster in production.Tue, 20 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/blog/slow-requests-background-workers/https://iammerlijn.com/blog/slow-requests-background-workers/How a production slowdown moved from liveness probe tuning and query fixes to a BullMQ worker architecture.Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/blog/my-first-oss-contribution/https://iammerlijn.com/blog/my-first-oss-contribution/Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/blog/strapi-permission-cleanup-field-traversal-cache/https://iammerlijn.com/blog/strapi-permission-cleanup-field-traversal-cache/How repeated field-level permission cleanup made Strapi startup slower for large schemas with many roles, and how a small cache removed redundant work.Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/notes/rails-subdomains-with-lvh-me/https://iammerlijn.com/notes/rails-subdomains-with-lvh-me/Using `lvh.me` makes local subdomain testing possible with URLs like `app.lvh.me:3000`.Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/blog/database-recovery/https://iammerlijn.com/blog/database-recovery/Recovering deleted rows in a shared database without rolling back a day of unrelated changes. A recovery account with limits on what it establishes.Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/blog/sync-fingerprints-database-load/https://iammerlijn.com/blog/sync-fingerprints-database-load/How adding a cheap change-detection pass helped avoid redundant provider sync work and unnecessary database transactions.Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/notes/docker-image-pruning/https://iammerlijn.com/notes/docker-image-pruning/`docker image prune` removes dangling images, while `docker image prune -a` removes all unused images.Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/notes/free-custom-email-with-cloudflare-email-routing/https://iammerlijn.com/notes/free-custom-email-with-cloudflare-email-routing/Cloudflare Email Routing can forward a custom domain email address to Gmail for free, and Gmail can send from that address with an app password.Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/blog/pdf-performance-fix/https://iammerlijn.com/blog/pdf-performance-fix/In a ten-document test under production-like limits, PDF generation went from four successes to nine and batch runtime fell from 7m 13s to 48s.Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/notes/reproducing-production-issues-locally/https://iammerlijn.com/notes/reproducing-production-issues-locally/Run the production image locally with constrained memory, CPU, and shared memory to reproduce environment-specific issues.Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/notes/custom-relation-label-in-strapi-cms/https://iammerlijn.com/notes/custom-relation-label-in-strapi-cms/To change the relation label shown in the Strapi admin panel, configure the field's Entry title in the content type view settings.Thu, 19 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/notes/strapi-limit-config-api-js/https://iammerlijn.com/notes/strapi-limit-config-api-js/In Strapi, `pagination.limit: -1` falls back to `api.rest.maxLimit` when that limit is configured.Thu, 19 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/notes/node-js-memory-leak-debugging-on-kubernetes/https://iammerlijn.com/notes/node-js-memory-leak-debugging-on-kubernetes/Use kubectl port-forward and Chrome DevTools to inspect a Node.js process in Kubernetes and compare heap snapshots for leaks.Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/notes/safari-network-throttling/https://iammerlijn.com/notes/safari-network-throttling/Safari no longer includes built-in network throttling, but it can be restored with Xcode tools and Network Link Conditioner.Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/blog/performance-improvements-permissions/https://iammerlijn.com/blog/performance-improvements-permissions/How we cut query times from 241 ms to 3.7 ms by rethinking our permission system. Learn how moving from deep relational populates to JSON-based precomputed permissions in Strapi made getPermissions lightning fast.Sun, 31 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/blog/raycast-spotlight-on-steroids/https://iammerlijn.com/blog/raycast-spotlight-on-steroids/Boost your productivity with Raycast, the ultimate Mac tool for streamlining repetitive tasks. From shortcuts to extensions like Google Meet and Clipboard History, learn how Raycast saves hours every week with just a keystroke.Tue, 07 Jan 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://iammerlijn.com/blog/setting-up-internal-communication-in-a-startup/https://iammerlijn.com/blog/setting-up-internal-communication-in-a-startup/Discover how I transformed internal communication at BookThat Group by implementing Slack. Learn why Slack improved organization, boosted productivity with integrations, and streamlined workflows, replacing chaotic WhatsApp and email exchanges.Mon, 30 Sep 2024 00:00:00 GMT