Architecture Tradeoff
Noun · Development
Definitions
A design compromise where improving one property of a system, such as scalability or simplicity, comes at the cost of another, such as latency, cost, or operational complexity. Recognizing architecture tradeoffs is central to senior engineering work because there is rarely a design that maximizes everything at once.
In plain English: A design compromise where improving one aspect of a system makes another aspect worse.
Example: "Moving the workflow to async processing was an architecture tradeoff: better throughput and resilience, but more eventual-consistency edge cases for users."