tolkiana

tolkiana

Vector Search & RAG: A Practical Mental Model for Semantic and Conversational Search

Vector Search & RAG: A Practical Mental Model for Semantic and Conversational Search

Vector search, semantic search, and RAG are often used interchangeably, but they solve different problems. This article introduces a clear mental model to distinguish search types, techniques, and tools, and to reason about when each approach is appropriate.

Vector Search: Implementing Semantic Search with OpenSearch

Vector Search: Implementing Semantic Search with OpenSearch

This article walks through a minimal proof of concept for implementing semantic search with OpenSearch. The focus is on showing how embeddings, indexing, and vector search fit together in practice, without aiming for a production ready solution.

Vector Search & RAG: Implementing Conversational Search with OpenSearch & Open AI

Vector Search & RAG: Implementing Conversational Search with OpenSearch & Open AI

Conversational search builds on retrieval, not just on LLMs. This article shows how a simple RAG pipeline can be layered on top of semantic search using OpenSearch and OpenAI, keeping retrieval and generation clearly separated.

Give Them a Break and Give Them Feedback: Building Better Relationships With Your Manager

careeer development Featured

Give Them a Break and Give Them Feedback: Building Better Relationships With Your Manager

A practical, human guide for ICs on working better with managers through curiosity, empathy, and honest feedback.

A leader’s guide to active and reflective listening

A leader’s guide to active and reflective listening

Listening is one of those skills I’m always trying to improve, it’s definitely one of the hardest for me. Even now, it's something I continue to struggle with. One of the challenges I’ve faced is around the advice to ask open-ended questions. While it’s

Finding your path forward

careeer development Featured

Finding your path forward

So you might be wondering, are you here writing yet another article, giving advice about what makes a good Senior Developer? Well... no

Mongo Change Streams with Server-Sent Events in SpringBoot and Kotlin

kotlin Featured

Mongo Change Streams with Server-Sent Events in SpringBoot and Kotlin

Server-Sent Events (SSE) is a mechanism that can be used as an alternative to WebSockets to push streaming data to a client, there are many fundamental differences and a quick google search for “SSE vs WebSockets” will give you a lot of details if you want to understand both technologies

Avoiding nested streams in Spring Webflux & Kotlin

Avoiding nested streams in Spring Webflux & Kotlin

Reactive programming can be very exciting and fun to learn but it also can be challenging if you are used to more imperative programming.

Introduction to Spring Data R2DBC with Kotlin

postgres Featured

Introduction to Spring Data R2DBC with Kotlin

R2DBC is a specification that provides database connectivity in a non blocking way and Spring Data R2DBC is one of the implementations of this specification. Reactive Connectivity for Relational Databases is still relatively new and, if like me, you are working with Kotlin it can be a little bit challenging

Managing Database migrations with Liquibase and Spring Boot

liquibase Featured

Managing Database migrations with Liquibase and Spring Boot

When I worked on my first Backend project, I realized how useful it was to have a process that allows you to track and manage changes in the Database and to be able to do it in a way that was easy to apply or rollback these changes to your different environments.

To The Core of Core NFC

To The Core of Core NFC

Core NFC is an Apple framework that allows developers to interact with the iPhone’s internal NFC device. In this article we will talk about how to use it to read and write NFC tags.

How to use Spotify’s SDK in Kotlin

How to use Spotify’s SDK in Kotlin

On October last year I was on my journey of learning Kotlin when I decided to make an App for my boyfriend, I wanted to combine my interest for Kotlin and music, and at the same time create a nice gift for his birthday. The app was a called MixTape,

Guide to Charles Proxy

Guide to Charles Proxy

Last year Detroit Labs published a book I wrote about Charles Proxy and now that I finally have my personal website I wanted to share it here too.

How I Survived My First Conference Talk as an Introvert

Public Speaking Featured

How I Survived My First Conference Talk as an Introvert

I have always considered myself an introvert and as such I never thought it was possible for me to speak at a conference, especially at an International conference in a language that is not my native language.