NoteX — Scalable Content Distribution System

Hybrid backend system for managing, ranking, and distributing academic notes with real-time engagement

Problem

Students lack a centralized platform for discovering high-quality academic notes with engagement and personalization features.

Solution

Designed a hybrid system using Firebase for real-time interactions and MongoDB for complex querying and analytics.

System Flow

• • User uploads or interacts with notes
• • Firebase handles real-time updates
• • MongoDB processes analytics and queries
• • Data prepared for ML recommendations

Architecture

API Design

• • POST /notes → Upload note
• • GET /notes → Fetch notes
• • POST /interactions → Like/Bookmark

Data Modeling

• • Designed schema for engagement metrics
• • Stored metadata for ranking and recommendations

System Highlights

• • Real-time engagement system
• • Hybrid database architecture
• • ML-ready data pipeline

Technical Decisions

• • Used Firebase for real-time features
• • Used MongoDB for complex queries
• • Prepared system for ML integration

Scalability

• • Separated real-time and analytical workloads
• • Designed for future ML scaling

Challenges

• • Syncing data across Firebase and MongoDB
• • Designing scalable metadata structures

Trade-offs

• • Increased complexity due to hybrid system
• • Data consistency challenges

Outcome

Built a scalable foundation for a content-sharing platform with real-time and ML capabilities.

What I Learned

• • Designing hybrid architectures
• • Handling real-time + analytical systems
• • Preparing data pipelines for ML