Building PGFinder: Lessons in Performance and Scope

Let me tell you about a project that taught me more than 6 months of tutorials. In 2023, I built "PGFinder" — a full stack property search platform. The idea was simple. Help people find paying guest accommodations based on location, budget and preferences. The reality of building it? Anything but simple. The frontend was React. The backend was Python. The database had to handle real time search filtering across multiple parameters simultaneously. The first version was slow. Not a little slow. Embarrassingly slow. A search query was taking over 3 seconds to return results. 3 seconds is an eternity for a user. So I went back to the database layer. Rewrote the queries. Added proper indexing. Optimised the filtering logic. The same query dropped to under 400 milliseconds. That moment taught me something no tutorial ever did — Performance problems are almost always data problems in disguise. It's not your React components. It's not your Python logic. It's how you structure and query your data. The second lesson was about scope. I started building every feature I could imagine. Location filters. Budget sliders. Photo galleries. Reviews. Maps integration. I had to stop myself and ask — what does a user actually need on day one? Just the search. Just the results. Just the contact. Ship the core. Add the rest later. That single mindset shift saved weeks of wasted development time. Building real projects teaches you things that no course ever will. What's the biggest lesson a real project taught you? #FullStackDevelopment #ReactJS #Python #ProjectBreakdown #DeveloperLife #Tech2026 #BuildInPublic #NodeJS #WebDevelopment #Coding

  • No alternative text description for this image

To view or add a comment, sign in

Explore content categories