Tines: scale by design and by default

Tines, an automation platform, achieves scalable performance by employing a model where actions and events operate in isolation, allowing for seamless parallel execution without interference. The architecture is designed to fan out instructions to a horizontally scalable set of workers, executing tasks concurrently, which can be dynamically expanded according to demand, reaching up to 15,000 workers. Key to maintaining scalability is the elimination of bottlenecks, such as optimizing the system to update timestamps efficiently without causing database contention. The company experiences rapid growth, with action runs increasing by 50% every two months and introducing new features at a rate of 12 per month in 2023. A recent load test demonstrated Tines' capability to handle over 4,000 action runs per second, generating 10,000 downstream events per second. This scalability is supported by standard industry practices and continuous refinements to the system's design and strategies.