Stateless microservices FAQ

Who should lead stateless migrations?

Platform or architecture leads coordinate standards, but service-owning teams must handle code changes and testing. Assign a migration champion per domain to maintain momentum.

How long does it take to go stateless?

Simple services can migrate in a few sprints by externalizing sessions and files. Complex domains with stateful workflows may require phased rewrites or event-driven patterns spanning a quarter or more.

What about short-lived local caches?

In-process caches are fine for performance as long as they tolerate eviction and do not store authoritative data. Prefer external caches (Redis, Memcached) for shared state or multi-instance consistency.

How do we manage file uploads?

Stream files directly to object storage (S3, GCS) using presigned URLs or background workers. Avoid writing to local disk except for temporary buffers that are cleaned up promptly.

Does stateless mean no data?

No—data still exists, but it resides in managed services that survive instance restarts. Stateless simply means any instance can serve any request because it does not rely on local persistence.