This talk was inspired by Jonathan Amsterdam’s presentation on HTTP Routing Enhancements at GopherCon EU 2024. He discussed the latest improvements in HTTP routing and the ongoing community pressure to maintain performance. One remark he made really stuck with me: "Why are you so concerned about milliseconds of HTTP routing when you’re dealing with JSON?" It struck a chord because it made me realize that the real battle for milliseconds has already been lost elsewhere. That’s when I knew I needed to present our "Time to Backend" metric—so others can clearly understand that focusing on micro-optimizations in routing doesn't address the bigger latency issues that impact user experience.

Have you ever wondered what happens to your request when you hit a button in your application? In this talk, we’ll dive deep into the often-overlooked aspect of application performance—the "Time to Backend." Drawing from real-world incidents where application response times were unusually slow despite seemingly healthy system metrics, we’ll explore how network and mobile provider delays can overshadow code optimization efforts.

You’ll learn how, even with perfectly optimized back-end systems, user requests can take several seconds to traverse networks and reach your service. Through the introduction of the "Time to Backend" metric, we’ll demonstrate why it's crucial to focus on larger network issues that impact user experience more significantly than micro-optimizations in your code.

Join us as we discuss the key takeaways from dealing with these complex incidents, how this metric led to the creation of better monitoring systems, and the lessons learned from not just looking at your own infrastructure but considering the broader mobile ecosystem.