GenStage for Elixir: Building Scalable Data Pipelines

Modern software systems process massive amounts of concurrent data, but without proper flow control, sudden spikes can crash your application. This text-based course guides you through GenStage, the core Elixir specification for exchanging events between producers and consumers with built-in back-pressure. You will discover how to prevent system overload and optimize resource utilization in your Elixir applications. By completing this course, you will transform your understanding of concurrent architecture, moving from basic message passing to robust, self-regulating data pipelines. What you'll learn: - Understand the core concepts of producers, consumers, and producer-consumers in GenStage - Configure demand-driven data flow to implement effective back-pressure - Build scalable data processing pipelines that handle rate-limiting and heavy workloads - Integrate modern testing strategies for concurrent processes using standard Elixir tools - Structure Elixir supervision trees to ensure fault tolerance throughout your pipeline We start with foundational concurrency concepts and basic Elixir process mechanics before moving step-by-step into GenStage behaviors, demand negotiation, and real-world pipeline design. The course concludes with practical patterns for monitoring and maintaining system health under load. This course is designed for backend developers and Elixir beginners who want to move beyond basic OTP concepts and master production-grade data processing. No prior experience with GenStage is required, though a basic understanding of Elixir syntax is helpful. Start reading today to build resilient, self-regulating data pipelines in Elixir.