Glossary term
What is Jitter? Meaning for developers
In System Design
Random extra delay so clients don't retry together. Example: Waits spread between 0 and 400 ms.
Learn it properly · System DesignLesson 41: Timeouts, Retries & Backoff with JitterOne slow dependency with no timeout, plus clients that retry instantly, can take down an entire site. How to set timeouts from real latency, propagate deadlines, retry only what's safe, avoid retry amplification, and why backoff needs jitter.In Practical Design Problems
A bit of random time added to retry delays, so many clients do not retry at the same moment.
Learn it properly · Practical Design ProblemsLesson 7: Design an LRU Cache, Idempotent Payments and Other Classic Mini-ProblemsShort worked designs: an LRU cache, idempotency keys, a job queue with retries and backoff, and feature flags.In Observability & SRE
A bit of randomness added to a retry wait so many clients do not all come back at the same moment.
Learn it properly · Observability & SRELesson 7: Reliability Patterns: Timeouts, Retries, Circuit Breakers and Graceful DegradationFailure modes, timeouts and retries with backoff, circuit breakers, bulkheads, load shedding, tested with fault injection.