I know some of y'all will judge the fuck outa me
But I had a "I've no idea how this works, but it works" moment today on a pet-project...

It's so inefficiently made coz I was frustrated by it failing so thought il let it work first then worry about shrink-wrapping the logic

Yet with NO-CACHE, from DB -> Service/API -> HTTP response, is just 350ms...
WITH In-memory Cache it goes down to 40-50ms...

Take the sledge hammer.

Make something that looks from great distance remotely like the thing you want to make.

Then start working out the details.

Finally polish and make it shiny.

Programming works no differently.

Depending on the project I'd argue by the way that a cache is an unnecessary and risky layer that shouldn't exist at all.

So good job, now watch karate kid, especially the polish and shine part of the movie. :-)