Why architecture matters here
Leaderboards fail on fraud (cheat scores), inconsistency (rank changing mid-view), and stale display. Architecture matters because ingest + fraud + display need to combine.
The architecture: every piece explained
The top strip is ingest. Score events streaming. Ranking store sorted set. Snapshot atomic. Fraud detection patterns.
The middle row is display. Filters region/cohort/bans. Tiebreakers consistent order. Display cache hot. History week/month trends.
The lower rows are ops. Personalization. Metrics latency + freshness. Ops anti-abuse + audit + backfill.
End-to-end flow
End-to-end: score event ingested. Ranking store updated. Fraud detector flags suspicious pattern; investigation removes score. Snapshot produced every second. Display cache serves top-100 in 10ms. User sees their rank + top-10 with tiebreakers consistent.