In this architecture overview, Sam from Grindr explains how they rebuilt their chat platform to support over 13 million monthly active users worldwide. The system leverages AWS services like Amazon DynamoDB, Aurora Postgres, ElastiCache, Managed Service for Kafka, and Amazon Pinpoint to handle massive scale, with 121 billion chats sent in 2023. Sam walks through the user journey, detailing how messages flow through web sockets, microservices, and different storage systems optimized for read and write loads. Key features include real-time messaging, push notifications, encryption, and spam protection. The architecture demonstrates how Grindr uses a combination of AWS services to create a high-performance, secure chat platform for the LGBTQ community.