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Prefill vs decode, why are the two phases bottlenecked differently, and why disaggregate them?

One forward pass, two opposite performance regimes. The arithmetic-intensity argument that explains TTFT vs TPOT, GPU pool design, and why the big serving stacks split the phases onto different hardware.

Updated Aug 2026 · Grounded in real Forward Deployed Engineer interview loops and written to a senior-engineer editorial bar.

One forward pass, two opposite performance regimes. The arithmetic-intensity argument that explains TTFT vs TPOT, GPU pool design, and why the big serving stacks split the phases onto different hardware.

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