Developer discovers RAG pipeline 40x slower than initial test, implements fixes

A developer recently published the architecture for a nine-stage RAG pipeline designed for a financial advisor application. Initial testing, which mocked network-dependent API calls, showed a misleadingly fast latency of under 5 milliseconds. A subsequent live benchmark revealed the real-world latency averaged nearly 15 seconds, which was deemed unacceptable. The developer then implemented three key fixes: routing general questions away from the full pipeline, running independent steps concurrently, and adding token streaming. These changes significantly reduced the average latency to just over 6 seconds.