Pick any technology or tool you know and dig deeper. You know node, great! Now how the V8 engine works, why it works like that? What tradeoff the designer did?

Pick any technology or tool you know and dig deeper. You know node, great! Now how the V8 engine works, why it works like that? What tradeoff the designer did? Why? You have used databases, great! How a database works? Why? You know what is a web browser, great! ... You know what is a compiler... You can always go deeper and learn more. Clearly being able to modify the V8 engine is way more valuable than being able to use V8 with node... Or at least if you can modify the engine it is a safe assumption that you can also use it...