I joined this course mostly out of curiosity and a little “am I missing something everyone else knows?” feeling. I wasn’t expecting a mindset shift, but that’s honestly what I got.

What stood out to me is how simple system design felt when explained the right way. Instead of getting lost in fancy terms or patterns, the course focused on intuition: understanding the problem, breaking it down, evaluating trade-offs, and choosing what makes sense. It made me realise that solving hard problems isn’t about complexity, the real skill is simplifying things in a way that still works.

I’ve been following Arpit since my college days, and even back then I loved how he explained things so clearly and to the point. That same clarity carried through in this course, even the seemingly complicated topics felt simple and understandable.

The examples, discussions, and reasoning frameworks made the learning stick instead of just floating around as theory. I could actually connect things to how systems are built in the real world, and that gave me a lot more confidence in how I think and approach problems now.

Also really appreciated how patient and open Arpit was throughout the sessions. You could ask anything, basic, random, detailed, and he’d break it down with clarity and honesty, not buzzwords.

And yes, the classic line: “If you have a hard problem, don’t solve it.” Somehow makes me feel better about not overcomplicating things -- pure genius. xD

I have been following Arpit on Twitter for about 2 years now and always loved that each week led to some form of learning whether it was the papers he shared or the videos he produced. It made me interested in how to think than learning what to think.

I used to see the feedback on his course but always felt that I was not ready for it. This year is when I decided to give it a shot and my only regret would is that I didn't take it up earlier. The systems that we learned to breakdown and the manner in which we did further reinforced the principle of "how to think" rather than what component would fit in.

We covered many topics/components which I have used many times but never stopped to think what it was meant to solve or to replace. The best learning that I take home from this course is that every time I come across a site, a product or a claim of high performance, my immediate thought would be to think of what they intended to solve and how to break it down into simple components.

As we covered LSM trees, Databases, KV stores, Load balancing, Distributed schedulers etc it becomes clear how nuanced the thought process is and how by simple layering of the requirements we can solve complex problems.

I would highly recommend this course to all people who are looking to learn or take the next step in their career. Now onto all those exercises to complete :)

I want to express my sincere gratitude to Arpit for his exceptional System Design Course. The emphasis on prototyping as a means to understand system components in isolation was invaluable, significantly reducing development cycles and providing deeper insights.

What truly set this course apart was the holistic approach—moving from business requirements to product specifications, and finally to engineering implementation. Every system we designed was grounded in data, with clear justifications for each component rather than treating them as mysterious black boxes. Even seemingly basic elements like load balancers were presented as natural solutions to specific problems.

The course delved into precise optimizations, teaching us the correct implementation of mutexes, file descriptors, epolls, and timestamp-based conflict resolution. Arpit encouraged us to avoid unnecessary jargon and hasty conclusions, instead focusing on first principles that can be applied universally.

I particularly appreciated learning how to anticipate extreme edge cases and consider opposing viewpoints to identify potential gaps in our designs. This methodical approach to system design has transformed my thinking and will undoubtedly improve my work for years to come.

Thank you, Arpit, for a truly enlightening learning experience.

I have been following Arpit for a while now, and I was always impressed by his ability to explain complex topics in a simple and engaging way. When I saw that he was offering a System Design course, I knew I had to join.

The course exceeded my expectations in every way. Arpit's teaching style is incredibly effective, and he has a unique ability to break down complex concepts into manageable pieces. The course is structured in a way that builds on previous knowledge, making it easy to follow along and understand the material.

One of the things I appreciated most about the course was the emphasis on practical application. Arpit encourages us to think critically about system design and to apply what we learn in real-world scenarios. The hands-on exercises and brainstorming sessions were particularly valuable, as they allowed us to put our knowledge into practice and learn from each other.

Overall, I highly recommend this course to anyone looking to improve their system design skills. Whether you're preparing for interviews or just want to deepen your understanding of the subject, this course is an excellent investment in your professional development.

I’ve never really taken a course before—and honestly, I never felt the need to. But after watching your YouTube videos and seeing how clearly you explain things, I took a leap of faith. And I can proudly say now—it was totally worth it.

The course is exceptional in a way that only people who attend can truly feel. It shapes your mind to understand the nuances without you even realizing it. It develops your intuition so that you start seeing patterns and knowing what to do and what not to do. You can discuss databases, applications, queues, etc., and Arpit has answers for all of it. The discussions with other folks are incredibly valuable—you learn a lot from them too. It's like getting knowledge from the entire world in one cohort, and that's pretty amazing.

If anyone would like to have their mind blown and understand things deeply, this is a must-have course. Consider this a mandatory subject in the software engineering curriculum!

Thanks, Arpit, for making such a beautiful course!

Taking Arpit's System Design course was a really great experience. Over the last few years, I've been more involved in the management side of things, and I started to feel like I was drifting away from the actual process of building and coding. I missed that part of engineering. This course helped bring that back for me. It reminded me why I love being an engineer, and now, because of it, I've made it a point to write code every single day.

One of the best things about Arpit is how he explains system design. He doesn't just treat it as a task of drawing boxes and lines in a diagram. He keeps reminding you that you don't really understand how systems work until you try building them yourself. When you write the code and see how everything connects and functions, that's when the real learning happens.

He also encouraged us to create small, simple prototypes to understand different system design concepts. For example, when we were learning about connection pooling, instead of building an entire database system or using a complex framework, he told us to just use a basic array or map to store connections. The goal was to focus only on how the pooling logic works. He told us to forget about things like database schemas, logging, or using fancy tools-just focus on the main idea. This method made everything so much easier and faster to build. It helped me truly understand the key concept without getting distracted by unnecessary details.

Another thing Arpit said that really stuck with me was: "We are hired to solve a problem and not necessarily code to solve the problem." That one sentence really made me think differently. It reminded me that the goal is to find solutions, and coding is just one of the tools we use-it's not the end goal. He also pushed us to stop hesitating and just start building. His phrase, "Start smashing your keyboard," was funny but motivating. It gave me the push I needed to stop overthinking and start doing.

So if you're someone who wants to get back into the hands-on side of engineering, or if you want to really understand system design by actually building things instead of just drawing them, I would absolutely recommend this course. It's inspiring, practical, and it really helps you think about engineering in a new and better way.

These eight weeks have been an incredibly rewarding way to spend my weekend mornings. This course didn’t just teach me system design; it helped me develop a habit of focused self-learning that I plan to continue. The structured approach made learning easier by introducing new ideas while reinforcing previous concepts, creating a natural and deep understanding.

Arpit’s real-world analogies simplified even the most complex topics, making them easy to grasp. The coding exercises challenged me to think about system design in practical and executable ways and not just the boxes and arrows. A mindset that will be invaluable in my current role and beyond.

This course sharpened my intuition, unlocking a deeper level of understanding. The brainstorming sessions and Q&A were really helpful, helped me learn from the people who attended the course with me. I also appreciate how the teaching connected technical concepts with business and product thinking, reinforcing the idea that not every problem requires a coding solution. That perspective is rare but extremely valuable for engineers.

I highly recommend this course to anyone serious about growing as an engineer or architect. It doesn’t just teach new concepts; it changes the way you think about software systems.

From past 1 year I was working on Operational doing KTLO, no learning no satisfaction towards work and guilt of not moving anywhere in career, I was following Arpit's from a year, and was planning to attend the cohorts from long time, 1st of week Feb, I was extremenly demotivated and feeling low, then I saw Arpit's post and went ahead to join the cohort, and Now I have gained that confidence, which I lost, I am standing out in my team, got a path to move forward in my career, all thanks to Arpit.

The cohort was extremely helpful, I regret not joining it earlier, It helps you generate that intuition behind each and every system, this is not like any other System design course, it's very deep, very practical. Arpit make us think of implementation and outside the box not only drawing boxes or predefined solutions, and make us write code, which makes this cohort different and special.

During this course I started reading couple of whitepapers and now I am able to easily understand them.

Thanks again Arpit for reigniting the spark and curiosity.

I had signed up for Arpit's System Design Masterclass in the April '25 cohort, not with the motivation of using it as interview prep, but with the expectation of being part of a collaborative, classroom like environment where multiple schools of thought come together to solve a given problem. The course fully lives up to that expectation.

Having committed to one company for the entirety of my 5 year career in software development, the course helped me challenge, validate, and evolve my thought process when approaching any problem statement—instead of getting bogged down by the risk monotonicity that often comes with staying at a single workplace.

On top of this, Arpit has truly mastered the flow of the course. Even without prior exposure to a given concept, there are enough easter eggs and build up throughout that it feels natural to arrive at the solution.

Highly recommended for anyone looking to build the muscle for approaching open ended problem statements from a first principles perspective.

Arpit Bhayani’s system design class has been a truly valuable learning experience.

The system designs he presented were practical and closely aligned with real-world applications, reflecting a solid understanding of core concepts. His approach to brainstorming and addressing every question in detail kept the class engaged for 4–5 hours, fostering deep discussions and exploration. What really stood out was his focus on identifying patterns and solving business problems efficiently—beyond just writing code. He encouraged us to avoid over-engineering and to find simple, effective solutions.

The framework of opposites added a new layer to our analysis, helping us view system design from different angles. As his tagline, AsliEngineering, suggests, there’s no fluff—just practical, straight-to-the-point learning. What truly deepened my understanding was the emphasis on prototyping.

It helped us move from theory to practice, allowing us to quickly test ideas, identify flaws, and refine our solutions hands-on. Arpit’s passion for teaching and clear explanations have made a lasting impact on how I approach problem-solving.

Over the years, I have taken several system design courses and read countless blogs, but I often found them overloaded with boxes and arrows, focusing solely on “what” to build rather than “why” and “what problem it solves”. Very few people truly address these fundamental questions, and Arpit Bhayani is one of them.

His highly practical approach to system design goes beyond just diagrams—it cultivates the thinking process and engineering mindset essential for real-world problem-solving. Personally, I have always been obsessed with databases and their internal architecture, and this was the first time I felt a deep connection with someone who shares the same passion.

I highly recommend this course to all my peers who want to go beyond surface-level knowledge and truly understand the principles behind scalable, efficient system design.

I started as a curious developer, but over time, working in the corporate world, I lost my enthusiasm for being a great developer. We often forget why we started on this path in the first place.

This course helped me rediscover my joy in writing programs that solve real problems. It made me realise that by thinking differently and diving deeper into challenges, we can make engineering have a tremendous impact in the workplace.

I highly recommend this course to all curious developers who chose coding because they genuinely enjoyed it. It will take you back to that moment when you decided to pursue coding or computer science. It's equally valuable for those wanting to understand systems at a deeper level and clarify their fundamentals.

This will be my go-to recommended course for anyone I meet who shows true passion for coding.

First of All, I want to thank you Arpit for creating this course. I made my decision to attend this course after watching your Torrent Videos.

Now About this course, It covers both the long lost basic concepts and complex problems solved by many industry leaders in a way that actually makes sense.

What I really liked is that it’s not just about cracking tech interviews—it goes beyond that. The course helps you develop a design mindset and build a mental model to approach system design logically. Instead of just memorizing patterns, you actually learn how to think through different trade-offs and come up with the right design for a given problem.

Arpit's real-world experience makes a huge difference—the examples are practical, not just theoretical. Plus, the course really pushes you out of your comfort zone and makes you see system design from a broader perspective.

If you’re serious about mastering system design beyond just interviews, this is the course to go for!

I recently completed a System Design course, and I can confidently say it was a game-changer for my professional growth as a software developer. The course provided a perfect balance of theoretical concepts and practical applications, making even complex topics easy to understand.

Arpit's step-by-step approach to breaking down high-level system architecture into smaller, manageable components was remarkable. Concepts such as scalability, fault tolerance, load balancing, and database design were covered in depth, with real-world examples that made the learning process engaging and relatable.

What stood out the most was the focus on problem-solving and hands-on exercises. These not only deepened my understanding of system design principles but also prepared me to tackle real-world challenges with confidence.

Overall, this course exceeded my expectations and has significantly enhanced my ability to design robust and scalable systems. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to strengthen their expertise in system design, whether you’re preparing for interviews or aiming to excel in your current role.

I am usually a fan of online courses and have taken several from Coursera/Udemy. Arpit, definitely while being an engineer, is one of the exceptional teachers. We spent ample amount of time on each of the aspects of course (never rushed).

The way he brought first principle thinking for many of the systems and the curiosity to dig deeper into very complex seeming systems was a huge win. He made difficult topics simple.

If you are one of those who has hunger to learn and love to understand things deep down, I would highly recommend this course. It’s not just technical learning, it’s a course which teaches you one of the hardest skills in the computer industry: problem solving. Once you start taking it, it becomes very natural.

At the end, I also want to applaud Arpit for being so patient, humble, open-minded, curious, and super fun throughout the course. I really want to thank him for taking this initiative and being one of the teachers that the world today needs.

Everything was best. Specifically, the course was far more engaging than traditional ones because we were literally discussing and not just theory. Doing discussions gave ample amount of time to think, iterate, rethink, re-iterate, and repeat. This is the very best use of time because the amount of content to consume in limited time becomes less and the critical thinking on it increases, thereby having more output in terms of understanding.

In the world of jargons thrown around to sound smart, drawing boxes instead of going into the depth of implementation, and most importantly, calling those a system design, is absolutely unfair to a computer science engineer and the whole field of computer science.

I can't stress this enough: people boast about passing the 4 years of undergraduate degree without learning much but still get placed in decent to good companies.

The whole point of the lack of passion and enthusiasm to do something creative at a later stage in life stems from the fact that we never learn things from first principles, and the education system never helped. But then, for the most part, we don't know what we don't know.

That being said, the last 8 weeks have been absolutely amusing for understanding how to build highly scalable systems from scratch. Arpit Bhayani has done a fabulous job inspiring curiosity to dig deeper, think about implementation, learn things from first principles, and generate that enthusiasm for core computer science.

I can't love the field any more. Thank you again Arpit for instilling the curiosity at a much deeper level. I look forward to implementing those prototypes to understand the true value of the computer science research over the years.

The course was incredibly in-depth and crisp, with a strong focus on hands-on implementation. I really appreciated how practical and application-oriented the sessions were. It wasn’t just about theory; it was about doing the work.

Another unexpected bonus! It made reading Designing Data-Intensive Applications so much easier. Now, flipping through the book feels like a refreshing recap of what was taught in the cohort.

I’m glad I joined this program. I gained invaluable knowledge and skills, and being surrounded by people who knew more than me pushed me to learn even more. Even though I didn’t speak up much during Q&A's sessions, that turned out to be a blessing—I absorbed so much just by listening and doing. It reawakened my curiosity and re-engaged my mind in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time.

Arpit's teaching style made complex topics and papers, easy to digest. He didn’t just focus on the technical aspects but also tied in perspectives from business, product management, and architecture. This holistic view broadens the understanding on what actually creates impact! Get a lot of goals and life-lessons along the way.

Highly recommend this cohort for anyone looking to level up their system design skills!

This course is truly amazing. Before enrolling, I had explored various YouTube playlists and other Udemy courses, but nothing really worked for me. I found myself getting bored as those lectures used a lot of jargon and simply presented the final design without addressing the underlying process.

What stood out in this course is how you break down every detail, especially when it comes to identifying bottlenecks and understanding what could go wrong with an initial design. Many other courses gloss over these critical points, but your approach answers the questions that matter when someone is designing from scratch. You have an incredible ability to explain concepts in a way that’s accessible, even for someone like me who’s relatively early in their career.

With just 1.5 years of experience as an SDE1, I was hesitant at first, wondering if I’d be able to keep up. But every topic you’ve covered has been crystal clear. I may take a bit longer to implement everything, but I’m confident I’ll complete it all at my own pace. Hats off to you for breaking things down so clearly and building up from the basics!

What worked best for me in this course was the way you approached the learning process. Rather than just presenting the final design, you took the time to explain every step, highlighting potential pitfalls and the reasons why a simple, intuitive solution might fail. This level of detail made it much easier to follow along and understand the "why" behind every design choice.

Additionally, your teaching method—starting from a basic design and gradually improving it while explaining each decision—was incredibly helpful. It allowed me to think critically about every phase of system design, something that other courses and resources didn’t offer. I truly appreciated how you broke everything down into digestible pieces, making it easier to grasp even for someone with limited experience. This approach kept me engaged throughout and made the learning experience far more effective.

I attended Arpit's April Cohort this year in 2024. I was looking out for some resources to help me with developing a good knowledge on designing systems. I was fortunate enough to come across your course. All the systems we discussed have built a solid foundation for me to approach any system going forward.

Be it thinking of the database schema, indexing, scaling, components, etc etc. This course has given a structured approach to my thinking process and for which I am immensely thankful for your efforts. I can see my confidence boosting up after taking this cohort as I am not afraid to tackle any design problem.

Internet has so many resources for designing systems but your course stands out because of the breadth and depth it offers. The course ended months ago but I still go through the Cohort videos and every time I watch it, I end up learning something.

I would 100% recommend and have been recommending this course to my friends. And this course has even helped me during system design interviews. I have been able to crack a few interviews recently and all thanks to you for this.

Thank you so much again for everything!!!!!

I had no interviews coming up, I had two months where I took a leap to learn some new stuff. If you are enrolling just to learn and learn how to learn as a software developer, you are in for a ride. The course dives deep into building and highly practical and scalable systems, largely driven by his own personal experience and learning.

From designing distributed systems, managing trade-offs in the CAP theorem, to optimizing performance in high-load scenarios, Arpit's approach breaks down complex topics into understandable, actionable insights from the first principles. If you’re part of decision-making conversations in your organization—whether it's about optimizing performance, scaling architectures, or balancing system trade-offs—this course will equip you with the knowledge to make informed and practical decisions.

I loved the emphasis on pragmatism and the focus on how to get the job done in the most efficient, simple and scalable way possible. You’re surrounded by brilliant engineers from diverse backgrounds, and seeing everyone converge on a solution is truly magical. Whether you're building AI-driven applications or designing large-scale systems, this course will help you grow into a better engineer, help create more impact and rewire your brain.

A few key takeaways for me were:

• You win some, you lose some.
• If it works for you, it works for you.
• Simple systems scale.
• Framework of opposites, a good solution is often in the middle.
• Trade-offs aren't just about space and time—sometimes, you can even trade off correctness to build practical, real-world systems.

Arpit is a fantastic mentor who goes beyond just answering technical questions. His deep understanding of complex systems, especially ones I had never worked with, gave me the confidence to tackle unstructured problem statements with ease. He doesn’t just provide textbook answers—his real-world examples make the concepts click.

One thing that stands out is his motivational guidance, which kept me on track even when things got tough. In a market where many are just selling courses for the sake of MAANG preparation, this course stands out because it’s focused on solving real-world problems and building the right mindset.

Attending the sessions is genuinely fun! Especially the Q&A sessions after the course, where I get to hear about other people's challenges and see how those problems can be solved. It's really eye-opening to understand various perspectives and solutions.

Arpit genuinely cares about each student’s growth, and I appreciate how this course is tailored to practical challenges, not just theory. This is hands down one of the best learning experiences I’ve had!

Arpit truly puts his heart into this course, dedicating his full effort to make each session as engaging and insightful as possible. He is, without a doubt, one of the best teachers I've ever had, with a natural talent for teaching. He starts with simple problem statements and skillfully guides us to the system design of enterprise-level applications, adding layers of complexity as we go. The entire course and schedule are fantastic, but the brainstorming sessions are the highlight. I never thought I would be so glued to my chair during a technical discussion, much like watching a suspenseful movie.

After following Arpit on social media for some time, I became convinced that I needed to take his master class. Although I was initially hesitant because of the fee, I am so glad I took the plunge. Arpit delivers far more than expected. The most important thing he brings is the spark of curiosity and a new way to approach problems. This course has been worth every bit of investment.

Thank you, Arpit, for an incredible learning experience, for sparking a new way of thinking in all of us, and for the great impact you're making in the developer community!