The Program

This is a prime cohort-based course aimed at providing an exclusive and crisp learning experience. The program will cover most of the topics under System Design and Software Architecture including but not limited to - Architecting Social Networks, Building Storage Engines and, Designing High Throughput Systems.

The program will have a blend of Live Classes happening on Weekends, 1:1 Mentorship sessions happening on weekdays, assignments and, group projects. The program is designed to be intense and crisp so as to accelerate the overall learning.

Why a cohort based course?

cohort

/ˈkəʊhɔːt/

noun

A cohort is a small group of students who work through a curriculum together to achieve the same learning objective.

Small and Focussed Group

Each cohort will have close to ~25 people ensuring you have a richer learning experience.

Thrive Together

Unlike MOOCs where the information flow is unidirectional, the cohort here will thrive on interactions and collaborations.

Discuss and Learn

Learning happens when we discuss, and hence everyone is encouraged to speak, put forth opinions, and discuss.

Why should you join?

The primary objective of this program is to make you comfortable at building systems that are scalable, fault-tolerant, and reliable. But here is what you could reap out of it.

Design systems like a pro

The course will make you comfortable at designing any system, no matter how stringent the requirements are.

Know the unknowns

Buckle up to learn some interesting concepts, super-clever algorithms, and sophisticated architectures. You are bound to have mind-blown moments.

Crack the interview

Be it FAANG or your dream startup, you would be at ease while designing systems in the interview round.

Upskill and level-up

Learn the designing paradigms and upskill yourself to accelerate your career growth and stand out.

Network and Community

Perhaps the most interesting takeaway will be your new network, friends, and a lot of memories.

Program outline

Foundation

Week 1

The first week is about learning the macro and micro components of System Design.

Databases

Week 2

This week we will focus on learning everything about databases, right from SQL to NoSQL to Embedded, going through the internals, and understanding how they scale.

Going Distributed

Week 3

The third week will be about understanding Distributed Systems and the challenges that come while building them.

Building Social Networks

Week 4

This is when we start modeling and building real-world systems and we start with Social Networks.

Building Storages

Week 5

This week will be about building ephemeral, persistent, reliable and durable storage engines.

Building High Throughput Systems

Week 6

This week we level-up and build systems that are heavily concurrent and required to deliver very high throughput.

Building Search Engines

Week 7

This week is about understanding the internals of Information Retrieval Systems.

Building Algorithmic Systems

Week 8

The final week will be about exploring systems that are driven by a super-clever algorithm.

👇 This is how we designed and scaled notifications for Instagram 👇

A video snippet straight out of one of the live session

Hi, I'm Arpit Bhayani 👋

In my last ~9 years of experience, I have worked at D. E. Shaw, Practo, Amazon, and Unacademy; and have built systems, services, and platforms that scaled to billions.

Post my masters in CSE from IIIT Hyderabad I joined D. E. Shaw for a short stint of 2 months, before moving to Practo and working there as a Platform Engineer, building and owning close to 8 different microservices. Post Practo I worked at Amazon on their primary mission-critical E-Commerce Database and built Data Pipelines that cold tiered the stale data.

After quitting Amazon in 2018, I joined Unacademy as their first Technical Architect and there I designed, built, managed, and scaled services like Search, Notification, Logging, Deployment Engine, and many more. I have now transitioned into the role of a Sr. Engineering Manager, leading the Site Reliability vertical.

In January 2020, I started my newsletter where I write and share an essay about programming languages internals, deep dives on some super-clever algorithms, and few tips on building scalable distributed systems. The newsletter currently has close to 1200+ subscribers.

Join the waitlist

₹24,999 $399

YOU'LL GET

40 hours of Live Interactive Classes on Weekends

1:1 Personalized Mentorship on Weekdays

Multiple assignments and projects

Lifetime access to all the Curriculum Resources

Lifetime access to the Network and Community

Exclusive Freebies and Swags

Join the waitlist

What worked the best?

From the reviews and feedbacks I gathered, here are a few key things that worked for folks who took this course.

structured and well organised

quality and non-repetitive content

could ask question any time

open ended discussion

learning community

much more than blogs we find

What people say about this course?

Some testimonials from the people who took this course.

Ganesh Iyer March 2021

Course is awesome! Lots of incredible stuff packed in 8 weeks. Helped me crack Principal Engineer interview at Microsoft.

Aman Agarwal March 2021

A true masterclass with flavours of evolving solutions, interesting peer discussions. A great learning experience not just for interviews but for real. The openness to speak our mind out is the best part. #PaisaWasoolExperience

Tejas Agrawal March 2021

Had a super fun in learning how to learn and think system design. I am already using Arpit's teachings at my work, I dont think anything more needs to be said.

Rohan Chougule March 2021

It's easy to throw jargons and assume that a system can be built. But then keeping things simple and starting from the basics, the approach to be taken, taking baby steps and then heading towards a direction is indeed best taught by Arpit. Plus, his enthusiasm!

Who took this course?

Folks belonging to some of the best companies and high thriving startups have taken this course, the list includes the likes of

Frequently asked questions

You can always drop me an email at arpit.masterclass@gmail.com for other questions.

Is this course right for me?

This course is for any engineer who wants to learn System Design. The program is most suited to someone who has some industry experience, about 1-5 years.

Will you be giving teching for the entire duration?

Yes. I will be teaching the entire course live over Zoom and will be providing feedbacks and 1:1 mentorship.

Will there be a class every day?

The Live Classess will happen on Saturdays and Sundays 4-6pm IST with a possible extension of 30/45 mins.

Will there be a reserved slots for 1:1 mentorship?

1:1 mentorship calls will happen on-demand, just drop me a message a day prior and I will get our call scheduled.

Will there be assignments and hands-on projects?

Apart from Live Classess on weekends there will be multiple assignments and projects ensuring you apply what you learn. Unfortunately due to time constraints the evaluations of assignments is not possible, but I highly encourage you to implement all the assignments and seek help during 1:1 sessions.

Are assignments and projects mandatory?

No. But it is advisable that you complete them to get a better understanding of the system, algorithm and business logic.

Will we also implement and see the systems in action?

Due to time constraint it is not possible to implement every system; it is recommended that you self-implement the system and understand the low level details. Course although will cover systems from every aspect.

Will there be a recording available for future reference?

Every single Live Class will be recorded and you will be given lifetime access to it.

Is there a refund policy?

14 days (from the course commencement) is the window within which you can claim a full refund. No Questions Asked.

Where are the classes conducted?

All Live Classes will be online, over Zoom, and all you need is an internet connection to attend the live sessions.

Who you be the only one teaching this course?

The entire course including Live Classes will be conducted by me, Arpit Bhayani, no external TAs, mentors, etc. You will get to learn everything from the horse's mouth.

What are the programming pre-requisites?

You need to have work experience of 6 months at the least and a working knowledge of one language - either Python, Java, Golang, or NodeJS. Most of the exercises and assignments will be language agnostic but depending on the problem statement you may have to pick one over the other.

How is this course different from free videos on YouTube?

This cohort-based course aims to be live, intense, and interactive. Traditional MooCs (existing videos on the internet) cannot offer these benefits as are unidirectional and optimizes for one-to-many. With this course being live you can get instant resolution to your doubts. The discussion, collaboration, and networking will have a major impact on your overall learning as there will be cross-pollination of information.

If I have already watched System Design videos on YouTube, is this course still helpful?

Yes. The kind of depth which is touched in this System Design is unmatched. Even if you have watched all the System Design videos out there, you will still have moments that will blow your mind.

Will I be getting an invoice of Payment?

Yes. An invoice will be issued to you with all the legal and necessary details. This means your employer can choose to process this invoice and provide reimbursement.

The System Design Masterclass