With AI you are already making design decisions.

Courses I-IV: Build the judgment to know if what the AI built is any good.

Courses I through IV teach you what real systems like Instagram, Stripe, and Netflix are made of, using the same seven building blocks.

Read the 7 free articles

Course 0 is the $99 on-ramp: it teaches you to command an AI agent on real work. Courses I-IV then build the judgment to evaluate what it built.

What's inside, per course

The same shape, four times: video lessons, two hands-on labs, feedback on your answers, one design challenge.

Course I

The Seven Building Blocks

The foundation: the seven parts every system is actually made of, and the three outside forces that act on them (people, other companies' services, and time). You learn them by designing a link shortener from MVP through viral growth to monetization.

  • 8 video lessons
  • 2 interactive labs
  • Written feedback on your design decisions
  • A 3-part design challenge
Course II

Content Systems

Instagram, Netflix, YouTube: the read-heavy systems everyone uses. Five progressive case studies, from a blog to semantic search.

  • 10 video lessons
  • 2 interactive labs
  • 5 case studies
  • Written feedback on your design decisions
  • A 3-part design challenge
Course III

Real-Time Systems

Slack, Discord, WhatsApp: systems where milliseconds matter. Five progressive case studies, from a social feed to AI chatbots to video conferencing.

  • 11 video lessons
  • 2 interactive labs
  • 5 case studies
  • Written feedback on your design decisions
  • A 3-part design challenge
Course IV

Business & Transaction Systems

Stripe, Shopify, Salesforce: systems where a wrong design is a double charge. Four progressive case studies, from e-commerce to dynamic pricing to peer-to-peer payments.

  • 9 video lessons
  • 2 interactive labs
  • 4 case studies
  • Written feedback on your design decisions
  • A 3-part design challenge

Preview each course

The public overview video for each course, so you know what you're getting before you buy.

Course I: The Seven Building Blocks

Course II: Content Systems

Course III: Real-Time Systems

Course IV: Business & Transaction Systems

You do not study one system. You study fifteen, grouped by course, and the same seven blocks explain every one of them.

Blog platform Video streaming (Netflix-style) Photo gallery (Instagram-style) Search engine AI-enhanced search Social feed (eventual consistency) Collaborative documents (Google Docs-style) Messaging apps (Slack, WhatsApp-style) AI chatbots Video conferencing (Zoom-style) Link shortener (high-performance utilities) Online store (Shopify-style) Auction marketplace (real-time bidding) Dynamic pricing (Uber-style) Social payment (Venmo-style, peer-to-peer)
The Proof

In Anthropic's trial, the AI group scored 17 points lower on a quiz about their own code. That quiz also measured debugging, code reading, and the judgment call on whether AI-written code follows the right design patterns. That's what Courses I through IV teach: the seven building blocks as the vocabulary for judging what the AI built.

A CHI 2026 study of ten junior and ten senior engineers found the same shape from the other side: seniors keep control by arriving with a plan and delegating only what fits, while juniors on unfamiliar code swing between over-reliance and avoidance. (Feng, Yun, Wang, "From Junior to Senior," CHI 2026.)

Taught at UC Berkeley.
$299, one bundle. All four courses, lifetime access.

Questions

Who is this for?

Engineers who already ship code with an AI agent and want to know whether the design underneath it holds up.

Do I need Course 0 first?

No. Either order works. Course 0 teaches you to command an AI agent on real work; Courses I-IV teach you the seven building blocks, so you can tell a good design from one that will break. Most people take Course 0 first, then Courses I-IV, but nothing here requires it.

What kind of feedback do I get?

You submit your own design decisions for each case study, and you get feedback on the decisions you actually made: which ones held up, and which ones a senior engineer would have questioned.

How long do I have, and what order do I take them in?

Lifetime access. The courses are self-paced: work through them on your own schedule, Course I first, then II, III, and IV in order.

What if it's not for me?

A 7-day money-back guarantee on every course purchase. If you're not satisfied with the course content, you may request a full refund within 7 days of your purchase. After that window, the sale is final.