“No fluff engineering” - This was the only quote I saw and I knew that I must join Arpit’s cohort. And trust me, the quote is true!

I know two types of Engineers - one who are passionate about their career and curious to learn and grow, the real doers who has made engineering products so valuable. Then there is this other category - I call them “Diwana’s” of engineering. They have got this love or craze for engineering, digging so passionately into stuff and seek this dopamine hit by engineering! They take engineering to heart. 

I am not here to categorise you or me in either of them, but I know for sure that both can benefit a lot from this cohort.

The cohort on System Design focuses on almost all the aspects of distributed systems in a very practical way. We have discussions and code examples on scalable design, concurrency, synchronous and asynchronous processing at scale, and also the protocols and design decisions in different scenarios. Arpit first gives a high level perspective and then we dig into the details so flawlessly, ending up designing an LSM tree, without even realising it. How cool is it ? :D

To keep things short, after my Masters in Distributed Systems Engineering, this was the place where I found the most clarified and organised knowledge base on large scale systems design. And, trust me I have grinded almost all the system design resources out there & can benchmark this course as great!

I would highly recommend freshers, mid-level and senior engineers to invest in yourself by joining this cohort.

Engineering is so beautiful. But, for you to see it, you must first look!

Before joining the course, I had been following Arpit on multiple platforms for more than a couple of years. I was already amazed and impressed by the quality content in depth and by Arpit's teaching style. Little did I know that I was in for a huge surprise. The first week was enough for me to realize that I have found the treasure I have been looking for a few years to learn and grow as an engineer. Looking back, I can clearly see that my engineering lenses are more clear than ever before.

Arpit, as a combination of a teacher and an engineer, is exemplary. I have never met an engineer like him before. He is great at keeping things simple and no fluff, and still manages to dive deep into each aspect of the system design. He actually did all of that for each and every design we discussed. His energy and thought process are contagious.

This cohort was the best thing happened to me in the last few years as an engineer. It feels like I have gained a few years of experience in the last 8 weeks only, and I have the roadmap ready for my learning and growth as an engineer for months. The right mix of Arpit's approach for each session, knowledge, explanations, handling of the live sessions and encouraging cohort members to share their experiences makes this course extraordinary. The cherry on the top is, the sessions end only after all questions are answered. The bonus is the recordings, which may not seem like a big deal initially, but are extremely necessary to grasp each concept and every detail Arpit has covered in the 50+ hours.

Now, when the course is completed, I will dearly miss the sessions on weekends. After going on and on for 8 weeks without taking any breaks, this feeling of missing the sessions speaks the volume of the quality and the aftereffect it left on every one of us, especially me.

I would encourage all mid/senior+ engineers to enroll for this course if you are looking to unlock your own potential for the system design and being a better version of yourself as an engineer. Based on this heavenly journey I experienced in the last 8 weeks, I feel that I have received the lifelong return, which is humongous in comparison to the investment made. Totally worth it!

I really loved the course and enjoyed being part of it. My heartfelt gratitude and respect to Arpit for designing this course exceptionally well and delivering much more than what I expected!

When I signed up for the course I came in with the expectation of learning different System Designs of various companies. Over the past 8 weeks I have come to realize on how to actually approach a problem. The way Arpit approached a System Design problem and how intuition based it can be, was truly eye opening.

Also I have come to realize how wonderful and vast the domain is. Also as Arpit mentions repeatedly in the course its not about drawing boxes, but understanding the context and actually approaching it from first principles.

Overall this course have made me fall in love with Engineering again and put me in a different trajectory that would help solve real world problems at whichever organization I work in.

PS: Arpit answered every question asked during the course and no question were left unanswered. That is truly commendable.

I've taken a few system design courses before, but they never really got into the nitty-gritty of implementation, where the real fun (and struggle) begins. System design is way more than just drawing boxes, and Arpit's course blew my mind :) Shoutout to my friend for recommending it – the cohort setup even got me to be a bit more disciplined (believe it or not)!

Arpit doesn't just talk about systems; he dives into the implementation details, the trade-offs involved, and the reasoning behind it all. It's not just about understanding existing systems; it's about levelling up your problem-solving skills for real-world design challenges.

The course format and Arpit's delivery were top-notch. I'm stoked that I caught every session live. Trust me, investing in this course was the best thing I did for my growth. You are an inspiration Arpit! Big thanks, for an awesome learning journey!

This course is the best investment I have made in my career!

I was looking for something which will actually help me upskill, gain knowledge and go deeper into things rather than talking about surface level things from interview point of view. Undoubtedly I got more than I had thought.

To be honest when I was looking for courses out there to learn System Design and to learn how things actually work in real world, I didn’t see much options and almost all of them were around Interview preparation

When I looked at the price of this course i.e. Rs 50,000 and compared it to other available options I thought it is 3-4 times of it and I asked myself will it be worth it. Today after going through this 2 months journey the answer is YES! it was completely worth it.

“The worth of good knowledge cannot be measured” Thanks a ton Arpit for the Knowledge and the learnings!

Working in the industry for just over three years, I had become complacent about the technologies around me and took their implementation for granted. What worked for me was Arpit reigniting my curiosity to delve deeper into the hows and whys of any system, library, or algorithm and think of them from a first principles perspective.

From high-level system design of "drawing boxes" to diving into SQL-level queries , connecting the tech with real-life business usecases,and then literally jumping into the IDE to code it out and see it run flawlessly. It was a cocktail of learnings.

I'm glad I signed up for this cohort. I will be using the insights and intuitions I've gained in my future endeavors. Thanks again, Arpit, for bringing this quality to the Indian tech space.

Masterclass on System Design By Arpit was extremely good. It definitely re-ignited the engineering curiosity. It was completely practical where each and every session was packed with extremely good content and lot of hands-on topics were covered. Right from Connection pooling, Load Balancer, LSM Trees, CDNs, Consistent Hashing, Distributed Task Scheduler and so on. I was honestly excited for the weekends mainly for these sessions. Not only with respect to explaining the concepts, Arpit did a great job in clarifying all the questions. Though the sessions were scheduled for 3 hours, there was not even one class which would end at that time :).

Arpit gave a lot of real-time examples for each concept which helped in coming up with more options to solve the problem. Instead of giving the solution directly, he used to probe us which helped us in thinking in the right direction. The ultimate joy came from the fact that individuals tried implementing the prototype and seeing the results.

With the depth at which Arpit covered the concepts, it became really easy to design any systems. Arpit's cohort is a hidden gem among all other youtube videos which simply considers a theoretical approach which may not work in the long run. Few takeaways from this course which I will use in my day to day work are:

1. Business >> Product >> Engineering
2. Framework of Opposites - Choosing one option and considering exactly opposite of it.
3. Design anything considering that ONLY i will be implementing it.
4. Instead Simply going through a tutorial video or a link, trying to implement it which shows the actual nuances associated.

I would extremely recommend every Senior Engineer/ Architects out there to take up this course.

I had two main goals when I decided to register for Arpit's videos: a) to identify gaps in my knowledge, and b) to gain insight into how staff engineers approach designing a wide array of systems. I can confidently say that both of my goals were met. If your aim is solely to pass engineering interviews, this testimonial may not be particularly helpful, and you might be better off with crash courses and prescribed books. However, after reaching a certain level, simply regurgitating the same information as every other engineer won't take you much further. Here's what I gained from Arpit's course:

• Arpit summarizes complex research papers exceptionally well. Simply knowing these papers exist was extremely helpful in navigating unfamiliar territories. I was able to organize my learning in such a way that whenever I'm curious about a system, I can now search for the most relevant research paper highlighting generic patterns.

• The patterns he explains are quite portable and mirror how real systems are actually designed. Having some relevant experience under my belt before watching his videos made them even more applicable to my work. If you're a few years into your career, you'll likely find his videos particularly helpful for practical application.

• The course covers variety of topics; if you are looking to just watch for interviews (I recommend not :-)), even then there's enough breadth in both product architecture and infrastructure.

• He encourages you to think critically about your exact database queries. It's easy to gloss over queries, but actually writing them down forces us to think harder and more precisely.

• Even though I purchased the videos, listening to others' questions were helpful, as more often than not, the doubts we have are shared by others and get addressed.

Before I joined the cohort, my mood was low to put it mildly. But just the first week was enough to lift my spirits. Looking back, I couldn’t have picked a better time to join. This course helped me shake off the fear of coding the unknown. Now, I look forward to these extremely engaging and intense sessions every week.

Arpit has an amazing knack for breaking down big, complex systems into concrete, repeatable patterns. His years of dedication and extreme passion towards designing scalable distributed systems really show. For me, the best part and USP of the course is Arpit’s unique ability to break down and demonstrate how the core fundamental patterns that drive the most complex systems can be built in just a few hours to a couple of days, all with minimal setup or infrastructure. This practical, hands-on approach made the concepts highly relatable and achievable, significantly boosting my confidence and enthusiasm.

The cohort felt super relatable and had a very high engagement because the focus was on designing practical, real-world systems with a strong bias towards user and business empathy. Most of us connected with the real-world constraints and had our own backstories to share. Arpit managed to bring together highly motivated people with top-notch expertise, sparking intense and high-quality discussions.

As we near the end of the cohort, I feel highly motivated to further my expertise in the area of distributed and scalable systems. For me, this course rates right at the top. It’s at least a 100X return on your investment of money and time.

What a delight it from Arpit who shared his practical experience and discussed in detail pros and cons of each approach via building intuition. Such a relevant stuff it was and there was definitely no fluff in it.

I feel more confident than ever in taking part in discussions related to system design, I think of all cases, cost, engineering complexity, user experience while implementing solution.

Best part is years of experience is condensed and shared by Arpit, how he handled things, most common things we should consider and what not.

If someone wants to take deep dive into designing systems from intermediate to professional, this is the best investment you got to make. Arpit helps by building intuition on how to solve common to complex product problem using engineering. It is not about just using fancy terms like distributed, cloud and whatnot but rather understanding on hardware level how it will impact not just engineering but business revenue.

Again, amazing course love the sessions, content, how it was represented, practical experience in implementing stuff and long AMA at the end brought so many interesting insights from everyone.

I would highly recommend taking this course, it is not only fun and engaging but it changes your way of thinking and approaching a new system by looking at the tradeoffs, crunching the numbers and putting yourself in your users' shoes.

In my timezone the course would start at 6:30 am and each morning i would wake-up with peak excitement because i would know i will be part in a bunch of interesting design discussions and debates.

Arpit's passion and excitement is contagious, after the sessions with him i would rediscover the joy of coding for fun again, he makes every complicated topic seem so easy that you think to yourself: "hmm would never have thought i would have the competence and confidence to implement an LFU strategy on O(1) time or a load balancer, yet after the session with Arpit i feel motivated to give it a try"

Arpit, you are an exceptional teacher. The way you have fostered our intuition over these 8 weeks is truly commendable. I've learned to recognize patterns, and as you often say, it's just copy-paste from there!

Being part of this cohort has been such a fun experience, and I found myself eagerly looking forward to the weekends because of it. The effort you have put into building this course is evident in the quality of the content we've discussed.

Not only have you helped me develop intuition, but you've also ignited a curiosity in me to explore further. Now, I read and research more before making any design decisions, and I find myself understanding technical papers more easily.

I can't thank you enough for your hard work and for always resolving our queries by the end of the day. Thank you so much for everything you do—your dedication is truly inspiring.

This year I completed the beginner course and rewatched the advanced lectures. I had stumbled upon your course by chance. The "No fluff" tag caught my attention, at a time when I was hungry for asli engineering discussions. I signed up and the course exceeded my expectations.

Thank you so much for putting such high quality content out there, for making it accurate and simple to grasp! Thank you for being encouraging, and for making the course discussion-based which made us think and not just consume! I have learnt a lot from your courses and videos - so much so that I have been getting appreciative comments on my knowledge, in system design discussions with peers. The content and your palpable passion in sharing it with the world reinstilled in me the inspiration, which had made me pursue computer science as a career in the first place - it reminded me of the joy in learning, understanding, and building systems with real world impact.

Thank you for all your efforts in teaching and inspiring! Hoping to keep in touch and continue learning from you. 🙂

I have done a couple of system design courses on Udemy and watched a bunch on YouTube as well, but none of them are even close to this.

What differentiates this course from the rest,

1. This course focuses on how to develop the intuition instead of question-answer type
2. It also highlights on how to think about businesses and product which is a very essential quality for Senior Engineers
3. The discussion doesn't start with different boxes/services already drawn and then explaining what each box does. We start with our basic intuition of how our system looks on Day 0 and then we understand what would be a problem with this design when we scale and then try to address each of them.
4. Discussions aren't about how to design Instagram, Cricbuzz, or E-Commerce but rather focus on a specific problem and then discuss deep on that. Ex: Image upload service, Flash sale, commentary for live match etc
5. We also realize how easy it is to prototype what we have learnt

One can understand how much passion and depth Arpit goes in his YouTube videos as well

Previously, I had a fixed mindset regarding how I was going to tackle any system design question. Start with the functional and non-functional requirements, do some back-of-the-hand calculations to depict the scale of the system, start drawing boxes for application servers, load balancers, queues, and databases. While this approach works most of the time for cracking a few interview rounds, Arpit’s course forces you to ditch this conventional thought process and makes you dive deeper into systems and their actual implementations.

This course definitely is a goldmine not only in terms of the content but most importantly, how it sparks curiosity within you to think of system designs beyond just interviews.

1. This course will teach you how to build a solution for any system from the ground up with the right intuition and thought process.
2. Arpit has very smartly covered almost all the fundamental systems out there so that any new system can be easily built on top of it. “Just mix and match”.
3. One particular thing I liked about the course was the prototypes he created to explain the concepts. I mean it’s one thing to know the concept and completely different to see it live in action. Kudos for putting in the efforts to make the course more engaging.
4. If you were ever curious about how systems like the Flash sale, Cricbuzz commentary, Cricket live feed (My favourite discussion) work, look no further because these discussions will literally make you admire how awesome engineering truly is.

A course is only as good as the instructor and Surprise!! Surprise!! Arpit is too good at the teaching part as well. You can sense the enthusiasm and curiosity in his way of teaching as well. He would patiently answer all the questions asked even though the class duration was well past 4 hours. He is open to new ideas and solutions and doesn’t make you feel any lesser even for a bit.

Any senior engineer looking to make an impact at their workplace or waiting for that engineering spark to be reignited again, this course is a must! Thank you for proving that true engineering is well beyond interviews. "SUPERB!"

This was the first one of the kind Cohort that I enrolled in. The way Arpit teaches is fabulous. I would say it is not even a teaching but feels more like an actual discussion that would go into an engineer's day-to-day life. He carries total empathy for a learner. The depth and details he carries in everything he says are fantastic. All the doubts and discussions will have an answer from Arpit. Folks tuning in to every cohort have the brightest minds, and the way discussion happens in cohort with Arpit along with such minds, is just a treat to experience.

What I loved the most was brainstorming sessions. It's never a monologue from Arpit. Sometimes we start to build and would never ever feel that we might be building something so big in just one half of the cohort's session, that too with proper brainstorming from people. The way he helps people to start dissecting the problem; feels like he is just showing the light, others are building the system unknowingly, and feels amazing after we see the output. The way he sparks the decision-making processes helps to build the right intuition, goes deep into the details, and picks every bit and piece of the system is just fantastic. It makes the session the most engaging.

You will get the hands-on experience of picking the simplicity of the system, importance of knowing the basics and other concepts in engineering, and dealing with the tradeoffs of every technology, and mostly the intuition-building

If I have to point out the learnings, they are something like this; and I believe most of the other people in the cohort would agree with me on this;

• Simple systems scale.
• Always prototype and implement.
• System design is like Lego blocks; you just have to place the right component in the right place, and it's not something that will be correct in the first iteration.
• Know the basics and concepts, then just pick it up and place it; you'll build crazy stuff.
• And probably the best: you get some, you lose some. Not a single system exists that can do everything.

This is not an ordinary system design cohort, you will ACTUALLY build systems that scale; for millions of users. And no joy is more than seeing it work.

Arpit is undoubtedly one of the best engineers I've seen in my life. Started following his content on youtube quite a few months back and really liked the way he dives deep on interesting core topics. That brought me to his System Design Masterclass course. The initial Indian mindset made me contemplate on the price of the course but boy oh boy! I'm not regretting even a single bit for what the course was priced at! :)

This is a goldmine of content and as I say, if not all, most who have taken the course would agree that Arpit has truly sparked the engineering curiosity. He offers incredible value in what he teaches. Not exaggerating but I've had "wow" moments in every single class.

Arpit's credentials in engineering is as good as it comes. He is a seasoned pro and it shows in every session, the love and passion for engineering and his craft. With just 3 years of experience, when I entered the course, I was blown away in the first week itself. A serious eye opener for me into building systems for scale.

Arpit has curated the syllabus very beautifully and paces it really well. I'd really suggest to take the interactive live cohort rather than buying the compiled course cause live sessions are just something else! Its truly interactive. Almost every system is built by brainstorming with the folks in the cohort and Arpit helps converge to the right intuition and idea going step by step from scratch, questioning every decision made from the problem statement, design and implementation perspectives in depth. In short by the end of each system design you have the entire design laid out to you in which you understand the purpose of every component used, what it solves for and why this and not anything else, cause you were part of a lengthy discussion that arrived to it. Truly awesome stuff!

Its not only theory or surface level, he emphasizes so much on building prototypes for the concepts and systems we build in the cohort and he does a code walkthrough and explains his prototypes to show that its not hard to build prototypes. This also solidifies your understanding in the concept better as you often uncover interesting challenges when implementing. You also get access to a community and many great folks in the cohort. I felt like the dumbest person in the cohort and absolutely loved that cause there was so much to learn every time.

His patience and love for the work he does is so admirable and inspiring. Once the session is done he is open to taking and answering questions for however long it takes. Does not shy away or asks to stop asking questions after each session. I've seen this QnA sessions go for so long and he doesn't even flinch or calls quits. Massive respect for this Arpit!

Overall one of the best investments I've made in myself for my career.

I thank Arpit for this brilliant cohort and would 100% recommend it to anyone who has some experience in the field and looking to scale up to be senior engineer wanting to build systems the right way.

Don't miss out folks!

"The Best Real World System Design" course in market right now.

Arpit touches upon some really interesting areas in system design. He doesn't just draw the boxes, he really focuses on the implementation details of the system. For example,

• what query you would use to build this system and how would you optimise it step by step as per your requirement.
• How you deal with tradeoffs.
• What is the order in which the execution should happen. What race conditions we might land up into.
• How to simplify your constraints like we do in real world No Magic.

He explained and "actually discussed" so many different designs in a period of 2 months. Hats off man.

He actually focuses a lot on building your intuition. I would Highly recommend this course to anyone who is looking for building the intuition and not just the theory.

Arpit is a great guide, his passion for learning and making others learn as well is remarkable. I had been following his YouTube videos for long and the way he approached and explained problems motivated me to take this course.

For sure, it's been one of the best decisions. Few principles that he emphasizes on have been key take aways for me [other than building the intuition around taking technical design decisions of course].

1.Simple systems scale best -never over complicate 2. Database is the most brittle component of your system, design it cautiously 3. While designing you always gain some you lose some, you need to decide the best tradeoff for your system. 4. There are always multiple ways of doing things, whenever you think of reactive approach think of proactive as well and vice versa, some scenarios might be best fit in completely contrasting scenarios of your previous design decision. 5. Be self-critic of your design and question every design decision taken to converge to best design.

Somehow, we might be knowing these but how beautifully applying them affected our decisions at every step just ingrained it further.

Before taking this course i went through some comments and feedback for this course out of which 90% were positive however there was one of the comments which stated him as "self-proclaimed industry expert" -to this one i would say he definitely is an expert in what he is teaching and that can be acclaimed by anyone taking this course.

So, I would highly recommend this cohort for anyone who wants to understand how real-world systems work and actively participate in the discussions. Other than live cohort the recorded learning course will be equally helpful for people who want to absorb the concepts at their own pace.

• The brainstorming sessions were amazing, with all of us walking through the system we were designing. The laser-sharp focus on one specific thing at a time made the process so much easier to follow.
• Always ensuring that details like schema design are part of the process, not an afterthought of designing a system, helps catch potential issues during design time. As engineers, we love compile-time errors way more than runtime ones.
• Arpit has a great understanding of core computer science principles, which he shares openly with everyone. His unwavering focus on building intuition for everyone on how to design systems truly sets his course apart, in my opinion. I feel that this intuition will help engineers in many situations, not just in designing systems.
• Throughout the course, he always answered everyone's questions, regardless of how long the session went on.
• The pre-reads and post-reads he shared each week were very well curated.
• He encouraged prototyping throughout the course. For me, the exercises he shared were a great way to get back to prototyping again. I really enjoyed building them and even ended up exploring further.

I would highly recommend the course to anyone who wants to build the skills to approach designing systems from first principles. Lastly, I would like to say that Arpit absolutely loves engineering and puts in great effort to make the course an awesome experience for everyone involved.

I am absolutely thrilled to share my experience with Arpit System Design Cohort. Participating in this program has been a transformative journey that has enriched my understanding of system design concepts and elevated my skills as a software engineer.

From the very beginning, Arpit's passion for system design and his expertise in the field were evident. His well-structured curriculum and engaging teaching style made complex topics seem approachable and understandable. Arpit's ability to break down intricate design principles into digestible chunks ensured that I never felt overwhelmed.

One of the standout features of this cohort was the emphasis on hands-on learning. Through numerous real-world case studies and practical exercises, I had the opportunity to apply the theoretical knowledge to actual system design scenarios. This experiential learning aspect truly solidified my understanding of the concepts and boosted my confidence in tackling real-world design challenges.

I cannot recommend this Cohort enough for anyone looking to enhance their system design skills. Whether you are a seasoned software engineer or just starting your journey, this program will undoubtedly take your design abilities to new heights. Thank you, Arpit, for your dedication and expertise in guiding us through this enriching experience!

All aspiring programmers who crave to build scalable, lasting distributed systems should attend this program. Arpit always nudges us to be hands-on writing code during the course. He helped in inculcating the process of breaking the problem to minutest bit which make us focus on the crux ignoring the surrounding fluff and go and solve for it. The breadth of coverage is quite comprehensive from CDNs, to storage systems, to caching, to databases, to networking the entire gamut of technology spectrum is given a time slice in the course.

Personally for me this course changed the outlook & perspective of how I view systems and problems. I used to be overwhelmed while dealing with complex microservices. Now I feel this course hast helped me to build a muscle of intuition on how systems are built. This hunch/intuition is driving me now to simplifying solutions, instead of adding boxes to the system, I am striving to build systems which are simple and intuitive.

Kudos Arpit, you are a rockstar & inspirational.