My favorite courses to learn Software Architecture in 2024 — Best of Lot
These are the best courses to learn Software architecture and become a solution architect in 2024
Every Programmer wants to grow in their career, but it’s not easy, and if you don’t pay attention to your job, you will likely stay in the same position for many years. The growth in the initial few years is generally fast. Still, once you reach the barrier of 5 years, you need to decide which direction you want to move like — people management, product management, or software architecture.
For tech guys, who don’t want to go on people and product management, software architecture or solution architecture is the final position, which is not surprising.
If you want to be close with coding and technical discussions, like to try new technologies and want to use them in your organization to solve a challenging problem, software architecture is an excellent position to be in.
Most of the Java developers I have met or interacted with wanted to become software architects, though only a few succeed, and most of them are still either technical leads or Senior Software developers.
But, the big question is, how does a senior developer become a software architect? What books or courses you can look forward to learning the skills a Software or Solution architect should have? It’s also one of the most common questions I receive from my reader, apart from how to prepare for Java interviews.
To help you with this question and to answer many such questions from my readers, I’ll share a few online courses you can take to learn more about Software Architecture and how to become a software architect.
In the past, I have shared a couple of books you can read to learn some software architecture skills, and these courses will supplement whatever you have learned from them. You can also use these courses and those books to get the best of both worlds.
Top 10 Courses to become Software Architect in 2024
As I have said, a Software architect position is not a comfortable position. The architect is responsible for all technology decisions in the project and also has a significant role.
You need to know a lot of things, not just the technology but also the business. You should not only be familiar with general software architecture, design, coding, and programming best practices, but also with the latest technologies, libraries, and framework and knows their pros and cons to choosing the right technology for your solution.
In these few courses, I have tried to include most of the things you need to learn in Software Architecture, but this list is by no means complete, and I am keen to get some suggestions from some of the experienced Software Architects who come across this article.
Anyway, without any further ado, here is my list of some of the best online courses to learn Software Architecture and become a Solution Architect or Software Architect.
1. Software Architecture on Coursera
When it comes to online learning, Coursera is one of the reputed websites and also one of my favorite places along with Udemy and Pluralsight. It has some of the best courses on machine learning, Algorithms, and Software Architecture, and this is one of them.
In this course, you will learn how to represent a software architecture using visual tools like UML, which is very important to communicate the architecture with shareholders as well as developers who will implement it.
You will also learn some of the standard architectures, their qualities, and their tradeoffs. The course also talks about how designs are evaluated, what makes a good architecture, and architecture can be improved.
And the best part of the course is that you will do some hands-on practice in the last module by documenting a Java-based Android application (Capstone Project) with UML diagrams and analyzing evaluate the application’s architecture using the Architecture Tradeoff Analysis Method (ATAM).
And, if you find Coursera courses useful, which they are because they are created by reputed companies and universities around the world, I suggest you join the Coursera Plus, a subscription plan from Coursera which gives you unlimited access to their most popular courses, specialization, professional certificate, and guided projects. It cost around $399/year but its complete worth of your money as you get unlimited certificates.
2. How To Become An Outstanding Solution Architect
This is another excellent and must-take course for all the programmers who aspire to become software architect. In this course, instructor Mark Farragher will teach you all the skills you need to become an outstanding solution architect.
He will not only teach you how to create an excellent architecture design but also show you all the soft skills you will need to really shine in this role and make an impression on your peers. This is extremely important as you need to do a lot of talking and probably need to interact with most of the people in the organization, including CEO and CTO.
This course also covers how a Software Architect or Solution Architect operates in an IT team, which soft skills are required to become an outstanding architect, and which extra responsibilities you can take on to really make an impression on your peers.
Talking about technical skill, the course will teach you how to create high architectures, explain common architecture design patterns, and shows how to design these patterns in UML.
It also covers what to look at architecture, both high and low levels, like caching, exception management, and deployment scenarios. In short, an excellent course for all programmer and senior developer who wants to become Solution Architect.
3. Basics of Software Architecture & Design Patterns in Java
This course is a more low level than the previous two sessions and talks about software architecture and design patterns, somewhat more concrete things than abstract design.
The course uses Java programming language to solve problems, which is great for Java developers. Still, the theoretical background is language-independent and useful for all programmers irrespective of their programming languages.
I highly recommend coding out the implementations several times on your own to get a good grasp of them.
It also covers things like SOLID principles and design patterns, which are vital for any good architecture and robust application.
4. Developer to Architect [Best Pluralsight Course]
This is another fantastic course for all programmer who wants to become a software architect. In this course, you will learn what the role of a software architect in a team and organization is and why it is so important.
You will learn about the skills and knowledge required to become a competent software architect and responsibility during each phase of the software development and project life cycle.
Lastly, you will learn one of the most important aspects of being a solution architect: how to design and communicate a solution to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
In short, this course is your roadmap to becoming a capable and successful software architect. Even if you are a software architect, you can also take this course to further hone your soft skills. If you need more resources, you can also check out this list of books to improve your Soft Skills as a Programmer and Developer.
5. Clean Architecture: Patterns, Practices, and Principles
This is another excellent Pluralsight course on Software Architecture. In this course, you will learn about Clean Architecture, if you think what a clean architecture is, it’s nothing but a set of modern patterns, practices, and principles for creating a software architecture that is simple, understandable, flexible, testable, and maintainable.
There is a lot of focus on an organization to write Clean Code and create Clean Architecture, and this course will help you in that direction.
This is an introductory course, which means no prerequisites for this course. However, having essential experience with at least one the C like a programming language, and basic knowledge of software architecture is beneficial.
It’s totally different from the Clean Architecture book by Uncle Bob, which is also a worth reading book for programmers who wants to become software architect.
By the way, you would need a Pluralsight membership to join this course, which costs around $29 per month or $299 per year (14% discount). If you don’t have this plan, I highly recommend joining as it boosts your learning and as a programmer, you always need to learn new things.
Alternatively, you can also use their 10-day-free-trial to watch this course for FREE.
6. Grokking the System Design Interview
This is one of my favorite courses when it comes to learning Software Design or System design. It’s created to prepare you for the System design interview, but you can also use it to learn how to approach System design in general.
The Grokking the System Design Interview, is one of the first courses (or book) that describes the Large Scale Distributed System Design problems in detail. Even if you’ve worked on Distributed Systems before, there are a lot of things that you can learn from this course.
Here is the link to join this course — Grokking the System Design Interview
The authors have created this course to provide you with design choices(including pros and cons) so that you can understand the requirement, compare approaches, and come up with the best solution for the problem at hand.
They are also mindful not to provide a solution at a granularity that’s appropriate for a 45-minute discussion. This makes the course very interesting.
Even if you are not preparing for Coding interviews, I suggest you take this course to improve your System design skills. Big thanks to The Educative Team and Fahim ul Haq for creating this awesome course.
7. Web Application & Software Architecture 101
This is another excellent course from Educative to learn about Web application architecture. In this course, you will learn about different architectural styles like monolith, microservices, client-server, 3-tier architecture, decentralized peer-to-peer architecture, and how requests and data move in web applications.
You will also learn about how to think big and think in terms of layers, performance, scalability, and high availability, which is a must for today’s application.
The course not only introduces the different architectural pattern but also explains the pros and cons of each approach and walk you through a different scenario where a particular architecture is more suitable than others.
Here is the link to join the course — Web Application & Software Architecture 101
To be honest with you, this is the best course for not only senior developers but also every software developer out there as it will expand your thinking process and will you make a more confident web developer. There is a significant discount on the course now, and it’s available for just $44, the original price $79, it’s a bit expensive for them Udemy courses but worth it.
On the other hand, if you like Educative as a platform, you can also buy a subscription for just $17 per month (50% discount), I have one, and I highly recommend you to get one.
8. Master the Coding Interview: System Design + Architecture
If you are looking for a bootcamp style System Design course to quickly refresh all essential System design concepts then this course from ZTM academy is the best one to start with.
This is a comprehensive System Design course that aims to guide aspiring developers in advancing their careers and becoming Senior Software Engineers or Developers at top tech companies. Taught by industry expert Yihua, who has real-world experience working for major tech companies, this online course offers invaluable insights and insider tips for mastering system design.
The course focuses on developing a mental framework to think like a Senior Software Engineer, enabling students to analyze their work from a system design perspective.
It covers various aspects, including evaluating different components and technologies in web applications, understanding considerations and trade-offs in building applications, and using the right system design and architecture to arrive at optimal solutions.
What sets Master the Coding Interview: System Design + Architecture course by Zero to Mastery apart from other system design courses is its emphasis on seeing the bigger picture and executing on it. It goes beyond low-level coding and encourages students to understand the broader system they are a part of, fostering a deeper comprehension of the “why” behind their work.
By providing a problem-solving framework and practical knowledge gained from Yihua’s industry experience, the course empowers students to become better problem solvers and programmers.
Overall, one of the best online course to not just master System design concepts but also crack coding interviews on top tech companies and also progress to become senior software engineer.
Here is the link to join this course — Master the Coding Interview: System Design + Architecture
Btw, you would need a ZTM membership to watch this course which costs around $39 per month but also provides access to many super engaging and useful courses like this Python course. You can also use my code FRIENDS10 to get a 10% discount on any subscription you choose.
9. Software Architecture & Design of Modern Large Scale Systems
If you are looking for an online course to learn about how to design modern large scale systems then this Udemy course is for you. If you want to become a Software Architect or Technical Lead in 2024 then the “Software Architecture & Design of Modern Large Scale Systems” course is a great starting point.
Created by Michael Pogrebinsky, a Java and System design expert and a Software architect, this course is one of the Udemy bestseller and have a stellar rating of 4.7 out of 5 from 5,267 ratings, this course is curated for individuals aspiring to master software architecture, system design, and big data processing.
The course covers critical aspects such as designing large-scale systems capable of handling millions of requests daily, creating highly scalable and available software systems, and applying industry-proven architectural patterns and best practices.
Here is the link to join this course — Software Architecture & Design of Modern Large Scale Systems
10. Grokking the System Design Interview on Design Guru
System design is a critical component for software archicture and this is one of my favorite System design course which was earlier available on Educative but now its moved exclusively on Designguru.io. This site is created by Arslan Ahmad , a former software engineer @ Facebook, Microsoft, Hulu and writer.
This course not only give you solution of popular System design questions like how to design a chat system like WhatsApp or how to design a URL shortener but also a complete System Design template on how to approach and solve a system design problem.
Apart from that its an interactive course where you can practice online right on your browser and it also got community support, but the best thing I liked about this course is the real case studies on various system design problem That’s the real gem of this course.
It also helped that creator of this course is people have not only worked in FAANG companies but also have unique opportunity to be as a candidate as well as hiring manager so not only they know what to ask but also how to answer.
In short, its one of the best place to learn system design and if you want to crack your system design interview with confidence, you should checkout this course. Here is a also a nice system deign template or cheat sheet you can checkout from them
That’s all about some of the best online courses to learn Software architecture and become a Software Architect or Solution Architect. As I have said, the role of a Software architect is significant, and he also needs to do a lot of talking, hence not just subject matter and technologies, he also needs to be good at soft skills.
It’s a gratifying career, both in terms of pay and work, as you get a lot of limelight and get to talk to both higher and lower levels in your organization like from CEO to Developers, and know most of the things about your application and solution.
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Thanks for reading this article so far. If you found these courses useful in becoming a software architect or learning software architecture, please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback, then please drop a note. cc
P.S. — If you are looking for a free course to learn Java design patterns, which are also crucial for Software architects, then you can also check out Java Design Patterns and Architecture course on Udemy. It’s completely free and has loads of useful information on using design patterns for Java programmers.
