**For:** experienced engineers building toward staff-level architecture. You already build production systems. This curriculum teaches you to *design* them.

Join the path to enroll in courses — they unlock in order as you finish each one.

Software Architecture Media Track #

Companion to: SOFTWARE_ARCHITECTURE_MASTERY_CURRICULUM.md Purpose: Conference talks, YouTube channels, podcasts, and documentaries paired to each module. Watch during break weeks, commutes, or when you need a different format to let ideas settle.

Last updated: April 30, 2026

How to Use This File #

One talk per break week. Between major modules, watch 1-2 talks to bridge what you just learned with what comes next.
Podcasts during commutes. Subscribe to 2-3 podcasts and listen passively. The ideas compound.
YouTube channels for depth. When a concept from the books does not click, search these channels for visual explanations.
Mood tags: Each entry is tagged with a mood — (Inspiring), (Technical), (Philosophical), (Practical), (Cautionary) — to help you pick based on where you are mentally.

Module 0: Code Quality & Craft #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Sandi Metz: All the Little Things (RailsConf 2014)	Talk	39 min	Inspiring	The best talk on code design ever given. Gilded Rose kata as architecture lesson. Watch first.
Kent Beck: Tidy First? (GOTO 2023)	Talk	45 min	Philosophical	The author explains the economics of tidying code. When to clean up, when to leave alone.
DHH: Writing Software (RailsConf 2014)	Talk	38 min	Philosophical	DHH's argument against TDD dogma and for software writing as craft. Controversial, important.
Uncle Bob: Clean Code (multiple versions)	Talk	60 min	Technical	Robert Martin's clean code lecture. Agree or disagree, you need to know the arguments.
Rich Hickey: Simple Made Easy (Strange Loop 2011)	Talk	61 min	Philosophical	The distinction between "simple" and "easy." Changes how you evaluate code complexity. Essential.

Module 1: Design Principles & SOLID #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Sandi Metz: SOLID Object-Oriented Design (GORUCO 2009)	Talk	40 min	Technical	Sandi explains SOLID better than Martin. Ruby examples.
Sandi Metz: Nothing is Something (RailsConf 2015)	Talk	35 min	Inspiring	Null Object pattern, composition over inheritance, and why "nothing" is always something in OO design.
Jim Weirich: SOLID Ruby (Ruby Hoedown 2009)	Talk	50 min	Technical	The late Jim Weirich on SOLID in Ruby. Practical, warm, deeply knowledgeable.
Fred George: Programmer Anarchy	Talk	50 min	Cautionary	What happens when you take principles to their extreme. Fascinating case study.

Module 2: Design Patterns #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Christopher Okhravi: Design Patterns playlist	YouTube Series	15-25 min each	Technical	The best video explanations of each GoF pattern. Watch alongside Head First.
Russ Olsen: Design Patterns in Ruby (RubyConf)	Talk	45 min	Practical	Patterns translated to Ruby idioms. Blocks as Strategy, method_missing as proxy.
Sandi Metz: Polly Want a Message (RailsConf 2018)	Talk	43 min	Inspiring	Beyond patterns — message-driven design. How objects should talk to each other.
Derek Banas: Design Patterns playlist	YouTube Series	10-20 min each	Technical	Quick visual explanations. Good for review after reading.

Module 3: Refactoring & Legacy Code #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Sandi Metz: Get a Whiff of This (RailsConf 2016)	Talk	38 min	Practical	Code smells as decision-making framework. How to identify what to refactor.
Katrina Owen: Therapeutic Refactoring (Cascadia Ruby 2012)	Talk	27 min	Inspiring	Refactoring as practice, not just fix. Step-by-step transformation of messy code.
Martin Fowler: Workflows of Refactoring (OOP 2014)	Talk	26 min	Technical	The author of Refactoring on when and how to refactor. Preparatory, comprehension, and long-term.
Michael Feathers: Working Effectively with Legacy Code (talk)	Talk	60 min	Practical	The author summarizes the key ideas. Seams, characterization tests, breaking dependencies.

Module 4: Domain-Driven Design #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Eric Evans: What I've Learned About DDD Since the Book (DDD Europe 2019)	Talk	50 min	Philosophical	The creator of DDD reflects on what he got right and wrong. Essential.
Alberto Brandolini: Event Storming (DDD Europe 2019)	Talk	50 min	Practical	Event Storming inventor explains the workshop format. Watch before facilitating your first one.
Vaughn Vernon: Implementing DDD	Talk	60 min	Technical	DDD Distilled author on aggregates, bounded contexts, domain events in practice.
Julie Lerman: DDD for Mere Mortals (NDC)	Talk	60 min	Practical	Most accessible DDD talk. No academic jargon. Real examples.
Greg Young: CQRS and Event Sourcing (Code on the Beach 2014)	Talk	60 min	Technical	The creator of CQRS explains when and why to separate reads from writes.

Module 5: Application Architecture Patterns #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
DHH: The Majestic Monolith (RailsConf 2016)	Talk	15 min	Philosophical	DHH's argument for the monolith. Essential context before reading Building Microservices.
Sam Newman: Monolith to Microservices (GOTO 2019)	Talk	50 min	Practical	When to extract services and when not to. From the author of Building Microservices.
Simon Brown: Modular Monoliths (GOTO 2018)	Talk	46 min	Practical	The middle path between monolith and microservices. How to structure a modular monolith.
Uncle Bob: Architecture the Lost Years (Ruby Midwest 2011)	Talk	60 min	Inspiring	Clean Architecture origin story. The framework-independent architecture idea.
Alistair Cockburn: Hexagonal Architecture (talk)	Talk	45 min	Technical	The creator explains ports and adapters.
Martin Fowler: Microservice Premium (talk)	Talk	25 min	Cautionary	The productivity cost of microservices. Most teams should not use them.

Module 6: Distributed Systems Foundations #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Martin Kleppmann: Cambridge Distributed Systems lectures	YouTube Series	50 min each	Technical	The DDIA author's university course. Visual explanations of the book's concepts. Watch alongside reading.
Martin Kleppmann: Turning the Database Inside Out (Strange Loop 2014)	Talk	44 min	Inspiring	Event sourcing, change data capture, and why databases should be streams. Mind-expanding.
Tyler Treat: Everything I Know About Distributed Systems (Strange Loop)	Talk	40 min	Practical	Practical lessons from building distributed systems. What the textbooks don't tell you.
Pat Helland: Life Beyond Distributed Transactions (RICON 2015)	Talk	50 min	Philosophical	When transactions cannot span boundaries. The foundation of eventual consistency thinking.
Aphyr: Jepsen talks (various)	Talk Series	40-60 min each	Cautionary	Kyle Kingsbury breaking databases. Watch any Jepsen analysis to understand how distributed systems actually fail.

Module 7: System Design #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Alex Xu / ByteByteGo: System Design Interview channel	YouTube Channel	10-20 min each	Practical	Visual system design walkthroughs. Watch alongside the books.
Gaurav Sen: System Design playlist	YouTube Series	15-30 min each	Technical	The paid course's instructor also publishes free YouTube content. Excellent diagrams.
InfoQ: Software Architecture Conference talks	YouTube Channel	30-60 min each	Mixed	Curated architecture talks from industry practitioners. Filter by topic.
Clement Mihailescu: System Design Fundamentals	Talk	25 min	Practical	AlgoExpert creator's free system design overview. Good framework introduction.

Module 8: Reliability, Observability & Operations #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Charity Majors: Observability vs Monitoring (Monitorama 2016)	Talk	30 min	Inspiring	The Honeycomb CEO explains why monitoring dashboards are not enough.
Ben Treynor Sloss: Keys to SRE (SREcon 2014)	Talk	55 min	Technical	The VP who coined "SRE" at Google explains the philosophy.
Nora Jones: Chaos Engineering (QCon)	Talk	40 min	Practical	How Netflix does chaos engineering. Relevant to the chaos testing on your resume.
John Allspaw: Fault Tolerance at Scale (Velocity 2012)	Talk	40 min	Cautionary	The Etsy CTO on how complex systems fail. Cognitive systems engineering applied to ops.

Module 9: Evolutionary Architecture & Decision-Making #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Neal Ford: Building Evolutionary Architectures (GOTO 2017)	Talk	50 min	Practical	The co-author explains fitness functions and incremental change. Watch before or after the book.
Martin Fowler: Making Architecture Matter (OSCON 2015)	Talk	15 min	Philosophical	Short and powerful. Why architecture matters for business outcomes.
Gregor Hohpe: The Architect Elevator (GOTO 2020)	Talk	50 min	Inspiring	Moving between penthouse (strategy) and engine room (code). The architect's real job.
Fred Brooks: The Design of Design (keynote)	Talk	60 min	Philosophical	The Mythical Man-Month author on the design process itself.
Conway's Law: How Organizations Shape Technology	Talk	30 min	Practical	Your architecture will mirror your org chart.

Module 10: Staff-Level Architecture Leadership #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Charity Majors: The Engineer/Manager Pendulum	Article	10 min	Philosophical	Why staff IC is a distinct path, not a stepping stone to management.
Tanya Reilly: Being Glue (LeadDev 2019)	Talk	33 min	Inspiring	The author of Staff Engineer's Path on the invisible work that makes teams function. Essential.
Will Larson: Staff Engineer Archetypes (LeadDev)	Talk	30 min	Practical	The four staff engineer archetypes. Which one are you?
Kellan Elliott-McCrea: Architecture and the Art of Tradeoffs (QCon)	Talk	45 min	Practical	Former Etsy CTO on real architectural tradeoffs at scale.
Gergely Orosz: The Pragmatic Engineer	YouTube Channel	10-30 min each	Practical	The Software Engineer's Guidebook author's channel. Engineering career insights.

Podcast	Focus	Episodes Per Month	Why
Software Engineering Radio	Architecture & Engineering	4	The longest-running software engineering podcast. Deep technical interviews.
The Pragmatic Engineer Podcast	Engineering Leadership	2-4	Gergely Orosz interviews staff+ engineers.
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast	Architecture & Trends	2	Technology radar creators discuss architectural trends.
CoRecursive	Deep Engineering Stories	2	Long-form stories about software engineering decisions and their consequences.
Staff Eng Podcast	Staff Engineering	2	Conversations with staff engineers about their work.
Hanselminutes	Broad Software	4	Scott Hanselman interviews across all of software. Consistently excellent.

Channel	Focus	Why
ByteByteGo	System Design	Paid subscription. Visual explanations of distributed systems.
Martin Kleppmann	Distributed Systems	DDIA author. University lectures + conference talks.
Gaurav Sen	System Design	Creator of a paid system design course. Excellent diagrams.
InfoQ	Architecture Talks	Curated conference talks on architecture.
GOTO Conferences	Architecture & Leadership	High-quality conference talks.
LeadDev	Engineering Leadership	Staff engineering, architecture, and technical leadership talks.
Strange Loop Archive	Deep Engineering	The best systems conference. Historic talks by Hickey, Kleppmann, and others.

Watch one talk per week. Listen to one podcast per commute. Subscribe to 3-4 channels. The ideas compound over months.

Software Architecture Community Guide #

Companion to: SOFTWARE_ARCHITECTURE_MASTERY_CURRICULUM.md Purpose: Newsletters, blogs, forums, conferences, and open-source projects to follow. Architecture is a community practice — you learn as much from practitioners as from books.

Last updated: April 30, 2026

Newsletters & Substacks #

Newsletter	Author/Source	Frequency	Focus	Why
The Pragmatic Engineer	Gergely Orosz	2x/week	Engineering leadership, architecture, career	THE newsletter for staff+ engineers. Deep reporting on how real companies make technical decisions.
ByteByteGo Newsletter	Alex Xu	1x/week	System design, architecture	Paid subscription. Visual explanations of system design concepts. Each issue is a mini design session.
Architecture Notes	Mahdi Yusuf	2x/month	Architecture deep dives	Clear, visual explanations of architectural concepts. CDN design, load balancer internals, database comparisons.

Excellent (Read When Relevant) #

Newsletter	Author/Source	Frequency	Focus	Why
Software Design: Tidy First?	Kent Beck	1-2x/week	Software design philosophy	The Extreme Programming creator's ongoing thoughts on design. Short, provocative posts.
LeadDev	LeadDev	1x/week	Engineering leadership	Staff engineering, architecture decisions, team dynamics.
InfoQ Architecture & Design	InfoQ	2x/month	Architecture trends	Curated architecture content from one of the best engineering publications.
TLDR	Various	Daily	Tech news	Quick daily summary. Scan for architecture-relevant items.
Quastor	Various	3x/week	System design case studies	How big tech companies design systems. A book version also exists.
System Design Newsletter	Neo Kim	1x/week	System design	One system design topic per week, deeply explained.

Worth Following #

Newsletter	Author/Source	Frequency	Focus
Martin Fowler's bliki	Martin Fowler	Irregular	Software design patterns, architecture
High Scalability	Todd Hoff	Irregular	How real systems scale
StaffEng Newsletter	Will Larson	Irregular	Staff engineering stories

Blogs (Architecture-Focused) #

Tier 1: Read Regularly #

Blog	Focus	Why
Martin Fowler	Patterns, design, architecture	THE architecture blog. Every post is a reference. Bounded Context, Microservice Premium, Event Sourcing, CQRS definitions live here.
Arkency	DDD in Rails, CQRS, event sourcing	The best Rails architecture blog. DDD bounded contexts implemented in Rails engines.
Evil Martians	Practical Rails architecture	Top Rails consultancy. AnyCable, imgproxy, and architectural posts about real Rails apps.
Gregor Hohpe: The Architect Elevator	Enterprise architecture, communication	The Communication Patterns author's blog. How architects navigate organizations.
Will Larson (Irrational Exuberance)	Engineering leadership, technical strategy	Staff Engineer author. Deep posts on organizational dynamics and architectural decisions.

Tier 2: Read When Relevant #

Blog	Focus	Why
Charity Majors	Observability, engineering culture	Honeycomb CEO. Sharp writing on observability, testing in production, and engineering management.
Dan Luu	Systems, performance, engineering culture	Data-driven posts on how software actually works. Counterintuitive findings.
Julia Evans	Systems, networking, debugging	Makes complex systems concepts accessible. Zines, comics, and clear explanations.
Cindy Sridharan	Distributed systems, observability	Deep distributed systems posts. Testing in production, monitoring, distributed tracing.
Hillel Wayne	Formal methods, software correctness	Practical formal methods. How to apply verification thinking to real systems.
The Morning Paper	CS paper summaries	Adrian Colyer summarized one CS paper per day. Archive is gold for distributed systems papers.

Tier 3: Rails-Specific Architecture #

Blog	Focus	Why
Shopify Engineering	Rails at scale, modular monolith	The largest Rails app. Their modular monolith (Packwerk) is the reference implementation.
GitHub Engineering	Rails at scale	GitHub's engineering blog. Architecture at massive Rails scale.
Basecamp/37signals Dev Blog	Rails architecture, the majestic monolith	DHH's team. The opinionated counterpoint to microservices.
BigBinary Blog	Rails internals, architecture	Detailed Rails architecture posts. Active community.

Forums & Communities #

Community	Platform	Size	Focus	Why Join
Hacker News	Web	Massive	General tech	Architecture posts regularly hit the front page. Read comments — they are often better than the post.
r/softwarearchitecture	Reddit	50K+	Architecture discussion	Case studies, pattern discussions, career advice.
r/ExperiencedDevs	Reddit	100K+	Senior+ engineering	Staff-level discussions about architecture, leadership, organizational dynamics.
ThoughtWorks Technology Radar	Web	N/A	Architecture trends	Updated quarterly. Tracks which patterns and tools are being adopted, held, or abandoned by industry leaders.
DDD Community on Slack	Slack	10K+	DDD, CQRS, Event Sourcing	Active community. Ask questions about Evans, Vernon, event storming.
Software Crafters Slack	Slack	5K+	Craft, quality, design	Discussion of clean code, refactoring, TDD, and design principles.

Conferences (Virtual Attendance or Recordings) #

Must-Watch Recordings #

Conference	Focus	How to Access	Why
GOTO Conference	Architecture, leadership, distributed systems	YouTube (free)	Highest quality architecture talks. Past speakers: Kleppmann, Fowler, Newman, Hohpe.
QCon	Software architecture	InfoQ (free recordings)	Practitioner-focused. Real case studies from real companies.
Strange Loop	Systems, languages, distributed computing	YouTube archive (free)	The best systems conference. Talks by Hickey, Kleppmann, and others. (Ended 2023 but archive is gold.)
LeadDev	Engineering leadership, staff engineering	YouTube (free)	Tanya Reilly, Charity Majors, and other staff engineering leaders.
DDD Europe	Domain-Driven Design	YouTube (free)	Evans, Vernon, Brandolini present. The DDD community conference.
RailsConf / RubyConf	Ruby/Rails architecture	YouTube (free)	Sandi Metz, DHH, and Rails architecture talks. Your home conference.

Consider Attending (Virtual) #

Conference	Focus	Cost	Why
O'Reilly Software Architecture Conference	Architecture	$$	Deep architecture tracks. Virtual attendance available.
NDC Conferences	.NET + general architecture	YouTube (free recordings)	Good architecture talks despite .NET focus. Sam Newman, Jimmy Bogard present regularly.
SREcon	Site Reliability Engineering	Free recordings	The SRE community conference. Operational architecture talks.

Open-Source Projects to Study #

Study these projects' architecture, not just their code. Read their ADRs, design documents, and architecture overviews.

Architecture Case Studies #

Project	Language	Why Study It
Rails	Ruby	The framework you know. Study its engine architecture, middleware stack, Railtie system. You understand it better than most — now see it as an architecture.
Packwerk (Shopify)	Ruby	Shopify's modular monolith tool. Enforces bounded contexts in Rails using static analysis. THE reference for Module 5 (modular monolith).
Discourse	Ruby	Large, well-architected Rails app. Plugin architecture, event system, background jobs. Study how they organize a 10-year-old monolith.
Mastodon	Ruby	Distributed social network. Federation, ActivityPub protocol, background processing at scale. A distributed system in Rails.
GitLab	Ruby	One of the largest Rails apps. Their architecture documentation is public and detailed.
Phoenix Framework	Elixir	The anti-Rails architecture. Functional core, immutable state, actor model. Study as contrast to your Rails mental model. Cross-reference with the Elixir/Phoenix path.

Architecture Decision Records (ADR) Examples #

Project	Where	Why
adr/madr	GitHub	The Markdown Architectural Decision Record template. Fork this and use it.
Spotify Engineering Decision Records	Backstage docs	Real ADRs from Spotify's Backstage platform.
GOV.UK Architecture Decision Records	GitHub	UK Government digital service. Public ADRs with real debate in pull requests.

Twitter/X Accounts to Follow #

Account	Who	Focus
@martinfowler	Martin Fowler	Patterns, architecture
@ghohpe	Gregor Hohpe	Enterprise architecture
@saborosh	Sam Newman	Microservices, architecture
@sandimetz	Sandi Metz	OOP, Ruby design
@geraborosz	Gergely Orosz	Pragmatic engineering
@maboroshi	Will Larson	Staff engineering
@charity	Charity Majors	Observability
@dhh	DHH	Rails, monoliths, opinions
@KentBeck	Kent Beck	Software design
@richardadalton	Richard Dalton	DDD, architecture patterns

Books to Read for Fun (Not in the Curriculum but Worth It) #

Book	Author	Why
An Elegant Puzzle	Will Larson	Engineering management from an architect's perspective.
Team Topologies	Skelton & Pais	Conway's Law applied. How team structure shapes architecture.
Accelerate	Forsgren, Humble, Kim	Data-driven software delivery performance. DORA metrics.
The Unicorn Project	Gene Kim	The Phoenix Project sequel, from a developer's perspective.
Turn the Ship Around!	L. David Marquet	Leadership without authority. Directly applicable to staff IC work.
Thinking in Systems	Donella Meadows	The original systems thinking book. Short, profound.

Architecture is learned in community. Subscribe to 3 newsletters. Follow 5 blogs. Watch 1 conference talk per week. The ideas compound over years.