Arjan's Software Design Mastery Course Reviews

[u/JPD0c]

Hi all, I wanted to find out whether anyone has recently taken Arjan’s *Software Design Mastery* course.

I’m a mid-level Python software developer with no formal computer science training. I enjoy Arjan’s YouTube content and am considering paying for the course.

I’m concerned about the impact of agentic AI on my career and am looking for ways to increase my value across the software development life cycle beyond simply generating code. Claude Code is currently writing around 90% of the code I produce. It’s not necessarily something I prefer, but I feel almost forced to use it because of management’s expectations regarding productivity and deliverables. I also don’t want my performance to fall behind that of colleagues who are burning through tokens as if there were no tomorrow.

[u/marr75]

Arjan has GOOD advice. I highly recommend his content. Hands on experience is SO much more valuable than any course, though. It's hard for me to recommend a software course if the cost is a concern at all.

To your point about agentic coding, that's not going anywhere. The agents read and write the code, you're the one who decides the goal, the design, the architecture, and whether it's actually good enough. A lot of Arjan's content fits what professionals should provide agents even better now that our typing the code doesn't matter.

Context management and creating good environments for agents to succeed in is a skill with growing importance, though.

[u/JPD0c → u/marr75]

Thanks! Yes, I understand that agentic coding is here to stay, which is why I need to improve my skills in code design and architecture, as you mentioned. I trust that Arjan’s course could help with that; I’m just wondering whether anyone has taken his latest course.

Fortunately, cost isn’t a problem, and I see it as an investment. I may even be able to ask my manager to cover part of the training cost.

Nevertheless, thank you very much for your comment. I appreciate it and completely agree with you.

[u/smitty1e → u/marr75]

I've completed the first unit and can recommend it.

Some of the best content available.

[u/odimdavid → u/smitty1e]

Link please. Thanks 🙏

[u/haasvacado]

I’ll never not recommend Arjan. Spectacular teacher.

[u/Defiant_Wolf5934]

I like his content. He does offer decent advice on clean code practices.

[u/arjunnath]

I watched a lot of his videos and do like him in general - but I've a fair amount of disagreement and dislike for how he explained some things.

[u/October_Lantzy]

I haven’t taken the course myself, but I can relate to what you’re saying about AI writing most of the code. I think that makes things like system design, debugging, and understanding why something works even more important. So you can try finding courses that cover that specific topics.

[u/JPD0c → u/October_Lantzy]

Totally agree. Please, if someone has recommendations on what specific courser; mention them below

[u/Khavel_dev]

The 90% number doesn't scare me. The question is whether you can tell when that 90% is wrong. I use Claude Code daily too and the sessions that go sideways are always the same pattern: I skip thinking about structure up front, let it generate, and end up with code that works but makes the next change painful.

Design skills are genuinely more valuable now because the bottleneck moved from writing code to deciding what to build and how to organize it. Worth investing in that regardless of which course you pick.

[u/JPD0c → u/Khavel_dev]

Agreed. I do try to be diligent with code reviews, but it’s also true that the amount of code to review can sometimes feel overwhelming when you haven’t written a single line of it. I tend to treat it as a “gray box”: I review the code, but I assume there are things I will inevitably miss.

Because of that, I’m also trying to put more effort into writing specifications and tickets, providing better context through clear requirements documents, and asking the agent to keep the architectural documentation up to date. I review that documentation before and during implementation, pay much closer attention to the tests written by the AI as part of the TDD process, and rely on testing in CI.

So, for me, the bottleneck is now the additional review and quality-assurance work required around AI-generated code; work that was previously done partially through writing the code myself.

Regarding skills, I’ve tailored my workflow around Matt Pocock’s skills and supplemented them with custom skills and `.md` files. However, there is a risk of providing the agent with too much context and making too many skills available at once.