Top 8 Courses to Learn Software Architecture for Experienced Programmers in 2024 - Best of Lot

Every Programmer or Software developers wants to grow in their career, but it's not easy, and if you don't pay attention to your job, you will likely to remain in the same position for many years. The growth in the initial few years is generally fast, especially if you are switching companies, and I do recommend that to increase your pay. Though, 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 architect and solution architect 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.

8 Best Online Courses to become a 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 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 & Technology of Large-Scale Systems [Udemy]

Architecting a large system its a skill as its not easy and it requires a lot of experience and knowledge to design a distributed large scale system with High Performance, Scalability, Availability, Security using modern technologies. That's why there is a high demand of software architect which can design a high performance and resilient software system which can also handle millions of users and events. 

Until few years ago, the only way to acquire this skill is by actually doing it which wasn't ideal as not everyone gets the opportunity and learning by failing is a slow process. 

While nothing can replace the real experience, you can learn a lot more by going through a course and then doing rather then blindly doing and then researching, and that's where this Software architecture course can be useful. 

In this course, you will learn how to design distribute and large scale system, starting with the 3-tier application architecture and then move to more complex architecture. Along the way, you will learn important non-functional requirements like scalability, security, logging, traceability, monitoring, and resiliency. 

Here is the link to join this course -  Software Architecture & Technology of Large-Scale Systems

You will also learn about tools like Docker and Kubernetes, and technologies like Radis, Cassandra, Kafka, Hadoop, Elastic Search etch which are key technical stack for designing large scale system.

Overall a great resource for anyone who wants to learn about how to design large scale system and software architecture. It will surely add useful skill into your arsenal, I highly recommend this course to all experienced developers. 

Btw, if for any reason you cannot connect to this course then there is also an alternative called Software Architecture & Design of Modern Large Scale Systems by Michael Pogrebinsky, you can also check that out. I loved both of these courses, they are worth their salt. 

2. 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 Software architecture course by University of Alberta, 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 specialization and certifications useful, particularly like this one, then I suggest you join the Coursera Plus, a great 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 it's completely worth your money as you get unlimited certificates.

3. How To Become An Outstanding Solution Architect

This is another excellent and must-take course for all the programmers who aspire to become software architects. 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 the 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.

4. Basics of Software Architecture & Design Patterns in Java [Udemy]

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 it.

It also covers things like SOLID principles and design patterns, which are vital for any good architecture and robust application.

5.  Software Architecture in Applications [Educative]

This is another fantastic course for all programmer who wants to become a software architect. In this course, you will learn about different concepts and components involved while designing the architecture of web applications. 

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. You'll also learn about different architecture patterns like client-server, peer-to-peer, decentralized architecture, Microservices, and fundamentals of data flow in a web application. 

Lastly, you will learn one of the most important aspects of being a solution architect: how to choose the right architecture and technologies to solve the problem at hand and implement the solution for business. 

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. Educative also have some excellent course on System design like Grokking the System Design Interview by Educative which you can join along with this course for a better understanding of both System design and software architecture. 

6. Clean Architecture: Patterns, Practices, and Principles [Pluralsight]

This is another excellent Pluralsight course on Software Architecture. In this course, you will learn about Clean Architecture, if you think what 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 C like a programming language, and basic knowledge of software architecture is beneficial.

Btw, 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.

7.  Software Architecture & Design of Modern Large Scale Systems by Michael Pogrebinsky

This is another amazing Software architecture course for senior software engineer from one of my favorite Udemy instructor Michael Pogrebinsky who have many advanced course for senior engineer. In this course he focuses on how to design modern large scale system which can handle millions of events and along the way you will learn useful techniques and best practices. 

This 7-hour long online course is a great resource for any senior developer who want to become a Software Architect or Technical Lead by mastering Software Architecture, System Design & Big Data Processing in 2024. 

This course is also help you to prepare for your system design interview as you will gain useful skills in designing highly scalable, highly available and performant software systems. You will also learn how to define the system's technical requirements, high level components and API.

Talking about the social proof, more than 38,362 students have joined this course and it has got on average 4.7 rating from close to 5000 participants which is just amazing. 

8. The Complete Guide to Becoming a Software Architect by Memi Lavi

This is a new course which I found really good for anyone who wants to become  software architect, the most desired role in software industry. Created by Memi Lavi, a software architect and solution architect himself, this course has everything he learned from his own experience of becoming a software architect.

In this 5.5 hour long course, you will learn about role of software architect, the mindset of an architect,  as well as essential tech skills to become software architect like coding patters, advanced software architecture patterns, I mean Microservices, SOA, Monolithic as well as different tech stack and what they offer. 

The best thing about this course is that you will not just learn tech skills like coding best practices design patterns, but also all the soft skills and communication skills you need to become a successful software architect in 2024.  

Talking about the social proof, its one of the highest rated course with 4.6 rating on Udemy and more than 65,000 people have joined this course which is amazing. If you want to become a software architect then I highly recommend you to join this course in 2024. 

That's all about some of the best online courses to learn Software architecture and become a Software Architect or Solution Architect in 2024. 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 online courses useful in becoming a software architect or learning software architecture in 2024, please share them with your friends and colleagues. If you have any questions or feedback, then please drop a note.

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.