The Architect’s Eye
Perceptual training for reviewing software architecture & design
Read AI-proposed architectures and API designs the way a staff engineer does — spotting the coupling, contract, and scaling traps that look reasonable until production.
Syllabus
1
The Architect’s Eye
Reviewing a design for the property that’s missing.
2
Coupling & Boundaries
God services, distributed monoliths, and the lines between things.
3
Scalability & State
Single points of failure, sticky state, and resources that only grow.
4
Resilience & Failure Modes
Timeouts, retries done right, breakers, idempotency, bulkheads.
5
Data & Consistency
Dual writes, transaction boundaries, and a single source of truth.
6
Integration & Contracts
Breaking changes, versioning, and async vs sync.
7
Trust Boundaries
Design-level security: who is trusted, and where.
8
AI Design Failure Modes
Where AI architecture advice goes wrong — in both directions.