The Architect Path
Two companies, two stacks, and a board waiting for a plan: step up from owning one system to governing an estate of systems, merge Arena Group and PlayNation into Arena Cloud, and defend the architecture live against a hostile AI board.
✓ First 2 lessons free · no card needed · one plan unlocks every course
The course at a glance
Across twelve phases and roughly 6–8 months, students make the jump most engineers never get coached through: from owning one system to governing an estate of systems. Arena Group has acquired its rival, PlayNation — 28 venues on a Python/Django stack the student would never have chosen — and the board wants one platform, a new multi-tenant SaaS product called Arena Cloud, and expansion into three countries. The student is the principal architect. Nobody stops shipping while they decide.
Seniors optimise a system; architects choose between systems, put numbers on quality, buy instead of build when the numbers say so, design for failure across regions, and make the whole thing legible to a board. Every phase still ships something that runs — a working gateway, a running multi-tenant core, a live event backbone, and a demonstrated region failover — because in this course decisions are the deliverable, not slideware, and you will never write a line of Python doing it.
How learning happens
Every chapter follows the same loop — taught in Phase 0 and run for the rest of the course. Two beats to learn, two beats to build. Most chapters take 30–60 minutes; the build chapter that closes each phase runs longer.
Learn
A short read plus an animated model of the idea. No syntax dumps — you learn what the thing is for.
Brief
Write the instruction in plain English. Precision of intent is the skill being trained here.
Review
Read what came back against a checklist. This is where engineers are actually made.
Tweak
Change one thing yourself, by hand, and watch it move. Ownership beats copy-paste.
What you need first
The Senior Path (or equivalent)
You’ve operated production systems, written ADRs, run incidents, and led delivery — senior experience is assumed from day one.
Docker Fundamentals
Everything in the estate runs locally on Docker Compose — Postgres, Redis, RabbitMQ, Keycloak, DuckDB and more, at zero cost.
The Arena Cloud build
Discovery → quality attributes → the merge decision → gateway & identity → multi-tenancy → events → data → FinOps → resilience → governance → teams → the boardroom.
The portfolio
Everything built in this course is real, runnable, and shareable — and it compounds into one flagship artefact.
The State of the Estate + the Integration Blueprint
C4 diagrams, capability maps, quality-attribute scenarios, and a merge decision defended against a hostile AI panel.
Arena Cloud, running
A live gateway, federated identity, a multi-tenant core, a governed event backbone, a data platform, and a demonstrated region failover.
The Architecture Playbook + the board defense
Golden paths, fitness functions in CI, a reshaped team topology, and a live pitch defended against an AI CFO and CTO.
The capstone
Six months after Grand Final week, Arena Group acquires PlayNation — 28 venues, a Django/MySQL monolith, and a Celery queue nobody monitors. The board sets three goals: one platform for both companies, a new revenue line called Arena Cloud, and expansion into New Zealand and Singapore under a contractual 99.95% uptime. The student is promoted to principal architect across four delivery teams, and nothing stops shipping while they decide.
Arena Cloud
Arena Cloud, running
A multi-tenant booking core with real tenant isolation, a scripted onboard-a-tenant demo, pricing tiers enforced in code, and white-label theming.
The Architecture Playbook
C4 diagrams, 15+ ADRs, a DR plan with a demonstrated failover, a technology radar, fitness functions in CI, the cost model, and the board deck.
A working integration
One gateway and one login in front of two estates written in two languages by two companies, proven daily by cross-estate smoke tests.
The defense recording
The student’s board pitch, delivered and challenged live by an AI CFO and CTO who have read everything and believe none of it.
Concept coverage matrix
Every major concept, where it's introduced, and where it pays off.
The skill ladder
What you can honestly say after each stage. Each claim maps to something you've built, run, and can show on a screen.
I can survey an estate and decide how to merge it
C4 diagrams, a capability map, and an Integration Blueprint defended under hostile review.
I can build the platform, not just plan it
A live gateway, federated identity, a multi-tenant core, and a governed event backbone.
I can put numbers on the architecture
A board dashboard, a cost-per-booking model, and a timed, recorded region failover.
I am the architect
Golden paths enforced in CI, a reshaped org, and a board pitch defended live.
Time and pacing
Each chapter is roughly 2–3 hours of guided work plus 2–3 hours of practice — but the mix shifts: more reading, deciding, and writing; less typing. The steady cadence is one chapter per weekend or two evenings, landing the program at about 6–8 months.
Steady pace
One chapter per weekend or two evenings, across 12 phases and 2 interludes.
Typical chapter
Roughly 2–3 hours guided plus 2–3 hours of practice — more deciding and writing than typing.
Access
Every phase repo and the full Architecture Playbook, before and after.
One subscription. Every course.
The Architect Path isn't sold on its own. A single MJ Tech Institute plan unlocks it alongside every other course we've shipped — 8 today, with more added over time — at no extra cost.
Everything, included
Subscribe once and every course unlocks — this one and every future release. No per-course purchases, ever.
Cancel any time
Monthly and annual plans cancel from My account whenever you like. Your progress is always saved.
Start free first
The first 2 lessons of The Architect Path cost nothing, no card required, before you choose a plan.
Finish with a running SaaS platform and a board-defended Architecture Playbook
Phase 0 is free and takes about an hour. If it doesn't click, you've lost nothing.
Start the course today