09/24/2026
Build a Real Distributed System from Scratch | Hands-On Course
Stop reading about distributed systems. Build one.
In this hands-on course you build LogStream, a production-grade distributed log processing platform, over 254 lessons. You write every line of code, and you finish with a working system on GitHub that shows senior-level distributed systems skills.
▶ Start free: https://sdcourse.substack.com/p/start-here-how-to-use-sdcourse
▶ Free Distributed Systems Interview Pack (30 questions + answer outlines): https://systemdrd.com/ebooks/sdcourse-distributed-systems-interview/
WHAT YOU'LL BUILD
LogStream is a real log platform that:
- Ingests 10,000+ events/sec from multiple sources
- Streams through Kafka with exactly-once semantics
- Persists to durable storage with rotation policies
- Searches via Elasticsearch
- Auto-scales on AWS / GCP with monitoring and alerting
- Uses dead letter queues, idempotency and retry semantics that actually hold up
THE 6 MODULES
1. Ingestion & Transport (Days 1–40): TCP/UDP servers, batching, compression, a 10K events/sec log shipper
2. Distributed Messaging with Kafka (Days 41–90): producers, consumers, consumer groups, exactly-once, DLQs
3. Storage & Persistence (Days 91–130): rotation, time-series storage, S3 archival, compaction
4. Real-Time Processing (Days 131–170): parsing, enrichment, alerting, anomaly detection
5. Search & Query (Days 171–210): Elasticsearch, query optimization, aggregations, dashboards
6. Production Operations (Days 211–254): Kubernetes, monitoring, auto-scaling, chaos testing, observability
Each module is self-contained, so you can jump straight to the one that solves your problem at work.
TWO TRACKS
- Python / JavaScript
- Java / Spring Boot
HOW IT WORKS
- Every lesson has a working docker-compose up. Run the code, hit the errors, debug them.
- Every lesson links to a GitHub repo. Try it yourself first, then use the repo as a checkpoint.
- Lessons 1–3 of every module are free.
WHAT YOU'LL HAVE AT THE END
A complete distributed log processing platform on GitHub, architecture diagrams you drew yourself, and working knowledge of Kafka internals, exactly-once semantics, distributed coordination and observability. These are the topics staff-level interviews ask about, and the ones that matter on call at 3am.
Fall behind? That's fine. not a race.
