Professor of Practice, From Zero to Shipping

Build Scalable Software for the next generation of engineers.

Most CS graduates can define abstraction. Few can tell you why they're doing it, or for whom. The same gap runs through OOP, SOLID, MVVM, architecture, testing, system design, AcharyaX closes for you. Twelve months, practitioner-led, from shell commands to shipping production-grade AI.

The Premise

A course built around one question:
can the student ship something scalable, something industry actually needs?

Engineering colleges teach what software is. Industry needs engineers who can build it. This course is designed to produce the second, taught by someone who's spent 15 years doing exactly that, taking products from 0 to 1, then from 1 to 10, across multiple startups.

× What's broken today

Knowledge without output.

Students graduate having written a hundred isolated assignments and zero real applications. They've memorized OOP definitions but never refactored production code. They know the words "system design" but have never made a single trade-off. The gap between graduation and being useful to a tech team is measured in months, not weeks.

✓ What this course does

One year. One compounding thread.

The Android app a student builds in Month 5 gets refactored into clean architecture in Month 6, tested in Month 7, connected to a backend in Month 8, and shipped to production with AI features and guardrails in Month 12. They don't leave with knowledge, they leave with a product.

The Approach

Stable Core. Living Edge.

Most college syllabi stay frozen for a decade. The world doesn't work that way anymore. This course is engineered around two halves, a timeless foundation, and a constantly-refreshed industry edge.

Stable Core · 75% of the course

Fundamentals that won't change in a decade.

The craft of software engineering, how to think, structure, test, and scale, is durable. These modules will be as relevant in 2034 as they are today. Once taught, they compound for a student's entire career.

Shell Networking Git OOP SOLID MVVM Clean Architecture TDD System Design
Living Edge · refreshed every semester

The AI track is rebuilt each cycle.

The AI half of Phase 4 is updated every semester, new models, new tooling, new agent patterns, new failure modes from production. Only a practitioner embedded in industry can keep this current. This year's syllabus is genuinely different from last year's.

Prompt Engineering Context Engineering RAG Agents Evals Guardrails + whatever ships next
The Arc

Four phases. One journey.

Each phase opens a new layer of engineering maturity. The work from one phase becomes the foundation for the next.

Phase I
Foundations
Months 1 – 3
Demystify the machine. Shell, the internet, Git, OOP, clean code.
Phase II
Building Well
Months 4 – 7
Code that doesn't rot. SOLID, design patterns, Android, MVVM, testing.
Phase III
Scale
Months 8 – 9
Software that survives real users. Backends, APIs, system design.
Phase IV
AI-Native
Months 10 – 12
The new stack. AI tooling, building AI apps, shipping with guardrails.
The Curriculum

The full twelve months.

Click any module to see the breakdown, what's taught, what students build, what they walk away with.

I. Foundations, Demystify the machine
Months 1 – 3
01
The Machine & The Internet
Month 1 · ~10 hrs

Strip away the magic. Students leave knowing what actually happens between hitting Enter and a webpage loading.

  • Shell basics, terminal, file system, processes, common commands
  • How networks move bytes, IP, TCP, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS
  • Client–server model, request/response lifecycle
  • APIs as the contract between machines
Assignment → Write a shell script that calls a public REST API, parses the response, and surfaces a useful result. Submit as a Git repository.
02
Git & Collaborative Development
Month 2 · ~10 hrs

No engineer ships alone. Students learn Git the way professionals actually use it, and how to work in a team without breaking each other's code.

  • Git internals, commits, trees, refs, the real mental model
  • Branching strategies, merge vs. rebase, conflict resolution
  • Pull requests, code review etiquette, writing good commit messages
  • GitHub workflows, CI basics, contributing to open source
Assignment → Submit a meaningful PR to a real open-source project, then collaborate with two classmates on a shared repo with branch protection and reviews.
03
OOP & Clean Code in Kotlin
Month 3 · ~10 hrs

Object-oriented thinking, taught in the language students will use for Android. Code is read more than it's written, this is where that habit forms.

  • OOP pillars, encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism, abstraction (with real "why")
  • Kotlin fundamentals, null safety, data classes, sealed types, functional features
  • Naming, function length, function purity, readability
  • Code smells & refactoring as a daily practice
Assignment → Take a deliberately "smelly" Kotlin codebase. Refactor it into clean, readable, testable code. Document every decision in commit messages.
II. Building Well, Code that doesn't rot
Months 4 – 7
04
SOLID Principles & Design Patterns
Month 4 · ~10 hrs

Principles only stick when students see the pain they prevent. Every concept is taught through a before / after refactor of real code.

  • Each SOLID principle with concrete "broken vs. fixed" examples
  • Creational patterns, Factory, Builder, Singleton (and when not to)
  • Structural patterns, Adapter, Decorator, Facade
  • Behavioral patterns, Strategy, Observer, Repository
Assignment → Take the Module 3 refactored codebase. Apply three design patterns to add new functionality without rewriting existing code. Demonstrate the Open/Closed Principle in practice.
05
Android App Development I, Real UIs
Month 5 · ~10 hrs

From a blank Android Studio project to a working multi-screen app. Modern Android, Jetpack Compose, declarative UI, state-driven thinking.

  • Android Studio, the build system, project structure
  • Jetpack Compose, composables, modifiers, layouts
  • State management, remember, mutableStateOf, hoisting
  • Navigation, lifecycle, intents, permissions
Assignment → Build a working multi-screen Android app (e.g., a habit tracker, journal, or expense logger) with persistent local storage and a polished UI.
06
Architecture Patterns, MVVM & Clean Architecture
Month 6 · ~10 hrs

Why MVC evolved into MVP, then MVVM, then Clean Architecture. Same app, refactored four times, students feel the trade-offs in their fingers.

  • The evolution of architectural patterns, what each one solved
  • MVVM on Android, ViewModel, StateFlow, unidirectional data flow
  • Clean Architecture, domain, data, presentation layers
  • Dependency injection (Hilt) and why it matters for testing
Assignment → Refactor the Module 5 app into a layered MVVM + Clean Architecture project. Write a short essay defending the trade-offs.
07
Testing & Test-Driven Development
Month 7 · ~10 hrs

Untested code is code you don't actually understand. Students learn the test pyramid, write tests as they build, and ship at least one feature TDD-first.

  • The test pyramid, unit, integration, UI, end-to-end
  • JUnit, MockK, Turbine for Kotlin/Android testing
  • UI tests with Compose Testing and Espresso basics
  • TDD loop, red, green, refactor, practiced live
Assignment → Add a comprehensive test suite to the Module 6 app, hitting 70%+ coverage. Then build one new feature entirely test-first.
III. Scale, Software that survives real users
Months 8 – 9
08
Backend, APIs & Auth
Month 8 · ~10 hrs

The app needs a brain on the other side of the network. Students build a real backend the Android app actually talks to.

  • REST design, verbs, resources, status codes, versioning
  • GraphQL, when it's the right call
  • Auth, JWT, OAuth 2.0, sessions vs. tokens
  • Databases, SQL vs. NoSQL, schema design, ORMs
Assignment → Build a backend (Node/Express or Kotlin/Ktor) with auth, persistence, and a clean REST API. Wire it up to the Module 6 Android app.
09
System Design for Scale
Month 9 · ~10 hrs

What happens when 100 users becomes 1 million? Students learn to reason about trade-offs the way senior engineers do, out loud, on a whiteboard.

  • Caching, client, CDN, application, database layers
  • Queues & async processing, when and why
  • Load balancing, horizontal scaling, sharding
  • CAP theorem, consistency models, rate limiting
Assignment → Pick a familiar product (Instagram, Swiggy, WhatsApp). Design it from scratch for 1M users. Present trade-offs in a live whiteboard session, defended verbally.
IV. AI-Native, The new stack
Months 10 – 12
10
AI for Developers, Prompt & Context Engineering
Month 10 · ~10 hrs

AI is not a toy. It's a multiplier, but only for engineers who know how to wield it. Students learn the craft of working with AI as a co-developer.

  • The modern AI tool stack, ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Copilot
  • Prompt engineering, patterns, structure, evaluating outputs
  • Context engineering, what to give the model, what to leave out
  • AI-assisted debugging, code review, refactoring workflows
Assignment → Ship a non-trivial feature in the Android app using an AI-pair-programming workflow. Document the prompts, the failures, and what worked.
11
Building AI Applications, LLMs, RAG, Agents
Month 11 · ~10 hrs

From using AI to building with AI. Students learn how LLM APIs actually work, how to ground them in real data, and how to give them the ability to act.

  • LLM APIs, token economics, streaming, structured outputs
  • Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), embeddings, vector DBs, retrieval design
  • Function calling and tool use
  • Building multi-step agents, planning, execution, memory
Assignment → Build an AI agent that performs a useful real-world task end-to-end (research, summarization, scheduling, etc.). Integrate it into the Module 8 backend.
12
Capstone, Ship a Production-Grade AI Product
Month 12 · ~10 hrs

Everything from the first eleven months, deployed and observed. Students don't graduate with knowledge, they graduate with a live product and a portfolio piece.

  • Containerization with Docker, deployment to a real cloud
  • CI/CD pipelines, automated tests, builds, releases
  • Observability, logging, metrics, tracing, alerts
  • AI guardrails, input/output validation, hallucination defense, evals
  • Incident response, what to do when production breaks
Capstone → Ship the integrated Android + backend + AI agent product to production. Deploy with monitoring, evals, and guardrails. Demo to a panel. The repo, the live URL, and the postmortem become the student's portfolio piece.
The Outcomes

By the end of the year, a student has actually done the following.

01

Shipped a real product

A live, AI-powered Android app with a working backend, deployed to production with monitoring and guardrails.

02

Refactored under four architectures

The same codebase, evolved through clean code, design patterns, MVVM, and Clean Architecture. Trade-offs felt firsthand.

03

Reasoned about scale

Defended a system design for 1M users in a live whiteboard session. Speaks the language of caching, queues, and consistency.

04

Built and grounded an AI agent

Integrated LLMs, RAG, and tool use into a working application. Knows where AI breaks and how to defend against it.

05

Collaborated like an engineer

Reviewed PRs, resolved merge conflicts, contributed to open source, written tests others depend on.

06

A portfolio that opens doors

A live product, a public GitHub repo, a system design write-up, and a deployment story. Material a recruiter cannot ignore.

Beyond the Classroom

More than a course. A partnership.

A great course is necessary but not sufficient. The deeper value to the department comes from how a Professor of Practice contributes outside the four walls of the classroom.

01

Real project briefs from industry

Students get to work on problem statements drawn from the actual world, not contrived textbook problems. They build things people would pay for.

02

Mentorship for junior faculty

I work alongside junior faculty interested in industry-aligned teaching, sharing how engineering teams actually work, how to design assignments that mirror real tasks, and how to evaluate student work the way industry would.

03

Curriculum advisory

I'm available to advise the department on broader CS curriculum direction, what to add, what to retire, where to push deeper to stay aligned with where the industry is moving.

The course that teaches engineers to build, not just to know.

If your department is looking for a Professor of Practice who can take CS students from theory to shipping, let's start a conversation.