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About the Book
Build Like a Senior Engineer — One Card at a Time
You know how to code. Now learn how to design.
In Building Systems Like a Senior Engineer, you’ll build a fully extensible card game engine — and along the way, you’ll learn the habits, tradeoffs, and architectural thinking that set senior developers apart.
This isn’t just another coding book. It’s a hands-on, opinionated walkthrough of:
- Clean, test-first design
- Domain modeling and encapsulation
- Real-world backend structure (without the boilerplate)
- Game engines that teach system design
Whether you’re an early-career dev looking to level up, or a mid-level engineer hungry to understand how senior engineers think, this book will teach you how to build smarter — and teach through your code.
About the Author
Aaron Smith is a software engineer who specializes in backend systems and clean architectural design. He started his career writing APIs and event-driven services, and over time discovered a passion for helping developers grow — not just in skill, but in judgment.
Aaron believes that senior engineering is less about titles and more about how you think, how you build, and how you teach. His writing is practical, hands-on, and grounded in the kinds of decisions engineers face every day — from modeling systems to designing for change.
When he’s not coding or writing, he’s probably working on something quietly ambitious, like reverse-engineering card games or turning real-world system challenges into learning tools.