The Shape of a Modern SaaS Application
Learn the shape of a modern SaaS application and the components every one is built from, so you can decide which to build first and which to skip. The orientation course for the SaaS Foundations path.
About This Course
Learn the shape of a modern SaaS application: the three planes (data, compute, edge) every SaaS app is built from, and the three cross-cutting concerns (identity, observability, deployment) that tie them together. Walk through each component database, cache, API, background jobs, object storage, email, payments, search, realtime, auth, secrets, rate limiting, observability, frontend, deployment and understand when your product needs it, when it doesn't, and what breaks if you skip it. By the end of this course you will be able to look at a SaaS product idea and name the components it requires, pick a starting architecture (almost always a modular monolith), and know which of the other courses in this path to take next for the specific pieces your product needs.
Course Curriculum
5 Lessons
What a SaaS app actually is
Learn the mental model of a modern SaaS application: the three planes (data, compute, edge) and the three cross-cutting concerns (identity, observability, deployment) every SaaS app is built from. By the end of this lesson you will be able to identify the three planes and the three cross-cutting concerns, describe what each is responsible for, and classify common SaaS services — databases, caches, CDNs, email providers, auth providers, observability stacks — into the right place on the map.
Pick your architecture
Learn how modern SaaS apps are arranged — the four common shapes (monolith, modular monolith, microservices, serverless) in plain English, what each one is good at, and which one to start with for your first product. By the end of this lesson you will be able to describe each shape without jargon, pick the right starting shape for a product idea, and explain why most first-time builders should start with a modular monolith even though microservices look more impressive on a resume.
The data layer — what goes where you store things
Open up the data layer of a SaaS app and see what actually belongs there. Learn the five flavors of memory a modern SaaS can use — a database for long-term memory, a cache for speed, file storage for photos and documents, a search index for finding things across text, and an analytics warehouse for aggregate reports — and when to add each one. By the end of this lesson you will be able to look at a product idea and sketch which flavors of memory it needs on day one, which ones to add later, and which ones to skip entirely.
The compute layer — the four kinds of code that run
Open up the compute layer of a SaaS app and see what actually belongs there. Learn the four flavors of code a modern SaaS can run — a backend API that responds to user requests, background workers for slow jobs the user does not need to wait for, scheduled jobs that run on a timer, and realtime connections that push updates to the user instantly. By the end of this lesson you will be able to look at a product idea and sketch which flavors of code it needs on day one, which ones to add later, and why "every slow thing goes in a background worker" is almost always the first scaling lesson a product has to learn.
The cross-cutting concerns — what every layer needs
Learn about the five cross-cutting concerns that every SaaS app has to care about from day one: login (who the user is), monitoring (what the system just did), secrets (where passwords and API keys live), rate limits (how the app defends against abuse and cost blowouts), and deployment (how new code reaches users). By the end of this lesson you will be able to describe what each concern is responsible for, recognize a minimum-viable version versus a mature version of each one, and know which component course in this path goes deep on each.