The Cracked EngineerRead lesson 1 free

The course map

Read it top to bottom like the stack: money systems sit on distributed systems, which sit on storage, network and the machine. Proof runs through all of them.

Money systems

How does a balance stay right when every message can fail?

Ledgers and payments

Double entry, idempotent transfers, reconciliation and settlement.

8 lessons, being written

Exchange systems

Order books, matching engines, market data and risk checks.

8 lessons, being written

Security for money systems

Threat models, keys, signing and incident response.

5 lessons, being written

Distributed systems

What does “exactly once” really mean?

Distributed systems

Clocks, idempotency, queues, consensus and sagas.

7 lessons, being written

Storage

When is a write actually saved?

How databases keep data

Write-ahead logs, fsync, indexes, transactions and isolation.

7 lessons, being written

Network

What happens between curl and the response?

Networks

DNS, TCP, TLS, HTTP and the timeouts between them.

8 lessons, being written

Machine

Why is Docker on your Mac a VM?

How computers work

Processes, the kernel, memory, containers and VMs.

2 of 10 lessons ready

Proof

Can this design ever lose money?

Formal methods with TLA+

Specify a design, then let a model checker try every ordering.

9 lessons, being written

Build on it

What do you build once the layers make sense?

Building with AI models

Requests, tools, agents, evals and running AI for real users.

5 lessons, being written

Stablecoins and on-chain finance

How stablecoins move, Solana accounts, AMMs and MEV.

5 lessons, being written

Compliance engineering

KYC, AML, the travel rule and the regulators behind them.

4 lessons, being written

From engineer to founder

Distribution, pricing, selling to businesses and the numbers.

4 lessons, being written

Paths

An order to take the modules in, depending on the job you want.