What It Means to Learn Software Design

What It Means to Learn Software Design

Introduction

People who write software for a living hear the word “design” constantly.

Normally, software goes through many processes before the running product is born.

Requests and needs from people in different roles are consolidated into requirements, and design work is carried out based on those requirements.

It is quite common for an additional layer of design to emerge from the technical side of those designs.

Once the technical aspects become clear, teams create programs and tests, run reviews, deploy to test environments, exercise tests there, adjust schedules, and finally ship the program to the environments where many people can use it.

This is the typical flow in agile development, but depending on the method, there may be multiple rounds of testing or releases made in larger batches.

Now, back to our main topic: software design. Where in this flow does the term usually belong?

In my view, it does not sit in one particular place in the flow—or rather, perhaps it is embedded in every step.

I would like to explore what this word really points to.

Misconceptions About Software Design

When people hear the phrase “software design,” they may think:

• It’s the work of breaking requirements down into software terms.
• It’s about architecture.
• It’s something you do only at the beginning of a system.

However, the literal meaning of software design does not quite match what it actually entails.

Yes, translating requirements to software or discussing architecture are part of design. These activities mostly happen in the early stages, and once a system moves into feature-level enhancements, developers rarely think about them explicitly.

As a result, many early-career developers do not encounter software design until they have accumulated a certain amount of experience. I was no exception.

Thinking about it now, I believe design heavily depends on experience.

We often reuse designs that worked in previous projects.

Because of that, one major misconception is that you can “sort of” do software design without truly studying it, simply by copying past examples.

Consequently, fast-moving trend technologies get prioritized, while there is little discussion of the benefits of studying software design in depth.

A Turning Point

My own learning about software design was also pushed far down my priority list.

AI, data analysis, new frameworks, and languages evolve every day, so the backlog of things to learn is endless.

I do handle feature-level design at work, but before I studied design, I relied entirely on intuition and prior experience.

I had a decision-making style rooted in “this has worked well before,” and that approach often produced decent results because it had proven itself.

For that very reason, it took me even longer to become genuinely interested in design.

But at some point, I began to feel a lack of conviction in choices that were made purely from experience. After gaining a certain level of experience, I felt the urge to understand things systematically.

That realization pushed me to study design in a structured way.

The first thing I noticed was that the learning vector is different even when the subject matter is still tech.

Most of my previous studying had been concrete.

Whether it was programming languages, frameworks, or data analysis, the focus was on learning specific techniques.

Those studies produce working artifacts quickly, are easy to grasp, and translate immediately into useful knowledge on the job.

Design, on the other hand, deals largely with abstractions.

Why is loose coupling desirable? Is coupling only bad? Why is modularization helpful? What exactly is a boundary?

These are the kinds of concepts you explore.

They do not immediately help you in day-to-day work.

I see this knowledge as something that exerts long-term influence on software engineers.

Learning Design Is Learning Philosophy

Architecture is often mentioned alongside design.

If you search, you will find many articles praising clean architecture.

You will also find plenty of projects that simply mimic a directory structure without actually understanding the architecture.

I want to strongly emphasize that there is a major misunderstanding here as well.

Earlier I mentioned that the nature of learning differs—that is exactly what is happening again.

When you approach architecture with the mindset of learning “methods,” you end up thinking that copying a directory tree gives you clean architecture.

But architecture is not a “method.” It is just a pattern.

It is not a silver bullet, nor is it so generalized that it fits every project.

So why learn architecture?

I believe we do it to uncover the design philosophy hidden behind it.

Why do we split these files? Why must this connection remain loosely coupled? Why should the return value be plain data rather than a model?

Studying the reasons and the philosophy behind those decisions—that is what it means to learn design.

The Value of Studying Design Philosophy

The value of learning concrete techniques is obvious because the return comes quickly; you learn out of necessity for work or personal interest and immediately apply the knowledge.

So what is the value of learning design philosophy?

I believe it expands your everyday awareness and the range of choices you consider.

When we first start working as software developers, we focus on whether the program runs.

We often decide where to place files, how to split logic, or what scope to use by referencing other code rather than by thinking deeply through each factor.

Studying design philosophy, however, reveals the intent behind everything. When intent is missing, you gain the foundation to propose it yourself.

Your attention shifts from merely getting things to run toward building systems with better maintainability and extensibility.

In other words, the quality of your day-to-day coding rises.

Maintainability and extensibility are investments in the future; they rarely pay off immediately.

Yet, the initial design dramatically affects maintenance costs and development speed years down the line—that much is clear from firsthand experience.

Anyone who has worked on the same product for years likely feels the same.

Clarifying the intent of design while investing in the future is exactly why I see immense value in learning design philosophy.