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Java Multithreading, Concurrency & Performance Optimization (Udemy.com)

Become an expert in Multithreading, Concurrency & Parallel programming in Java, with strong emphasis on high performance

Created by: Michael Pogrebinsky

Last updated September 2026

Our take

Based on the ratings of 14,848 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in September 2026. No course pays to be reviewed.

Michael Pogrebinsky's course is a short, focused tour of Java concurrency. It runs about 5.4 hours across 40 lectures, starting with how threads work and moving through performance, locks, inter-thread communication and lock-free data structures. It finishes with a section on virtual threads and high-performance IO, and the instructor refreshed it in September 2026. It is built for developers who already write Java and want the mental model, not a tour of every class in the library.

Reviewers keep coming back to the teaching. They describe the explanations as clear, the animations as helpful and the examples as realistic, and one says it made multithreading less scary. One student returned just to refresh. Criticism is mostly about what is missing. One reviewer wanted more on ConcurrentHashMap, another on CompletableFuture, and a third found the early material too basic. The two low ratings in the sample blamed the pace and the heavy image and matrix processing examples. One happy reviewer still had to rewatch videos several times.

The ratings are strong, with 9,004 of 14,848 reviews at five stars. At 5.4 hours it is a quick primer, not a full reference, and the reviews back that up. For a developer who wants to understand threads, locks and virtual threads without a big time commitment, it is an easy recommendation. Pair it with the Java docs for the collections and futures it skips, and expect to pause and rewatch when the examples get dense.

Best forJava developers who know the basics and want a fast, clear primer on threads, locks and virtual threads.
Skip it ifYou want deep coverage of ConcurrentHashMap or CompletableFuture, or you learn better from very simple examples.

Pros

  • Animations and real-world examples make a hard topic easier to follow, reviewers say
  • Covers virtual threads and high-performance IO, and was updated in September 2026
  • Short and to the point at 5.4 hours, with 21 quizzes and 5 coding exercises
  • Builds step by step from thread basics up to lock-free data structures

Cons

  • Skips detail on ConcurrentHashMap and CompletableFuture, reviewers say
  • Image and matrix processing examples can bury the concept for some students
  • Some examples are hard to follow; one reviewer rewatched videos, another found the pace too fast
A difficult and technical topic explained in a clear and understandable way. Michael is truly a master of his craft as well as a master in teaching.
Martin Krüger, a student

Listed for all levels, but it assumes basic Java. Best for working developers or CS students.

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What you will learn

  • Build well designed & correct multithreaded applications in Java, with confidence.
  • Gain expert-level practical knowledge of modern software architecture & low level programming using Threads
  • Create high performance & responsive applications, clients will use and love
  • Learn to utilize your computer and Java language using Concurrency and Parallel programming

Course content

12 sections · 40 lectures · 5.4 hours of video 21 quizzes, 5 coding exercises, 8 articles

  1. 1Introduction 2 free previews2 lectures · 1 quiz · 14 min
  2. 2Threading fundamentals - Thread Creation 1 free preview4 lectures · 2 quizzes · 18 min
  3. 3Threading fundamentals - Thread Coordination3 lectures · 2 quizzes · 17 min
  4. 4Performance Optimization5 lectures · 1 quiz · 47 min
  5. 5Data Sharing between Threads2 lectures · 1 quiz · 19 min
  6. 6The Concurrency Challenges & Solutions5 lectures · 5 quizzes · 40 min
  7. 7Advanced Locking4 lectures · 3 quizzes · 30 min
  8. 8Inter-Thread Communication4 lectures · 3 quizzes · 36 min
  9. 9Lock-Free Algorithms, Data-Structures & Techniques3 lectures · 1 quiz · 26 min
  10. 10Threading Models for High Performance IO3 lectures · 1 quiz · 39 min

Who it is for

The instructor says it suits

  • Students who want to learn multithreaded programming and concurrency
  • Students who want to produce the highest quality and highest performance software
  • Engineers who want to take their professional career to new level, and become true experts
  • College students and newly graduates, who want to stand out from the crowd, and land their dream job

What you need before you start

  • A Windows, Mac or Linux computer
  • Latest Java Development Kit (JDK) installed
  • Basic knowledge of programming in Java

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Course Description

[Updated to 2023, including Project Loom and Virtual Threads]

Description

If you had your own jet plane, would you drive it to the grocery store or fly it on tour around the world?

Today every computer and phone comes with immense computing power and multiple cores, allowing full parallelism. In this course, you will go on a journey to learn all the fundamental tools you need to become a confident and successful multithreaded application developer. Using multithreading and concurrency, we will learn to get the most out of our computer to truly make it fly!

Teaching Philosophy

The course is designed to teach you "how to fish". Instead of memorizing classes, libraries, or Java APIs, we will learn the fundamentals of multithreaded programming, starting from the complete basics all the way to the very advanced topics in multithreading.

All lectures include the right theory and are accompanied by practical examples from relevant fields, such as:

  • User Interface applications

  • Image Processing

  • Web Applications

  • Computational programs

  • And others

It's a practical course that is meant to save you time. Instead of filling hours of material, I hand-picked the most important topics based on my practical experience.

Target Student for this Course

  • Students who already have some experience and basic knowledge in programming in Java.

  • Students who want to acquire multithreaded, parallel programming and concurrency skills in a short period of time.

  • Students who are interested in performance optimizations and getting a good foundation in the above-mentioned topics.

  • Students who want to take their careers to the next level. Whether you are a

    • Newly graduate and you're looking to land a dream job.

    • A professional engineer who wants to become a better programmer and improve your skillset.

  • A freelancer who wants to develop his/her own project and is looking to learn how to write efficient multithreaded code.


    Then this course is for YOU!

Short Bio

My passion for multithreading and concurrency started in college, where I worked on a highly scalable, distributed B+ Tree research project sponsored by IBM.

Later I worked as a Computer Architecture Engineer at Intel Corporation and as a Software Engineer in other companies, where I developed many applications and features involving efficient and optimized multithreaded code to deliver real-time video, audio, and data - in education, healthcare, augmented reality, and Ad Tech.

Today I am a Principal Software Engineer and Software Architect. Training and mentoring engineers on all levels are both my job and my passion.

We will learn

  • Operating Systems fundamentals and motivation for multithreading and concurrency.

  • The basics of multithreading - how to create threads in Java and communicate between threads in Java.

  • Performance considerations and design patterns of multithreaded and parallel applications, optimizing for latency or throughput.

  • Data sharing between threads in Java, all the pitfalls and challenges, as well as the solutions and best practices.

  • Advanced lock-free algorithms and data structures for increased responsiveness and performance.

By the End of the Course

You will be able to

  • Write correct, responsive, and performant multithreaded applications in Java for any purpose and scale.

  • Apply best practices to architect multithreaded applications, algorithms, and libraries.

  • Become knowledgeable in concurrency & parallel programming, which will help you in job interviews, your daily work as an engineer, and your personal projects.

Become an expert in Java Multithreading, Concurrency, and Performance Optimization today!


FAQs

- "Will the course help me with interview questions?"

Yes! The course is focused on helping you become proficient in multithreading and concurrency in general and also master multithreading in Java in particular. You will learn all you need about threads in Java as well as common topics in interview questions involving locking, synchronization in Java, heap and stack memory organization, and so on. Although the course is not focused on interview questions specifically, and there's no way to predict what you will be asked during an interview question, the knowledge you will get will definitely set you apart from other candidates.


- "Does the course cover all threading classes and APIs in Java?"

"No. There are many books and expensive academic courses which cover EVERY single class and API which would take months to finish. In addition, Oracle provides excellent Java Docs that cover and explain every single Java multithreading API and class.

This course is different!

Based on years of experience in the field, I have carefully designed a short curriculum that teaches you all the essentials in a short amount of time.

No fillers! No more wasting time learning things you could read yourself in 5 minutes or don't ever need!

This course will build the foundation for becoming an expert in multithreading and concurrency. And also be able to successfully and easily extend your own knowledge in the future.


- "What if I don't understand something during the course and I have a question, what do I do?"

Not a problem! I am here to help you succeed! Multithreading is not an easy topic; no one is expected to get it all right away. Each lecture has a Q&A section where students can ask questions about the lecture or any follow-up questions about the topic in general. I will answer all the questions promptly and ensure you have all the tools for success.


- "Does the course cover interprocess communication and distributed Systems?"

No. Although those are really interesting and important topics that involve concurrency. They are not directly related to Java multithreading, which is the main topic of the course. We do mention those topics during the course, but they are out of scope and deserve their own course. The concepts, use cases, and challenges are very different than the ones we encounter while optimizing the performance of a single multithreaded Java application, algorithm, or library, so we will not cover them here.


- "Why do I need a separate course for concurrent programming?"

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Instructor Details

Michael Pogrebinsky

Michael Pogrebinsky is an experienced software architect and engineer and an accredited Certified Professional for Software Architecture trainer by the International Software Architecture Qualification Board (iSAQB).

As an official Udemy Instructor Partner, Michael has helped hundreds of thousands of engineers learn in-demand skills, get promoted, and land their dream job.

In his professional career, working for some of the top tech companies, like Google, Intel, Rubicon Project, DAQRI (Acquired by Snap Inc.), and others, Michael has led numerous flagship products. His expertise spans high-performance,  scalable distributed systems, video/audio streaming, augmented reality, and more.

Michael's teaching philosophy emphasizes understanding the core fundamentals and developing the right way of thinking and good practices.

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Reviews

4.6

14,848 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By sravani sai on 7/13/2026

Just the best course on multithreading. I already finished this course long ago, and this is an amazing course. Easy to understand with the animations and examples he presents. I wanted a refresh on multithreading, and I am back here again.

By Maria Boiko on 6/3/2026

This couse offers an excellent breakdown of multithreading fundamentals, making complex concurrency teories easy to grasp. It does a good job of structuring the existing knowledge while filling in critical gaps.

By Priya Badchariya on 5/18/2026

For the topics that are briefly covered, some extra resources or links for deep diving could be included. That would help the curious people since they don't need to search for good resources, as we know seaarching for good resources could be time taking.

By Grzegorz Grzybek on 5/5/2026

Great course for everyone who wants to know more about the fundamental low-level concurrency mechanisms. Even for developers with 20+ year experience it's a good summary of the important concepts - especially for those who learned what synchronized/wait/notify is and decided there's not much to learn in Java. The course covers everything starting from general concepts and ending with Virtual Threads (project Loom).

By Johnattan Alexander Zambrano Moreno on 3/24/2026

This course is extremely interesting; it lays a solid foundation for everything related to Multithreading, Performance, and more. Although a few examples can be a bit challenging to grasp, they effectively demonstrate the great utility of mastering multithreading. I am very satisfied with the course

By Furat Alsmadi on 3/20/2026

This Course is good, basically it will give the fundamental understanding to go and explore more specific APIs, the instructor is very good and knowledgeable, I wished for more illustrations though, maybe an updated content in the future will be a banger, thanks a lot

By Anonymized User on 3/16/2026

While explaining or writing a code please provide some highlighting arrows, so that it will be more clear to catch what is happening, rather than rewinding the course multiple times. Thanks this course was really helpful.

By Steve Corbett on 2/20/2026

Excellent. A strong pace of learning throughout, and the examples were very well-chosen to illustrate the concepts being taught. I really enjoyed this course, and I got a lot of useful information out of it.

By Sergio Alberto Jaramillo Orozco on 1/23/2026

Was a great course, I learned many things that I didn't know before. Well deserved the 5 stars for this course, duration was fine and all topics introduce to keep looking for more info about the current topic. Also the quiz proposal was very good to me, in order to check if the chapter and knowledge shared in the video meet your goal as instructor, also helped to motivate me checking more info about current topic. Thank you

By Ashutosh Saini on 1/18/2026

Had great experience with learning multithreading in this course, concepts are explained and demonstrated in an easy-to-understand manner with nice and simple coding examples. Might keep coming back to this course in future to reference some of the concepts.

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Overall Score : 92 / 100