Study paths

Structured multi-week paths for backend and system design practice.

Backend Foundations — Reliability, scale, CAP, load balancing, and core data choices—the vocabulary every backend engineer needs before design drills. (3 weeks · beginner)
System Design Core Path — Layered path from foundations through data, cache, async, and resiliency—then interview designs. (5 weeks · intermediate)
Interview Sprint — Short path for interview prep: answering framework, then high-frequency designs (rate limiter, chat, feed, notifications). (2 weeks · intermediate)
Payments & Reliability — Idempotency, reconciliation, SEPA lifecycle, and practical exactly-once thinking for money-moving systems. (3 weeks · advanced)
Kafka & Event Streaming — Kafka architecture, delivery semantics, Streams intro, and how events connect to sagas and outbox patterns. (3 weeks · intermediate)
Java + Spring Platform — Collections, concurrency, JVM tuning, and Spring Boot DI/security/JPA for production backend roles. (4 weeks · intermediate)
Staff Engineer · Distributed Systems — Consistency models, locks/consensus, multi-region, sagas, and technical leadership for staff-level interviews. (5 weeks · staff)
Azure Cloud for Java Backends — App Service/Functions, networking/security, managed identity, DevOps, and event messaging on Azure. (3 weeks · intermediate)