Career
Senior Software Engineer roadmap
Beyond technology: architecture, distributed systems, reliability, technical decisions and leadership.
- Expert
- about 46 hours
- 18 modules
- 47 steps
Before you start
What you will learn
1. SQL for Applications
Keep application data correct with transactions, ACID, isolation levels, locking and MVCC.
- Transactions & ACID — Databases · Transactions & ACID
- Isolation, Locking & MVCC — Databases · Isolation, Locking & MVCC
2. Observability Essentials
Structured logging and distributed tracing with OpenTelemetry.
- Structured Logging — Observability · Structured Logging
- Distributed Tracing & OpenTelemetry — Observability · Distributed Tracing & OpenTelemetry
3. Code Review & Mentoring
Give and receive useful code reviews and help teammates grow.
- Code Review — Engineering Leadership · Code Review
- Mentoring — Engineering Leadership · Mentoring
4. Incidents & Reliability
Handle incidents calmly, learn from them and build reliability practices into the team.
- Incident Handling — Engineering Leadership · Incident Handling
- Reliability Practices — Engineering Leadership · Reliability Practices
5. AI-Assisted DevelopmentOptional
Work effectively with coding agents: give them context and instruction files, prompt for code, connect tools with MCP and review what they produce.
- Coding Agents — AI-Assisted Development · Coding Agents
- Context & Instruction Files — AI-Assisted Development · Context & Instruction Files
- Prompting for Code — AI-Assisted Development · Prompting for Code
- Tools & MCP — AI-Assisted Development · Tools & MCP
- Reviewing & Testing AI-Generated Code — AI-Assisted Development · Reviewing & Testing AI-Generated Code
6. Monoliths, Microservices & DDD
Choose between a modular monolith and microservices, and draw the boundaries with domain-driven design.
- Modular Monolith — Software Architecture · Modular Monolith
- Microservices — Software Architecture · Microservices
- Domain Driven Design — Software Architecture · Domain Driven Design
7. SQL Performance
Read query plans, choose the right indexes and fix N+1 queries and connection pool problems.
- Indexes & Query Plans — Databases · Indexes & Query Plans
- N+1, Indexes & Connection Pooling — Performance Engineering · N+1, Indexes & Connection Pooling
8. Performance Testing & Profiling
Load and stress test systems, then profile and benchmark code to find the bottleneck.
- Load & Stress Testing — Testing & Quality · Load & Stress Testing
- Profiling & Benchmarking — Performance Engineering · Profiling & Benchmarking
9. Backend Performance Best Practices
Budget latency on hot paths, access data efficiently at scale, cache with a clear invalidation strategy, apply backpressure and trim payloads and round trips.
- API Latency Budgets & Hot Paths — Performance Engineering · API Latency Budgets & Hot Paths
- Data Access Patterns at Scale — Performance Engineering · Data Access Patterns at Scale
- Caching Strategy & Invalidation — Performance Engineering · Caching Strategy & Invalidation
- Async I/O, Concurrency & Backpressure — Performance Engineering · Async I/O, Concurrency & Backpressure
- Payloads, Compression & Network Round Trips — Performance Engineering · Payloads, Compression & Network Round Trips
10. Threat Modeling & Secure Coding
Use the OWASP Top 10 and threat modeling to find risks early, and write code that resists them.
- OWASP Top 10 & Threat Modeling — Security · OWASP Top 10 & Threat Modeling
- Secure Coding — Security · Secure Coding
11. API Security Best Practices
Use the OWASP API Security Top 10 to secure authentication and tokens, enforce object- and function-level authorization, and validate input against mass assignment.
- OWASP API Security Top 10 — API Security · OWASP API Security Top 10
- API Authentication & Tokens — API Security · API Authentication & Tokens
- BOLA & BFLA (Authorization) — API Security · BOLA & BFLA (Authorization)
- Input Validation & Mass Assignment — API Security · Input Validation & Mass Assignment
12. API Hardening & Monitoring
Limit abuse with rate limits, lock down transport, CORS and secrets, and log and monitor APIs to detect attacks.
- Rate Limiting & Abuse — API Security · Rate Limiting & Abuse
- TLS, CORS & Secrets — API Security · TLS, CORS & Secrets
- API Logging & Monitoring — API Security · API Logging & Monitoring
13. Testing Strategy
TDD and the test pyramid, plus property-based, mutation and contract testing.
- TDD & Test Pyramid — Testing & Quality · TDD & Test Pyramid
- Property, Mutation & Contract Testing — Testing & Quality · Property, Mutation & Contract Testing
14. Safe Releases & SLOs
Release with blue/green, canary and feature flags, and decide how much risk to take with SLOs and error budgets.
- Blue/Green, Canary, Rollback & Feature Flags — DevOps · Blue/Green, Canary, Rollback & Feature Flags
- SLI, SLO, SLA & Error Budgets — Observability · SLI, SLO, SLA & Error Budgets
15. High Availability & Disaster Recovery
Design for failure with redundancy across regions and availability zones, and plan disaster recovery.
- High Availability & Disaster Recovery — System Design · High Availability & Disaster Recovery
- Regions, Availability Zones & DR — Cloud Engineering · Regions, Availability Zones & DR
16. Code Review Best Practices
Review with clear goals, keep pull requests small, check correctness, design, tests and security, give useful feedback and automate the rest.
- Goals of Code Review — Code Review · Goals of Code Review
- PR Size & Scope — Code Review · PR Size & Scope
- Reviewing Correctness & Design — Code Review · Reviewing Correctness & Design
- Reviewing Tests & Security — Code Review · Reviewing Tests & Security
- Giving & Receiving Feedback — Code Review · Giving & Receiving Feedback
- Automation, Linters & Checklists — Code Review · Automation, Linters & Checklists
17. Design Trade-offs & Interviews
Make and explain technical decisions, communicate architecture and work through classic system design interviews.
- Technical Decisions & Tradeoffs — Engineering Leadership · Technical Decisions & Tradeoffs
- Architecture Communication & Leadership — Engineering Leadership · Architecture Communication & Leadership
- Classic Interview Designs — System Design · Interview Scenarios
18. Distributed Systems
Resilience patterns, consistency and consensus, and sagas with the outbox pattern for work that spans services.
- Circuit Breaker, Retry, Backoff & Bulkhead — System Design · Circuit Breaker, Retry, Backoff & Bulkhead
- Consistency, CAP & Consensus — System Design · Consistency, CAP & Consensus
- Sagas & Outbox — System Design · Sagas & Outbox
Each step unlocks when you answer its questions well enough, and a module you finish counts in every roadmap that shares it.
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