Software Engineering Career Accelerator

System Design Interview (4 weeks)

Objective: To provide a thorough understanding of system design principles, common patterns (including distributed and microservice-specific), and best practices, enabling students to confidently tackle complex system design interview questions.

Week 5: System Design Fundamentals & Interview Prep

• Interview Mindset – Learn the structure of system design interviews and master whiteboarding, time management, and frameworks.
• Design Thinking – Break down problems using functional and non-functional requirements.
• Networking Basics – Understand protocols, latency, bandwidth, and client-server models.
• Distributed System Core – Get familiar with consistency, availability, and partitioning (CAP theorem, etc.).

Week 6: Data, APIs & Middleware

• Database Design – Learn data modeling, relational vs non-relational types, and horizontal/vertical scaling.
• API Design – Master REST, gateways, and API lifecycle best practices.
• Middleware – Explore roles of middleware, their types, functions, and how they fit into scalable systems.
• Integration Awareness – Learn the hidden complexities in integrating components via APIs and middleware.

Week 7: Microservices & Communication Patterns

• Monolith to Microservice – Compare architecture styles and dive into service decomposition.
• Communication Patterns – Synchronous vs asynchronous, queues, event-driven models.
• Integration & Messaging – Learn message brokers, pub/sub, and how services coordinate.
• Common Challenges – Handle service discovery, deployment, versioning, and data consistency.

Week 8: Scaling Systems & Case Studies

• Resilience & Security – Build fault-tolerant systems with retries, fallbacks, circuit breakers, and secure patterns.
• Scalability Models – Understand vertical vs horizontal scaling, load balancing, and caching.
• Case Study Deep Dives – Design systems like Twitter, Uber, Dropbox, and Stripe.
• Pattern Mastery – Apply learned patterns to abstract, multi-component systems and optimize trade-offs.

Behavioral Question (4 weeks)

Objective: To equip software engineers with the principles, strategies, and practical skills to confidently and effectively answer behavioral interview questions, showcasing their competencies, experiences, and cultural fit.

Week 9: Behavioral Interview Basics

• Interview Mindset – Learn how behavioral interviews are structured and evaluated. automated responses.
• The STAR Method – Master Situation, Task, Action, and Result to structure your answers clearly.
• Story Bank Building – Start compiling relevant real-life examples to use across different question types.

Week 10: Engineering Communication & Collaboration

• Communication Skills – Practice clear and concise speaking tailored to technical audiences.
• Teamwork in Engineering – Learn how to highlight collaboration, empathy, and shared ownership.
• Project Navigation – Share examples of managing ambiguity, timelines, and software lifecycle phases.
• Leadership & Influence – Showcase stories of driving impact, even without formal authority.

Week 11: Behavioral Strategy Mastery

• Question Patterns – Explore common behavioral categories (conflict, ownership, failure, etc.).
• Strategic Responses – Learn frameworks to match your story with what the question really tests.
• Tailored Answers – Customize your responses to reflect company values and mission.

Week 12: Polishing & Practice

• Insightful Questions – Prepare thoughtful questions that demonstrate curiosity and alignment.
• Mock & Feedback Loops – Practice full mock sessions and refine your answers based on critique.

• Clarity & Confidence – Focus on tone, delivery, and pacing to make your stories impactful.

Java Advanced OOD (4 weeks)

Objective:

To equip students with advanced OOD principles and patterns, enabling them to design elegant, efficient, and maintainable Java applications and excel in technical interviews.

Week 13: OOD Foundations in Java

• Abstraction & Encapsulation – Understand abstract classes vs interfaces and design clear public APIs.
• Inheritance & Polymorphism – Learn composition over inheritance and flexible design via polymorphism.
• Association & Aggregation – Grasp class relationships, multiplicity, and cohesive designs.
• Immutability – Explore benefits and implementation of immutable objects in Java.

Week 14: SOLID Principles in Practice

• Single Responsibility Principle (SRP) – Identify responsibilities and refactor for cohesion.
• Open/Closed Principle (OCP) – Design for extension using abstraction and polymorphism.
• Liskov Substitution Principle (LSP) – Avoid misuse of inheritance and ensure correct substitutability.
• Interface Segregation Principle (ISP) – Keep interfaces small and client-specific.
• Dependency Inversion Principle (DIP) – Invert control using abstractions and basic dependency injection.

Week 15: Design Patterns Deep Dive

• Creational Patterns I & II – Learn Singleton, Factory, Abstract Factory, and Builder patterns.
• Structural Patterns I & II – Apply Adapter, Decorator, Facade, and Proxy for flexible structure.
• Behavioral Patterns I–III – Use Strategy, Observer, Command, Template Method, State, and Iterator.

Week 16: OOD Interview Preparation

• Interview Approach – Use a 4-step method to tackle OOD questions with clarity.
• Component Design – Break down real-world systems and apply learned principles.
• Design Justification – Practice articulating design choices and trade-offs.
• Mock Interviews I & II – Solve design prompts like Vending Machine and Online Chess Game.
• Pitfalls & Best Practices – Avoid over-engineering, handle ambiguity, and manage interview time.