The 34-Week Plan
Weeks 14 to 25
Week by week through Shiplane, live operations and the mock ladder.
These twelve weeks run from 18 January to 11 April 2027. Use Shiplane to deploy one service, then build a steady routine for mocks, applications, and operations. The week template gives a starting point for the hours.
Use contests to guide practice
Record contest performance and review the problems you missed. A weekly contest gives you timed practice, but it cannot guarantee a particular rating.
Weeks 14 to 19: Shiplane and the eight designs
Phase goal: deploy one service, complete the planned LLD designs, keep up with the A2Z sheet, and continue relevant applications and referrals.
Week 14 · Jan 18 to 24
- DSA: Greedy scheduling.
- Build: P3: CLI, Docker build, health gate.
- Drill: The D30 revision cadence starts.
- Also: Contest #14. Machine-coding run #1 (in-memory KV with TTL).
- Read: A go.dev blog pick, plus Ardan Labs on scheduling.
- Apply: Book pro mock #1, after the graphs slot.
Week 15 · Jan 25 to 31
- DSA: Greedy and heaps.
- Build: P3: record deploy versions and document rollback. Add an automated traffic switch only if time allows.
- Drill: LLD #7, an elevator.
- Also: Contest #15. Pramp mock #3.
- Read: Brendan Gregg on Linux performance.
- Apply: Continue tailored applications to roles that fit your graduation date and experience.
Week 16 · Feb 1 to 7
- DSA: Heaps.
- Build: P3: log streaming, metrics scrape, dashboard.
- Drill: Machine-coding run #2, a rate-limiter service.
- Also: Contest #16. Mock #5.
- Read: The Honeycomb manifesto, plus Charity Majors on structured events.
- Apply: Check application status and respond to any interview invitations.
Week 17 · Feb 8 to 14
- DSA: Tree theory, traversals, and medium problems.
- Build: P3: finish the runbook. Add one alert and test a database restore if time allows.
- Drill: LLD #8, in-memory KV, the final design.
- Also: Contest #17. Mock #6.
- Read: Grafana and Datadog engineering picks, plus Last9.
- Apply: Check application status and respond to any interview invitations.
Week 18 · Feb 15 to 21
- DSA: Tree FAQs.
- Build: P3: deploy Ledgerline or your selected core service.
- Drill: Revise the OS and CN week cards.
- Also: Contest #18. The you-talk drill.
- Read: A Cloudflare engineering pick, plus the SRE postmortem chapter.
- Apply: Referral follow-ups. Internship push.
Week 19 · Feb 22 to 28
- DSA: Tree construction, Morris traversal, and binary search trees.
- Build: P3 ships: runbook and stats visuals.
- Also: Contest #19. Mock #7. Use a Blind-75 sample as a diagnostic, and log the patterns to revisit. Share a project update if you have a finished result.
- Read: incident.io postmortems, plus Netflix chaos posts.
- Apply: P1 and P2 one-liners into the CV.
Weeks 20 to 25: operations and mocks
Phase goal: keep the service observable, practise failure recovery, and review mock feedback before the final interview phase.
Week 20 · Mar 1 to 7
- DSA: Tries and graph theory.
- Build: Ops: review service health and tune one useful alert from observed results.
- Drill: Machine-coding run #3, a job scheduler.
- Also: Contest #20. Mock #8.
- Read: A Google Cloud chaos primer, plus an AWS architecture pick.
- Apply: Prioritize roles that fit your eligibility and current interview readiness. Track the role type and outcome.
Week 21 · Mar 8 to 14
- DSA: Graph traversal and cycles.
- Build: Ops: run a controlled failure drill and follow the runbook.
- Also: Contest #21. Pramp mock #4.
- Read: The Netflix Chaos Monkey docs, plus the 2015 post.
- Apply: Keep applications moving. Build Faultline only if your main portfolio and interview work are on track.
Week 22 · Mar 15 to 21
- DSA: Shortest paths.
- Build: Ops: k6 load test and capacity notes.
- Also: Contest #22. Pro mock #2.
- Read: Brooker and Dan Luu picks.
- Build: Run a controlled failure drill and draft an incident review. Label the drill as simulated.
Week 23 · Mar 22 to 28
- DSA: Minimum spanning trees and advanced graphs.
- Build: Ops: publish the failure review, ship a fix, and add an alert. Label real incidents and drills accurately.
- Also: Contest #23. Mock #9. Share a project operations note if it contains a useful, verified result.
- Read: A Morning Paper distributed systems pick.
- Apply: Respond to every OA. Put interview slots on the calendar.
Week 24 · Mar 29 to Apr 4
- DSA: Dynamic programming: introduction, one-dimensional, two-dimensional, and grid problems.
- Build: Polish: clarify setup, tests, and design decisions in the README.
- Drill: LLD redo, parking lot and rate limiter, 45 minutes each.
- Also: Contest #24. Mock #10.
- Read: A Kleppmann archive pick, plus the Ferd reading list.
- Apply: Interview-ops notes for each company.
Week 25 · Apr 5 to 11
- DSA: Dynamic programming: stock problems and subsequences.
- Build: Polish: add measured deploy and service results to the READMEs.
- Drill: Machine-coding run #4, a URL shortener.
- Also: Contest #25. Pramp mock #5.
- Read: Deeper Julia Evans picks, plus the Murat distributed systems list.
- Apply: No applications this week.
Next: weeks 26 to 34, the interview season.