6+ months of hard work & I finally made a job switch as an SDE-3. Here are the exact topics that helped me:
𝟭. 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗔𝗹𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗺𝘀 (𝗗𝗦𝗔)
• Arrays, Strings, Linked Lists
• Stacks, Queues, Deques
• HashMaps, HashSets
• Trees (Binary Trees, BST, Trie)
• Graphs (BFS, DFS, shortest path, cycle detection)
• Heaps / Priority Queues
• Sliding Window, Two Pointers, Backtracking
• Dynamic Programming (Tabulation, Memoization)
• Sorting & Searching (Binary Search variants)
𝟮. 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗝𝗮𝘃𝗮 (𝗝𝗮𝘃𝗮 𝟴+)
• OOP principles
• Collections framework (List, Map, Set, Queue)
• Concurrency and Multithreading
• Java Streams and Lambda expressions
• Functional Interfaces
• Exception handling
• Memory Management, Garbage Collection
• Design Patterns (Singleton, Factory, Strategy, etc.)
𝟯. 𝗦𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 & 𝗕𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
• Spring Core
• Spring Boot (auto-configuration, starters, profiles)
• Spring MVC (REST APIs, controllers, exception handling)
• Validation, Logging, Caching
• Unit Testing (JUnit5, Mockito)
• Spring AOP
• Swagger/OpenAPI
• REST vs SOAP, Idempotency, API versioning
𝟰. 𝗟𝗼𝘄-𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 (𝗟𝗟𝗗)
• Object-oriented design principles (SOLID, DRY, YAGNI)
• Design Patterns
• Class Diagrams, Sequence Diagrams
• Design real-world systems: Parking Lot, Elevator, Splitwise, BookMyShow, etc.
𝟱. 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵-𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 (𝗛𝗟𝗗)
• Basics of distributed systems
• Load Balancing, Caching, Database Sharding
• Microservices architecture (communication, service discovery, circuit breakers)
• Messaging Queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ)
• Scalability, Availability, CAP Theorem
• Design problems: URL shortener, Rate limiter, WhatsApp, etc.
𝟲. 𝗦𝗼𝗳𝘁 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 & 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
• STAR format for behavioral questions
• Systematic problem-solving approach
• Good communication for explaining thought process
Preparing & revising these topics with a full-time job was really tough, and I wasted great lot of time in finding the right resources to study from.
So, if you too are confused about how to start your preparation as an SDE 3 / 4, I’d highly recommend taking help from industry experts at Bosscoder Academy.
Check them here: https://bit.ly/3RJSiKI
For any guidance in interview preparation connect with me - https://lnkd.in/grXPhqVc
They’ve helped multiple professionals reach their dream product company through:
✅ Structured curriculum heavily focused on DSA & System Design.
✅ Live Weekend Classes, with limited Batch Size with only experienced Working Professionals.
✅ Personal Mentorship from Industry Veterans working with MAANG.
✅ 24/7 Doubt Support & Placement Assistance for Senior Roles.
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