Software Engineer: Zero to Hero

A zero-to-hero path through the catalog — every phase ends in a capstone you can put in a portfolio.

Programming fundamentals → data structures & algorithms → databases → system design → engineering practice.

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Start: Complexity Analysis (Big-O)

1
Foundations
0/8 lessons · capstone
The building blocks every engineer needs before anything else clicks.
Measuring cost
Big-O is the unit every later choice in this path is argued in.
- Complexity Analysis (Big-O)15m
Core data structures
How data is actually stored and accessed in memory.
Version control
You cannot collaborate on code without this.
- Git & Version Control Internals30m
2
Algorithmic Thinking
0/41 lessons · capstone
Sorting, searching, trees, and graphs — the vocabulary of technical interviews and efficient code.
Sorting
The classic algorithms, and why some scale and others don't.
Trees & heaps
Hierarchical structures for fast lookup and priority ordering.
Graphs
Modeling relationships and finding paths through them.
Greedy algorithms
When the locally best choice is provably the globally best one — and how to tell when it isn't.
- Greedy Algorithms20m
- Interval Scheduling20m
Dynamic programming & patterns
Turning brute force into something that actually finishes running.
3
Databases
0/11 lessons · capstone
Almost every real system is a thin layer over a database. Understand the layer.
Relational fundamentals
What a table actually guarantees, and what it doesn't.
Scaling data
What breaks first as you grow, and the standard fixes.
4
System Design
0/28 lessons · capstone
How production systems are actually put together, end to end.
The interview framework
The repeatable approach every system design interview rewards — learn it once, apply it to anything.
- System Design Interview Methodology20m
Networking basics
What happens between a browser and a server.
Core infrastructure
The pieces every backend eventually needs.
Distributed systems
What changes once your system runs on more than one machine.
Kafka in production
What actually pages you once a log is running: replicas falling behind, consumers rebalancing, lag piling up.
Security & isolation
Proving who a caller is, then keeping the wrong things from talking to each other.
5
Engineering Practice
0/7 lessons · capstone
The non-algorithmic skills that separate a working engineer from someone who can only solve puzzles.
Writing maintainable code
Code that survives contact with a second engineer.
- Design Patterns & SOLID Principles16m
Confidence in change
How you know your code still works after you touch it.
- Testing Strategy: The Test Pyramid13m
Correctness under load
What goes wrong when two things run at once, and how to stop it.
- Concurrency & Threading Models15m
Architecture at scale
How teams structure large systems, and how those systems stay up.
6
Capstone: AI Literacy
0/4 lessons · capstone
Every software engineer now ships next to AI features. A working-level tour, not a specialization.
Working with LLMs as a building block
Enough to integrate an LLM API correctly and safely.