Starting point assessment
Where you stand today
Honest gap analysis before we begin
3+
Years backend engineering
1yr
Data engineering (FPT Telecom)
3
Certs (Scala ×2, Spring)
Top 2
CS grad, TDTU
Strengths to build on
Production Akka Actor + Akka System (rare at mid level)Strength
ZIO Reactive in production — functional Scala depthStrength
Full data pipeline: Spark, Airflow, Kafka, MLOpsStrength
Currently building AI agent platform at MessageMediaLeverage now
Multi-language: Scala, Java, Python, GoStrength
Gaps to close
Architecture design reviews + ADR writingGap
No public tech writing or blog presenceGap
AWS certs (GCP knowledge helps, not sufficient)Gap
Mentoring & setting technical bar for othersGap
Visible network / community presenceGap
Skill trajectory (now → Day 365)
Java / Scala75→92
System design40→85
AWS architecture35→82
Distributed systems45→83
AI tooling30→82
Tech leadership20→78
Network / community15→75
Technical writing15→78
Q1 · Days 1–90
Foundation
Lock the AWS cert, build system design vocabulary, start writing publiclyGoal: AWS DVA-C02 + 4 design write-ups
AWS Developer Associate — sprint to cert ~8h/wk
✓
AWS DVA-C02 Core Services
Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, SQS, SNS, Cognito, ElastiCache, X-Ray. Aim to pass by Day 30.
✓
Hands-on Labs
Build a serverless REST API with Lambda + DynamoDB + API Gateway. Deploy with SAM or CDK. Add X-Ray tracing.
System design fundamentals — 1 design per week ~6h/wk
✓
Designing Data-Intensive Applications
The bible. Read Ch 1–7 (storage engines, encoding, replication, partitioning). Takes your Spark/Kafka knowledge and gives it theoretical grounding.
✓
System Design Interview Vol 1 & 2
URL shortener, Rate limiter, News feed, Notification system. Practice out loud with a timer. One system per week from Day 31.
✓
Start writing publicly — Day 60
Publish your first technical blog post by Day 60. Write about a system design you practiced, or something you built at FPT/MessageMedia (without NDA details).
✓
Framework gaps: Spring Boot depth
You know Akka/ZIO well. Fill Spring Boot gaps — security, testing, observability, reactive with WebFlux. Build one production-grade REST API.
Q1 review checkpoint ~1h
✓
Reflect & adjust
Day 90: honestly review what got done vs skipped. Adjust Q2 pace before moving on — don't carry silent debt into the next quarter.
Q2 · Days 91–180
Depth
Distributed systems mastery, HA patterns, lead your first ADRGoal: own a real architecture decision at work
Distributed systems — theory meets your Kafka/Akka experience ~7h/wk
✓
DDIA Ch 8–12 + Consensus
Transactions, distributed system failures, consistency guarantees. Study Raft consensus. Two-phase commit vs Saga. You already understand the data — now formalize the theory.
✓
Event Sourcing + CQRS (your edge)
Build a production-grade event sourcing demo using Akka Persistence or Kafka. Your FPT experience in event-driven systems is the foundation — formalize it into a portfolio project.
✓
Microservice resilience patterns
Circuit breaker, bulkhead, retry with exponential backoff, timeout, fallback. Implement using Resilience4j or built-in Akka supervision.
High availability & observability ~5h/wk
✓
SLO / SLI / SLA + CloudWatch
Define SLOs for a service you own. Build CloudWatch dashboards with error budgets. Configure alarms. You already know Prometheus — bridge it to AWS CloudWatch.
✓
Write your first ADR at work
Architecture Decision Record. Pick a real decision happening at MessageMedia or in a side project. Document context, options, decision, consequences. Share it in your team.
✓
SAA-C03 + IaC bridge project (see 6-month AWS plan)
Detailed week-by-week breakdown lives in the separate "AWS Path to Senior" plan: SAA-C03 via Maarek (Udemy) + Skill Builder Cloud Quest for weeks 1–7, then a CDK + observability bridge project in weeks 8–9. DVA-C02 already done ahead of schedule.
Networking — start building your visibility ~2h/wk
✓
Join & contribute to communities
Join 2–3 active communities: a Scala/Akka Slack or Discord, a Vietnam backend engineering group, and one AWS/cloud community. Answer questions, don't just lurk — this is where referrals start.
Q3 · Days 181–270
Leadership
AI-first engineering, mentoring, cross-team influenceGoal: become the person others look to
AI-first development — Axon JD calls this out 5+ times ~6h/wk
✓
AI dev tooling mastery
Master Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Claude for code review, and Codeium. Build a personal AI-augmented dev workflow. Write an internal guide on AI-assisted PR review for your team.
✓
LLM API + RAG architecture
Build a tool using the Anthropic or OpenAI API. Learn RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), vector databases (pgvector, Weaviate). You're at MessageMedia's AI platform — document what you build.
✓
Evaluate AI-generated code
Senior skill: knowing when AI code is subtly wrong. Build a checklist: correctness, security, performance, edge cases. Run code reviews using this lens on your team's AI-generated PRs.
Technical leadership in practice ~5h/wk
✓
Start mentoring — document it
Identify one junior or mid engineer to mentor. Weekly 1:1s, structured code review feedback, help them with a hard problem. Keep a log — this becomes interview evidence.
✓
Lead a design review meeting
Organise and facilitate a design review. Prepare agenda, gather feedback, write up outcomes. Do this for the event sourcing portfolio project or a real work system.
✓
AWS Solutions Architect Professional (SAP-C02) — pass cert
Weeks 10–25 of the detailed 6-month AWS plan: multi-account governance, migrations, cost optimization, security at scale. Harder than SAA-C03 — budget 10–12h/wk. This unlocks the "designing highly-available, scalable cloud-based systems" box on the Axon JD at a professional level.
Networking — go public ~2h/wk
✓
Speak or contribute publicly once
Give a short talk at a local meetup, or make a meaningful OSS contribution to a Scala/Akka/ZIO library. One public appearance is worth more than ten silent months.
Q4 · Days 271–365
Senior Proof
Portfolio, interviews, apply to AxonGoal: offer in hand by Day 365
Portfolio assembly — make the work visible ~8h/wk
✓
GitHub portfolio polish
3 flagship repos: (1) Event sourcing + CQRS in Scala/Akka, (2) AWS serverless system with observability, (3) AI-powered backend service. Each with detailed README, architecture diagram, trade-offs.
✓
5 technical blog posts
Write what you know: Akka vs ZIO for reactive systems, real-time telco log pipeline architecture, building AI agent backends, event sourcing lessons. Each post = proof of depth.
Senior interview preparation ~10h/wk
✓
System design interviews — senior tier
Practice: real-time location tracking, payment processing (exactly-once), multi-tenant SaaS, observability platform. 45 min timed, talk out loud, use Excalidraw.
✓
Behavioral prep — STAR format
Prepare 8 STAR stories: architecture decision you owned, time you set a technical bar, a system you made more available, a junior you mentored, a time you pushed back on product.
✓
Apply — Axon + target companies
Apply to Axon HCMC (primary). Also: Grab, Sea Group, VNG, Tiki, remote product companies. Use referrals from communities you've built. LinkedIn profile must be fully updated.
✓
Day 365 checklist
AWS Dev Associate ✓ · AWS Sol. Architect ✓ · 3 GitHub projects ✓ · 5+ blog posts ✓ · 3+ ADRs ✓ · Mentoring evidence ✓ · Senior interviews practiced ✓