Goal: Learn AWS the way senior software engineers use it in production—not by memorizing services, but by understanding how to design, deploy, scale, secure, and operate distributed systems.

Prerequisites

Before starting AWS, you should already be comfortable with:

• Linux basics

• HTTP/HTTPS

• DNS

• Networking fundamentals

• Git

• Docker basics

• SQL & NoSQL databases

• REST APIs

Phase 1 — Cloud Computing Fundamentals

Objective: Build a strong cloud foundation before learning AWS services.

Topics

• What is Cloud Computing?

• On-Premise vs Cloud

• IaaS, PaaS, SaaS

• Public vs Private vs Hybrid Cloud

• Shared Responsibility Model

• High Availability

• Scalability

• Fault Tolerance

• Disaster Recovery

• Regions

• Availability Zones

• Edge Locations

Understand

• Why companies migrate to cloud

• CAPEX vs OPEX

• Elasticity vs Scalability

• Vertical vs Horizontal Scaling

Phase 2 — Identity & Security

Objective: Understand how AWS secures applications.

Learn

• IAM Users

• IAM Groups

• IAM Roles

• IAM Policies

• Permission Boundaries

• Resource-based Policies

• MFA

• Cross-account Access

Production Concepts

• Least Privilege Principle

• Temporary Credentials

• Service Roles

• Role Assumption

Project

Build an application where:

• EC2 accesses S3 using IAM Role

• No Access Keys stored inside code

Phase 3 — Networking (Must Master)

Most software engineers skip networking.

Senior engineers don't.

Learn

• VPC

• CIDR

• Subnets

• Public vs Private Subnets

• Route Tables

• Internet Gateway

• NAT Gateway

• Security Groups

• Network ACL

• Bastion Host

• VPC Peering

Understand

How traffic flows

Internet

↓

Route53

↓

Load Balancer

↓

EC2

↓

Private Database
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Phase 4 — Compute

Understand how applications run.

EC2

• Instance Types

• AMI

• EBS

• Elastic IP

• User Data

• Launch Templates

Auto Scaling

• Scaling Policies

• Target Tracking

• Scheduled Scaling

Load Balancers

• ALB

• NLB

• Target Groups

• Health Checks

Project

Deploy a Spring Boot / Node.js application on EC2 behind an Application Load Balancer with Auto Scaling.

Phase 5 — Storage

Amazon S3

Learn

• Buckets

• Objects

• Storage Classes

• Lifecycle Policies

• Versioning

• Multipart Upload

• Cross Region Replication

• Encryption

• Pre-signed URLs

EBS

EFS

FSx

Project

Image Upload Service

Android App

↓

Backend

↓

Pre-Signed URL

↓

S3
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Phase 6 — Databases

Relational Databases

• RDS

• Aurora

Topics

• Read Replicas

• Multi-AZ

• Failover

• Backups

• Connection Pooling

NoSQL

DynamoDB

Learn

• Partition Key

• Sort Key

• GSIs

• LSIs

• TTL

• Capacity Modes

• Streams

Understand

When NOT to use DynamoDB.

Phase 7 — Serverless

Learn

Lambda

• Execution Model

• Cold Starts

• Timeouts

• Memory

• Layers

API Gateway

• REST APIs

• HTTP APIs

• Authorization

• Rate Limiting

• API Keys

Step Functions

EventBridge

Project

Mobile App

↓

API Gateway

↓

Lambda

↓

DynamoDB
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Phase 8 — Messaging & Event-Driven Architecture

Senior engineers should know asynchronous communication.

Learn

• SQS

• SNS

• EventBridge

• Dead Letter Queue

• FIFO Queues

Understand

• Event-driven architecture

• Retry strategies

• Idempotency

• Eventual consistency

Project

Order Service

↓

SNS

↓

Notification Service

↓

Analytics Service

↓

Inventory Service

Phase 9 — Containers & Kubernetes

Docker

• Images

• Containers

• Networking

• Volumes

ECS

Fargate

EKS

Learn

• Task Definitions

• Services

• Deployments

• Rolling Updates

Phase 10 — CI/CD

Understand deployment automation.

Learn

• GitHub Actions

• CodeBuild

• CodeDeploy

• CodePipeline

Production Pipeline

Developer

↓

GitHub

↓

CI

↓

Unit Tests

↓

Docker Build

↓

Deploy

↓

Production
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Phase 11 — Observability

Senior engineers don't just deploy.

They monitor.

Learn

• CloudWatch

• CloudTrail

• X-Ray

Understand

• Metrics

• Logs

• Traces

• Alerts

• Dashboards

Phase 12 — Security

Learn

• Secrets Manager

• Parameter Store

• KMS

• WAF

• Shield

• ACM

Understand

• Encryption at Rest

• Encryption in Transit

• Secret Rotation

• SSL Certificates

Phase 13 — Cost Optimization

One of the most underrated AWS skills.

Learn

• Cost Explorer

• AWS Budgets

• Spot Instances

• Reserved Instances

• Savings Plans

• S3 Lifecycle Policies

Understand

How architectural decisions affect cloud costs.

Phase 14 — Architecture Patterns

Study production-ready architectures.

Learn

• Monolith

• Microservices

• Event-Driven Architecture

• CQRS

• API Gateway Pattern

• Backend for Frontend (BFF)

• Saga Pattern

• Circuit Breaker

• Retry Pattern

• Caching Strategy

Phase 15 — AWS System Design

Design these systems using AWS:

• URL Shortener

• Chat Application

• Ride Sharing System

• Food Delivery Platform

• Video Streaming Platform

• File Storage System

• Notification System

• E-commerce Platform

• Banking System

• Social Media Feed

For each design, answer:

• Which AWS services are used?

• Why were they chosen?

• How does the system scale?

• How is data stored?

• How is security enforced?

• What happens if a service fails?

• How are costs optimized?

Hands-on Projects

Build progressively more complex systems:

Beginner

• Static Website Hosting (S3 + CloudFront)

• REST API on EC2

• Image Upload Service

Intermediate

• Notes Application (Lambda + DynamoDB)

• Chat Backend (WebSocket + API Gateway)

• Notification Service (SNS + SQS)

• Authentication Service (Cognito or JWT-based)

Advanced

• E-commerce Backend

• Food Delivery Backend

• Video Streaming Backend

• Real-time Analytics Pipeline

• Multi-service Microservices Architecture

Learning Sequence

Cloud Fundamentals
        ↓
IAM & Security
        ↓
Networking (VPC)
        ↓
Compute (EC2)
        ↓
Storage (S3/EBS)
        ↓
Databases (RDS/DynamoDB)
        ↓
Serverless (Lambda/API Gateway)
        ↓
Messaging (SNS/SQS/EventBridge)
        ↓
Containers (Docker/ECS/EKS)
        ↓
CI/CD
        ↓
Observability
        ↓
Security
        ↓
Cost Optimization
        ↓
Architecture Patterns
        ↓
AWS System Design
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Outcome

By completing this roadmap, you should be able to:

• Design scalable and fault-tolerant cloud architectures.

• Deploy production-ready applications on AWS.

• Secure applications using IAM, networking, and encryption best practices.

• Build event-driven and serverless systems.

• Monitor, troubleshoot, and optimize applications in production.

• Make informed architectural trade-offs based on scalability, reliability, performance, and cost.

This roadmap aligns with the level of AWS knowledge expected from senior software engineers who participate in architecture discussions, production deployments, and system design interviews.