If you're a backend engineer with 2–4 years of experience and dreaming of joining FAANG or a top-tier product company, this roadmap is for you.
At this level, you’re expected not just to write code, but to design scalable systems, understand trade-offs, and think like an engineer who builds for millions.
Here’s a deep-dive roadmap to get you there.
🔥 1. Master Your Programming Language
Pick one backend language and go all-in:
- Java – preferred by Google and Amazon
- C++ – still strong at Meta and Google for performance-critical roles
- Go – loved at Netflix, Dropbox, Google
- Python – used at YouTube, Spotify, and for ML-heavy systems
💡 What to focus on:
- OOP design principles
- Multithreading & concurrency
- Collections, memory management
- Writing clean, maintainable code
🏗️ 2. Scalable System Design
This is the most important round for FAANG.
Learn to design real-world systems like:
- TinyURL (URL shortener)
- WhatsApp backend (real-time communication)
- Uber backend (geo + matching)
- YouTube (video storage, streaming)
- Instagram (news feed, stories)
- Rate limiter, notification system, search service
🛠 Tools:
- diagrams.net for drawing architecture
- Notion or Obsidian for keeping notes
📚 Resources:
- System Design Primer GitHub
- Grokking the System Design Interview (Educative)
🧠 3. Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA)
FAANG still uses DSA to filter strong problem solvers.
Practice consistently:
- Core topics: Arrays, Hashmaps, Trees, Graphs, Tries, Heaps, DP
- Bonus: Sliding window, prefix sum, backtracking
🚀 Platforms:
- LeetCode – especially Top 150
- NeetCode roadmap
- InterviewBit
☁️ 4. Cloud & Infrastructure (Real-World Skills)
Modern backend = understanding infra.
🔧 Learn:
- Docker – containerization
- Kubernetes – orchestration (bonus)
- AWS / GCP – EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, IAM, DynamoDB
- CI/CD pipelines – GitHub Actions, Jenkins
- IaC tools – Terraform
📦 5. Databases – Relational, NoSQL, and Beyond
Be strong in both SQL and NoSQL.
✅ Know:
- PostgreSQL/MySQL – indexes, query plans, joins, isolation levels
- Redis – caching, pub/sub, TTLs
- DynamoDB – partitioning, LSI/GSI
- MongoDB – schema design, use-cases
🧠 Concepts:
- Sharding & Replication
- CAP Theorem
- ACID vs BASE
- Denormalization trade-offs
📊 6. Monitoring & Observability
Every large system needs observability.
📌 Tools:
- Prometheus + Grafana – metrics and dashboards
- ELK Stack / Fluentd – logs
- OpenTelemetry / Jaeger – tracing
🔐 7. Security and Authentication
Don’t just build features — build secure ones.
🔐 Must-know:
- OAuth2, JWT, SAML
- HTTPS, SSL/TLS
- Hashing: bcrypt, PBKDF2
- API security best practices
✉️ 8. Async Processing & Messaging
For scalable systems, async is key.
📬 Learn:
- Kafka – stream processing
- SQS / RabbitMQ / Redis Streams – queues and event-driven systems
- CRON Jobs, Worker Queues, Event sourcing
📚 9. Bonus Knowledge (That Impresses in Interviews)
💡 Advanced Concepts:
- Paxos, Raft, Leader election
- Distributed systems theory
- Eventual consistency, Idempotency
- Circuit breakers, bulkheads (Resilience patterns)
- Design Patterns (Factory, Singleton, Observer)
- gRPC, GraphQL – modern API tech
📌 Final Thoughts
To crack FAANG backend roles, you're expected to:
- Write clean, reliable code
- Design fault-tolerant distributed systems
- Make trade-offs consciously
- Communicate ideas clearly — on whiteboard, in code, and in interviews
Want a free Notion template with a 6-month study plan, tracker, and resources? I built one while preparing — feel free to reach out!
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