30-day lab plan · 💻 Software Developer (Java · Python · JavaScript)
Become job-ready as asoftware developer in 30 days.
One focused task a day, four weeks, ending with a portfolio and a mock interview. Built for students and engineers in India who learn by doing — about 2 hours a day on weekdays, a little more on weekends.
Your kit
Set up before day 1
Your chosen stack (Java/Spring, Python/Django or FastAPI, or Node/Express + React), PostgreSQL, Docker, and our regex/encoder/JSON tools. Everything here is free or has a free tier; a laptop with 16 GB RAM is enough for most labs (32 GB for nested clusters).
- Daily ruleFinish the task, write 5 lines of notes, commit to Git. Notes become your interview stories.
- Weekend ruleDay 7 of each week is a review: redo the hardest task from memory.
- Stuck rule30 minutes max, then ask in a community or our engineer network.
Week 1
Fundamentals
- Day 1Set up the project with tests and linting from day one
- Day 2Data structures practice: 2 problems/day (arrays, maps, trees)
- Day 3Build a REST API: CRUD with validation and error handling
- Day 4PostgreSQL schema + migrations; indexes
- Day 5Auth: JWT with refresh tokens; understand pitfalls
- Day 6Logging with correlation IDs; health endpoint
- Day 7Review: API docs (OpenAPI) and a Postman collection
Week 2
Product features
- Day 8Pagination, filtering, sorting with tests
- Day 9File uploads to S3-compatible storage (MinIO)
- Day 10Background jobs (queue) + retries + idempotency
- Day 11Email/WhatsApp notifications via a provider sandbox
- Day 12Caching with Redis; invalidation strategy
- Day 13Rate limiting and security headers
- Day 14Review: load test with k6; fix the slowest endpoint
Week 3
Frontend & integration
- Day 15React/Next or server templates: list/detail/forms
- Day 16Form validation, error states, accessibility basics (our contrast tool)
- Day 17Integrate with the API; auth flow end to end
- Day 18Payments sandbox (Razorpay/Stripe) with webhooks
- Day 19SEO basics: meta tags (our generator), sitemap, performance (our speed tool)
- Day 20E2E tests with Playwright
- Day 21Review: Lighthouse 90+ on the app
Week 4
Ship & portfolio
- Day 22Dockerise; Compose for dev; CI pipeline
- Day 23Deploy to a VPS/Proxmox VM with NGINX + TLS (our generators)
- Day 24Monitoring + error tracking (Sentry/Prometheus)
- Day 25Add an LLM feature (RAG over your docs) responsibly
- Day 26Write the README, architecture diagram, and a demo video
- Day 27Mock interview with our question bank + 2 system-design questions
- Day 28Publish; update resume with measurable outcomes
After day 30
What you will have
- A portfolio repoDiagrams, configs, scripts and runbooks a hiring manager can read in five minutes.
- Interview storiesReal faults you fixed — the answers to “tell me about a time…”.
- A certification targetSee the role path for which exam to book next.
- A place in our networkFinish the plan, share the repo, and apply — we mentor and place engineers who complete it.
Finished the plan? Show us.
Share your repo and notes; completed plans get a technical conversation with our architects and first paid tasks through the engineer network.