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AWS Backend Developer — Beginner to 8–10 YOE

7 of 7chapters written in full

The rest are published as outlines — the curriculum and structure are settled, the prose is still being written.

A 14-day intensive AWS course for backend/software developers, taking a learner from zero AWS knowledge to the level where they can design, build, troubleshoot and explain production AWS-backed systems at a senior-engineer interview.

Backend Developer → AWS Developer → Production Cloud Engineer → Senior AWS Application Architect

It is not a DevOps, SRE, Kubernetes or certification-cram course.

Status

Phase	Deliverable	State
1	Course architecture	✅ Complete
2	Days 1–3 — AWS fundamentals	✅ Complete
3	Days 4–7 — Core backend AWS	✅ Complete — awaiting review
4	Days 8–11 — Advanced backend AWS	⏸ Not started
5	Days 12–14 — Production architecture & senior design	⏸ Not started
6	Revision + interview material	⏸ Not started
7	Final quality audit	⏸ Not started

Later phases are deliberately not written until the current one is reviewed — the format is what gets replicated across 14 days, so it is worth correcting first.

Phase 2 — The course

Day	Title	Time	Outcome
1	Cloud, the AWS Account, and Identity	3h 30m	Every AWS interaction is an authenticated, authorized API call — and IAM decides whether it happens
2	Networking for Backend Developers	3h 40m	Draw your VPC; when a connection fails, name which of six layers said no
3	Compute, Storage and Seeing What Happened	3h 30m	Spring Boot on private EC2, reading S3 through an instance role, logs and metrics in CloudWatch
4	Running Services: Scaling Groups, Load Balancers, Containers	3h 40m	The same app as 4 Fargate tasks behind an ALB, autoscaling, with a zero-downtime deploy you can prove
5	Serverless Compute and the API Layer	3h 10m	Lambda's execution environment explained mechanically; an authenticated, throttled API front door
6	Relational Data in Production	3h 25m	Aurora in isolated subnets, rotating credentials, a tuned pool — and a failover you measure
7	DynamoDB and Caching	3h 30m	Model from access patterns, find a hot partition, make a write safe with no locks, cache without a stampede
8–14	(Phases 4–5)

End of Phase 1 checkpoint: "I understand what AWS is and how my backend application communicates with AWS." — the Day 3 checkpoint quiz tests it.

Phase 1 — Course Architecture

#	Document	What it settles
01	Learner Baseline	Who this is for, what is assumed, what is taught from zero, what the course is not
02	Prerequisite Assessment	18 questions with an answer key and scoring — no AWS knowledge tested
03	Optional Foundation Module	4h 30m to close specific gaps before Day 1
04	The 14-Day Curriculum	Every day, block by block, with exact time allocation — 48h 35m total
05	Topic Dependencies	The graph the ordering came from, and why each decision was made
06	AWS Service Coverage Matrix	4-tier depth allocation across ~45 services; what is out of scope
07	Hands-on Lab Plan	17 labs, what each proves, cost per lab, cleanup rules
08	Diagram Plan	~150 Mermaid diagrams, visual conventions, the 11 mandatory internal-working diagrams
09	Java & Spring Boot Integration Plan	One application evolving across 14 days; 11 SDK v2 integrations; code conventions
10	Production Scenario Plan	42 scenarios with real numbers; the flagship 50k orders/min design, costed
11	Troubleshooting & Failure Plan	10 debugging scenarios + 10 architecture failure scenarios + the alarm set
12	Interview Plan by YOE	285 questions across four banks, the 9 traps, mock formats
13	Cheatsheet & Revision Structure	12-section night-before cheatsheet + five revision plans
14	Capstone & System Designs	The 7 Day-14 systems and the capstone, with its five-failure drill
15	Learning Outcomes & Quality Gates	What the learner can do, with evidence — and the Phase 7 audit checklist

The shape of the course at a glance

flowchart LR
    subgraph P1["Days 1-3 · Fundamentals"]
        D1[Cloud · Account · IAM] --> D2[Networking · VPC] --> D3[Compute · Storage · CloudWatch]
    end
    subgraph P2["Days 4-7 · Core Backend"]
        D4[ECS · ALB · Scaling] --> D5[Lambda · API Gateway] --> D6[RDS · Aurora] --> D7[DynamoDB · Redis]
    end
    subgraph P3["Days 8-11 · Advanced Backend"]
        D8[SQS · Idempotency] --> D9[EventBridge · Streams] --> D10[S3 · CloudFront] --> D11[Security · IAM depth]
    end
    subgraph P4["Days 12-14 · Production & Senior"]
        D12[Scale · Reliability · Cost] --> D13[Observability · Debugging · Migration] --> D14[System Design · Interview]
    end
    D3 --> D4
    D7 --> D8
    D11 --> D12

Key numbers


Study days	14
Hours per day	3–4
Total course time	48h 35m
Optional foundation module	4h 30m (outside the budget)
Capstone assembly	4–6h (outside the budget)
Hands-on labs	17
Production scenarios	42
Troubleshooting + failure scenarios	20
Interview questions	285 (+ Top 100 with answers)
Diagrams	~150
Estimated AWS spend, cleanup followed	~$8–12 + capstone

Conventions

All code is Java 17+ / Spring Boot 3.x+ / Maven / AWS SDK for Java v2. SDK v1 appears only when discussing legacy migration.
All diagrams are Mermaid, following the fixed visual conventions in 08 — Diagram Plan.
Every day file uses the same 21-heading structure (see 04); headings are omitted rather than padded, but the order never changes.
Every billable resource created in a lab has a cleanup step. Cost is treated as a design constraint, not an afterthought.
Every limit, quota and price is dated and flagged as verifiable against current AWS documentation.

Source specification

aws-course-prompt.md is the authoritative spec. Where this architecture departs from it — or interprets it — the reasoning is stated in the relevant document.

Next step

Review Days 4–7. Once approved, Phase 4 generates Days 8–11 (queues, events, storage at scale, security depth), then stops for feedback before Phase 5.

Part 1 — AWS fundamentals

Day 1 — Cloud, the AWS Account, and Identity Every AWS interaction is an authenticated, authorized API call — and IAM decides whether it happens Day 2 — Networking for Backend Developers Draw your VPC; when a connection fails, name which of six layers said no Day 3 — Compute, Storage and Seeing What Happened Spring Boot on private EC2, reading S3 through an instance role, logs and metrics in CloudWatch

Part 2 — Core backend AWS

Day 4 — Running Services: Scaling Groups, Load Balancers, Containers The same app as 4 Fargate tasks behind an ALB, autoscaling, with a zero-downtime deploy you can prove Day 5 — Serverless Compute and the API Layer Lambda's execution environment explained mechanically; an authenticated, throttled API front door Day 6 — Relational Data in Production Aurora in isolated subnets, rotating credentials, a tuned pool — and a failover you measure Day 7 — DynamoDB and Caching Model from access patterns, find a hot partition, make a write safe with no locks, cache without a stampede

Course design

01 — Learner Baseline Who this is for, what is assumed, what is taught from zero, what the course is not 02 — Prerequisite Assessment 18 questions with an answer key and scoring — no AWS knowledge tested 03 — Optional Pre-Course Foundation Module 4h 30m to close specific gaps before Day 1 04 — The 14-Day Curriculum Every day, block by block, with exact time allocation — 48h 35m total 05 — Topic Dependencies The graph the ordering came from, and why each decision was made 06 — AWS Service Coverage Matrix 4-tier depth allocation across ~45 services; what is out of scope 07 — Hands-on Lab Plan 17 labs, what each proves, cost per lab, cleanup rules 08 — Diagram Plan ~150 Mermaid diagrams, visual conventions, the 11 mandatory internal-working diagrams 09 — Java & Spring Boot Integration Plan One application evolving across 14 days; 11 SDK v2 integrations; code conventions 10 — Production Scenario Plan 42 scenarios with real numbers; the flagship 50k orders/min design, costed 11 — Production Troubleshooting & Failure Plan 10 debugging scenarios + 10 architecture failure scenarios + the alarm set 12 — Interview Question Plan by Experience Level 285 questions across four banks, the 9 traps, mock formats 13 — Cheatsheet & Revision Plan Structure 12-section night-before cheatsheet + five revision plans 14 — Capstone & System Design Architectures The 7 Day-14 systems and the capstone, with its five-failure drill 15 — Final Learning Outcomes & Quality Gates What the learner can do, with evidence — and the Phase 7 audit checklist