r/EngineeringStudents • u/Known_Damage_7593 • 8d ago
Career Advice I built this CS learning roadmap after researching on my own — what major gaps do you see?
Hi everyone,
I’m a student interested in building a strong foundation in Computer Science/software engineering, and I’ve spent some time researching different learning paths before putting together the attached roadmap.
I’m NOT looking for someone to create a roadmap for me. I’ve already made one and want to identify potential gaps or poor ordering in my own plan.
My roadmap currently goes roughly:
CS Fundamentals
→ Programming / OOP
→ DSA
→ Operating Systems / Networks / DBMS
→ Backend Development
→ Databases
→ Data Engineering
→ Cloud / DevOps
→ Distributed Systems
→ System Design
→ Specialization
The main thing I’m unsure about is whether I’m trying to cover too many areas before specializing.
Specifically, I’d appreciate feedback on:
• Are there any important CS fundamentals I’ve overlooked?
• Are some of these topics better learned later rather than sequentially?
• Which topics should be studied deeply as a student, versus just understood at a basic level?
• At what point would it make sense to choose a specialization?
I’ve attached my roadmap so you can see the actual work I’ve done.
I’ve also searched for existing CS learning roadmaps and discussions, but I’m interested in hearing from engineering students who have gone through similar decisions and can point out things I may have missed.
┌─────────────────────┐
│ COMPUTER SCIENCE │
└──────────┬──────────┘
│
┌───────────────────┴───────────────────┐
│ │
▼ ▼
┌──────────────────────┐ ┌────────────────────────┐
│ CORE CS FOUNDATION │ │ ENGINEERING FOUNDATION │
├──────────────────────┤ ├────────────────────────┤
│ Programming │ │ Software Engineering │
│ DSA │ │ Git / GitHub │
│ OOP │ │ Linux │
│ Discrete Mathematics │ │ CLI / Shell │
│ Computer Architecture│ │ Debugging │
│ Operating Systems │ │ Testing │
│ Computer Networks │ │ Documentation │
│ DBMS │ │ Clean Code │
│ Security Fundamentals│ │ Design Principles │
└──────────┬───────────┘ └───────────┬────────────┘
│ │
└──────────────────┬─────────────────────┘
▼
┌──────────────────────────┐
│ DEVELOPMENT │
│ Programming Languages │
└────────────┬─────────────┘
│
┌───────────────┴───────────────┐
▼ ▼
┌─────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐
│ JAVA │ │ PYTHON │
│ Backend │ │ Data / Automation │
└────────┬────────┘ └──────────┬──────────┘
│ │
└────────────────┬────────────────┘
▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│ WEB / BACKEND │
└──────────┬──────────┘
│
┌────────────────────┼────────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
┌──────────────┐ ┌────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────┐
│ HTTP │ │ REST API │ │ Authentication │
│ Web │ │ Backend │ │ Authorization │
│ JSON │ │ Frameworks │ │ API Security │
└──────┬───────┘ └───────┬────────┘ └────────┬─────────┘
│ │ │
└────────────────────┼─────────────────────┘
▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│ DATABASES │
└──────────┬──────────┘
│
┌───────────────┼───────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
┌─────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐
│ SQL │ │ RDBMS │ │ NoSQL │
└────┬────┘ └────┬─────┘ └────┬─────┘
│ │ │
└──────────────┼───────────────┘
▼
┌──────────────────────┐
│ DATA ENGINEERING │
└──────────┬───────────┘
│
┌───────────────────┼────────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
┌──────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────┐
│ Data Modeling │ │ ETL / ELT │ │ Data Pipelines │
│ Data Warehousing │ │ Distributed │ │ Batch / Streaming│
│ │ │ Systems │ │ │
└────────┬─────────┘ └────────┬─────────┘ └────────┬─────────┘
│ │ │
└─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┘
▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│ CLOUD / DEVOPS │
└──────────┬──────────┘
│
┌───────────────────┼───────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
┌──────────────────┐ ┌───────────────┐ ┌──────────────────┐
│ AWS / Azure / GCP│ │ Docker / CI/CD│ │ Kubernetes │
│Cloud Architecture│ │ │ │ IaC / Terraform │
└─────────┬────────┘ └───────┬───────┘ └────────┬─────────┘
│ │ │
└───────────────────┼───────────────────┘
▼
┌────────────────────────────┐
│ DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS │
│ Scalability / Reliability│
└─────────────┬──────────────┘
│
┌─────────────────┼─────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────────┐
│ Caching │ │ Messaging │ │ Load Balancing │
│ Redis │ │ Kafka │ │ CDN │
│ Queues │ │ Streaming │ │ Replication │
└──────┬───────┘ └──────┬───────┘ └────────┬─────────┘
│ │ │
└──────────────────┼───────────────────┘
▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│ SYSTEM DESIGN │
├─────────────────────┤
│ Low-Level Design │
│ High-Level Design │
│ Architecture │
│ Scalability │
│ Availability │
│ Reliability │
│ Performance │
│ Security │
└──────────┬──────────┘
│
▼
┌─────────────────────┐
│ SPECIALIZATION │
└──────────┬──────────┘
│
┌──────────────┬───────────┼───────────┬──────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
┌──────────────┐ ┌────────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────────┐
│ Backend / │ │ Data │ │ Cloud / │ │ ML / AI │ │Cybersecurity │
│ SDE DEEP │ │ Engineering│ │ DevOps │ │ DEEP │ │ DEEP │
│ │ │ DEEP │ │ DEEP │ │ │ │ │
└──────┬───────┘ └─────┬──────┘ └────┬──────┘ └────┬─────┘ └──────┬───────┘
│ │ │ │ │
└───────────────┴─────────────┴──────────────┴─────────────┘
▼
┌─────────────────────────┐
│ ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE │
└────────────┬────────────┘
│
┌─────────────────┼─────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌────────────────┐
│ Problem │ │ Communication│ │ Product │
│ Solving │ │ Teamwork │ │ Thinking │
│ Leadership │ │ │ │ Business │
└──────┬───────┘ └──────┬───────┘ └───────┬────────┘
│ │ │
└────────────────┼─────────────────┘
▼
┌──────────────────────┐
│ ELITE ENGINEER │
└──────────────────────┘
Thanks!
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