Week 23 — Full mock loops¶

At a glance

Phase 6: Capstone + Interview Loop · Starts: Mon 01 Mar 2027 · Planned: 16h 45m

Build: Capstone: blog post #2 (guardrails/architecture), final ADR review, portfolio page

By day¶

System Design · 45 min · Timed SD mock: payment system (redo) with a peer or AI interviewer → Payment system w23-sd-1
DSA · 25 min · LLD: thread-safe connection pool / semaphore-based limiter → Concurrency & low-level design problems (LRU, rate limiter, parking lot) w23-dsa-1
Python · 20 min · Rep: descriptors/metaclasses interview explanations with examples → Decorators, descriptors & metaclasses w23-py-1
Communication · 30 min · Grammar: Personal error log: final push → Week 23 drills · day 1 w23-comm-1

Agentic AI · 60 min · Write blog post #2: securing an agent — lethal trifecta analysis, guardrails, red-team results → Guardrails & security: OWASP LLM/Agentic Top 10, prompt injection · resource w23-ai-1
DSA · 30 min · LLD: design a job scheduler class API with retries and backoff → Concurrency & low-level design problems (LRU, rate limiter, parking lot) w23-dsa-2
Communication · 30 min · Vocabulary: Personal weak-word list → Week 23 drills · day 2 w23-comm-2

DSA · 25 min · Revision: Longest Increasing Subsequence + Edit Distance → Dynamic programming 2-D · resource w23-dsa-3
Architecture · 45 min · Architecture interview prep: present 3 ADRs as trade-off stories (context, options, decision, consequences) → Architecture Decision Records w23-arch-1
Python · 20 min · Rep: generators & context managers interview explanations → Iterators, generators & context managers w23-py-2
Communication · 30 min · Speaking drill: Full mock loop speaking practice → Week 23 drills · day 3 w23-comm-3

Agentic AI · 60 min · Vector DB drill: HNSW vs IVF, quantisation, filtered search, sharding a vector index — 5 L3 questions answered out loud → Vector databases: pgvector, Qdrant & friends · resource w23-ai-2
Java/Spring AI · 30 min · Spring AI interview drill: advisors, tool calling, MCP server annotations, structured output → Tool calling & MCP servers in Spring AI w23-java-1
Communication · 30 min · Idioms & phrasal verbs: Idiom review round → Week 23 drills · day 4 w23-comm-4

System Design · 45 min · Consistency + consensus L3 drill (Raft, leases, linearisability) out loud → Consistency models, CAP & PACELC w23-sd-2
DSA · 25 min · Revision: Network Delay Time + Min Cost to Connect All Points → Advanced graphs: Dijkstra, MST, Bellman-Ford · resource w23-dsa-4
Python · 20 min · Rep: concurrency models explanation incl. free-threading → Concurrency models: threads, processes, free-threaded 3.14t w23-py-3
Communication · 30 min · Writing: Follow-up and thank-you emails → Week 23 drills · day 5 w23-comm-5

Agentic AI · 120 min · Capstone build: final hardening — load test, cost report, fix top eval failures; publish portfolio page → Cost & latency optimization: caching, batching, streaming w23-ai-3
DSA · 30 min · Timed set: 2 random mediums from weakest patterns in 30 min → Problem-solving approach & complexity analysis · resource w23-dsa-5
Java/Spring AI · 30 min · Spring AI agents vs LangGraph: 3-min comparison answer → Agentic patterns with Spring AI w23-java-2
Communication · 30 min · Record & shadow: Full mock loop speaking practice → Week 23 drills · day 6 w23-comm-6

System Design · 45 min · Written design (timed): LLM evaluation platform redo in 45 min → Design an LLM evaluation & observability platform w23-sd-3
Architecture · 30 min · Write ADR 023 for capstone: observability & eval architecture (Langfuse + OTel + CI gates) retrospective → Evolutionary architecture & fitness functions · resource w23-arch-2
Staff+ · 30 min · Behavioral mock: 4 Staff questions with the STAR bank, recorded and self-scored → Behavioral & Staff interviews: STAR stories bank w23-staff-1
Communication · 30 min · Soft skills + weekly review: Building rapport quickly → Week 23 drills · day 7 w23-comm-7
Review · 60 min · Explain-it-back: 5 random P0 topics picked from topics.yml; flashcards on weak cards only → Interview framework & back-of-envelope estimation w23-rev-1