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From Spring Boot novice to enterprise architect

The Enterprise Java Backend Roadmap

Sixty-eight topics covering every layer of modern enterprise Java: Spring Boot internals, REST API design, microservices, RabbitMQ and Kafka, DevOps, and the system-design patterns senior interviews actually ask about.

Who it is for: Java developers with 1–3 years of experience moving toward senior and architect roles

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Spring Boot Internals & Mastery

14 topics · 14 published

  1. 1
    Spring Boot Auto-Configuration Deep Dive

    @EnableAutoConfiguration · @Conditional · AutoConfigurationImportSelector · Custom Starters · --debug Report

  2. 2
    Spring IoC Container Internals

    Bean Lifecycle · BeanPostProcessor · Bean Scopes · Circular Dependencies · @Primary vs @Qualifier

  3. 3
    Configuration & Profiles Mastery

    @ConfigurationProperties · Relaxed Binding · PropertySource Order · Profile Groups · Jasypt

  4. 4
    Spring AOP & Aspect-Oriented Programming

    Pointcut Expressions · @Around Advice · ProceedingJoinPoint · CGLIB vs JDK Proxy · Self-Invocation

  5. 5
    Actuator & Observability Endpoints

    Health Indicators · Micrometer Meters · Custom Metrics · Endpoint Security · Prometheus

  6. 6
    Spring Boot Testing Masterclass

    @SpringBootTest · Test Slices · Testcontainers · @ServiceConnection · WireMock

  7. 7
    Exception Handling & Error Response Design

    @ControllerAdvice · ProblemDetail · RFC 7807 · Validation Errors · Exception Hierarchy

  8. 8
    Caching Strategies in Spring Boot

    @Cacheable · SpEL Keys · Redis vs Caffeine · TTL & Eviction · Multi-Level Cache

  9. 9
    Scheduling & Async Processing

    @Scheduled · fixedRate vs fixedDelay · @Async · ThreadPoolTaskExecutor · ShedLock

  10. 10
    Spring Data JPA Deep Dive

    Entity Relationships · N+1 Problem · @EntityGraph · Specifications · Pagination · Auditing

  11. 11
    Redis with Spring Boot

    RedisTemplate · Data Structures · Distributed Locks · Streams · Sentinel & Cluster

  12. 12
    Validation & Data Integrity

    Jakarta Bean Validation · Custom Validators · Validation Groups · Cross-Field Rules · Method Validation

  13. 13
    Logging & Debugging in Production

    Logback · MDC & Correlation IDs · Structured JSON Logs · Log Aggregation · Async Appenders

  14. 14
    File Handling & Object Storage

    MultipartFile · Tika MIME Detection · Streaming Downloads · S3 & MinIO · Presigned URLs

RESTful API Design & Implementation

10 topics · 10 published

  1. 15
    REST API Design Principles

    Resource Naming · HTTP Semantics · Status Codes · HATEOAS · Richardson Maturity Model

  2. 16
    Spring REST Controllers Deep Dive

    @RestController · Parameter Binding · ResponseEntity · Content Negotiation · ResponseBodyAdvice

  3. 17
    API Documentation with OpenAPI

    springdoc-openapi · @Operation & @Schema · GroupedOpenApi · Swagger UI · API-First Codegen

  4. 18
    API Versioning Strategies

    URI vs Header Versioning · Media Type Versioning · Deprecation Headers · Backward Compatibility · Changelogs

  5. 19
    Pagination, Filtering & Sorting

    Offset vs Cursor · Keyset Pagination · Pageable & Page<T> · Specifications · RFC 8288 Link Header

  6. 20
    Rate Limiting & Throttling

    Token Bucket · Sliding Window · Bucket4j · Resilience4j RateLimiter · 429 & Retry-After

  7. 21
    Error Handling with Problem Details

    RFC 7807 · ProblemDetail · Error Catalogues · Correlation IDs · i18n Messages

  8. 22
    WebClient & HTTP Client Integration

    WebClient Builder · Connection Pools · Timeouts · Retry & Backoff · MockWebServer

  9. 23
    GraphQL with Spring Boot

    @QueryMapping · Schema-First · DataLoader & N+1 · Relay Connections · Query Complexity Limits

  10. 24
    WebSocket & Real-Time Communication

    STOMP · @MessageMapping · SimpMessagingTemplate · SockJS Fallback · Server-Sent Events

Microservices Architecture

15 topics · 15 published

  1. 25
    Microservices Decomposition Patterns

    Bounded Contexts · Event Storming · Anti-Corruption Layer · Strangler Fig · Service Granularity

  2. 26
    Service Discovery & Registration

    Client vs Server Discovery · Eureka · Self-Preservation · Consul · Kubernetes Services

  3. 27
    API Gateway with Spring Cloud Gateway

    Routes & Predicates · Gateway Filters · GlobalFilter · Load Balancing · Gateway Rate Limiting

  4. 28
    Inter-Service Communication Patterns

    Sync vs Async · gRPC Streaming · Message Brokers · Correlation Propagation · Graceful Degradation

  5. 29
    Circuit Breakers & Resilience4j

    CLOSED/OPEN/HALF_OPEN · Sliding Windows · Retry & Backoff · Bulkhead · TimeLimiter

  6. 30
    Distributed Tracing & Observability

    OpenTelemetry · Spans & Trace Context · W3C traceparent · Sampling · Tempo & Jaeger

  7. 31
    Distributed Transactions & Saga Patterns

    Why 2PC Fails · Choreography vs Orchestration · Outbox Pattern · Compensating Actions · Idempotent Consumers

  8. 32
    Event-Driven Microservices

    Domain vs Integration Events · Avro & Schema Registry · Event Sourcing · Event Ordering · Event Versioning

  9. 33
    Microservices Testing Strategies

    Test Pyramid · Testcontainers · Consumer-Driven Contracts · Component Tests · Chaos Testing

  10. 34
    Containerizing Spring Boot with Docker

    Multi-Stage Builds · JVM Container Awareness · Layer Caching · Distroless Images · Trivy Scanning

  11. 35
    Kubernetes for Java Microservices

    Deployments & Services · Liveness vs Readiness · Requests & Limits · HPA · Helm Charts

  12. 36
    Service Mesh with Istio

    Envoy Sidecars · VirtualService · DestinationRule · mTLS & PeerAuthentication · Fault Injection

  13. 37
    The Microservices Observability Stack

    Logs, Metrics, Traces · PromQL · Grafana & Loki · Golden Signals · RED & USE Methods

  14. 38
    Microservices Security Patterns

    Edge Authentication · mTLS & SPIFFE · Token Propagation · API Keys · Secret Management

  15. 39
    Spring Cloud Config & Centralised Configuration

    Config Server · Git & Vault Backends · @RefreshScope · Spring Cloud Bus · Encrypted Properties

Messaging — RabbitMQ & Apache Kafka

11 topics · 11 published

  1. 40
    Messaging Fundamentals & Patterns

    Queues vs Topics · Competing Consumers · Request-Reply · Acknowledgement Modes · Dead Letter Queues

  2. 41
    RabbitMQ Architecture & Core Concepts

    AMQP 0-9-1 · Exchange Types · Bindings & Routing Keys · Prefetch & QoS · Publisher Confirms

  3. 42
    Spring AMQP & RabbitMQ Integration

    RabbitTemplate · @RabbitListener · Message Converters · Listener Containers · Retry & DLQ

  4. 43
    RabbitMQ Advanced Patterns

    Quorum Queues · Clustering · Federation & Shovel · Priority & Lazy Queues · Delayed Messages

  5. 44
    Apache Kafka Architecture & Core Concepts

    Topics & Partitions · ISR & Replication · Producer acks · Consumer Groups · Offsets & Rebalancing

  6. 45
    Spring Kafka Integration

    KafkaTemplate · @KafkaListener · Serdes & Type Mapping · DefaultErrorHandler · Dead Letter Topics

  7. 46
    Kafka Streams & Stream Processing

    KStream vs KTable · Windowing · Joins · Exactly-Once v2 · TopologyTestDriver

  8. 47
    Kafka Connect & Data Integration

    Source & Sink Connectors · Debezium CDC · Distributed Workers · Single Message Transforms · Connect REST API

  9. 48
    Kafka in Production

    Cluster Sizing · Retention & Compaction · Consumer Lag · Under-Replicated Partitions · MirrorMaker 2

  10. 49
    Kafka vs RabbitMQ — A Decision Framework

    Throughput vs Latency · Replay Semantics · Routing Flexibility · Ordering Guarantees · Hybrid Architectures

  11. 50
    Spring Cloud Stream & Message-Driven Services

    Binder Abstraction · Functional Model · Bindings & Destinations · DLQ Configuration · Test Binder

DevOps, CI/CD & Production Excellence

10 topics · 10 published

  1. 51
    CI/CD Pipeline Design for Java

    Pipeline Stages · GitHub Actions · Jenkins Declarative · Build Caching · Test Parallelisation

  2. 52
    Docker in CI/CD & Production

    BuildKit Cache Mounts · Image Tagging · Registries · Trivy & Grype · Cosign & SBOM

  3. 53
    Kubernetes Deployment Strategies

    Rolling Update · Blue-Green · Canary & Argo Rollouts · GitOps with Argo CD · Flagger

  4. 54
    Infrastructure as Code for Java Apps

    Terraform HCL · Remote State & Locking · Modules · Managed Services · Pulumi

  5. 55
    Production Observability — Full Stack

    OTel Java Agent · Collector Pipelines · Mimir, Loki, Tempo · Alerting Strategy · Runbooks

  6. 56
    Production-Grade Application Configuration

    12-Factor App · Config Precedence · Feature Flags · Fail-Fast Validation · Graceful Shutdown

  7. 57
    Database Migrations with Flyway

    Versioned Migrations · Repeatable Migrations · Baselining · Callbacks · Liquibase Compared

  8. 58
    Performance Tuning & JVM Optimisation

    Heap Generations · G1 vs ZGC · GC Logging · JFR & Mission Control · async-profiler

  9. 59
    Load Testing & Capacity Planning

    Gatling & k6 · Load vs Stress vs Soak · Percentile Latency · Thresholds · Headroom Planning

  10. 60
    Disaster Recovery & High Availability

    RPO & RTO · Replication Modes · Multi-Region Topologies · DNS Failover · Chaos Engineering

Enterprise Patterns & System Design

8 topics · 8 published

  1. 61
    Design Patterns for Java Backends

    Patterns in Spring · Proxy & Decorator · Strategy & Template Method · Observer & Events · Sealed Class Visitors

  2. 62
    CQRS & Event Sourcing

    Command vs Query Models · Event Store · Projections · Snapshots · When Not To Use It

  3. 63
    Domain-Driven Design in Practice

    Bounded Contexts · Aggregates · Value Objects · Hexagonal Architecture · Event Storming

  4. 64
    Transaction Management Deep Dive

    Propagation · Isolation Levels · @TransactionalEventListener · XA vs Saga · Reactive Transactions

  5. 65
    API Security & the OWASP API Top 10

    BOLA & IDOR · Mass Assignment · Resource Consumption · SSRF · API Inventory

  6. 66
    gRPC in Java Microservices

    Protocol Buffers · Four RPC Types · Interceptors · Load Balancing · gRPC vs REST

  7. 67
    Database Sharding & Scaling Strategies

    Hash vs Range Sharding · Shard Key Selection · ShardingSphere · Read Replicas · Resharding

  8. 68
    Enterprise Integration Patterns

    Content-Based Router · Splitter & Aggregator · Claim Check · Apache Camel · Spring Integration

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