Pre-May 11 Plan Summary (Archived)
Pre-May 11, 2026 Plan — Archived Summary
Consolidated summary of the older Job Switch plan that ran Mar 18 → Apr 26, 2026. Replaced by the revised plan stored in Private/Project_2026/Coach/ (symlinked to Claude memory).
Original Goal
- Target: 50+ LPA at FAANG / AI company by Sep 18, 2026 (now Nov 11, 2026)
- Salary floor: ₹42 LPA
- Start date: Mar 18, 2026
- Hours: 28.5/wk (2.5h weekdays × 5 + 8h weekends × 2)
- Rule: Never miss 2 days in a row
Original 5 Top Goals 2026
- Job switch → 50+ LPA
- AWS MLA-C01 cert → Jun 7, 2026 ← DEFERRED / KILLED
- NeetCode 150 → Jun 2026 ← DEFERRED to Aug 30, 2026 in revised plan
- Save ₹20 Lakh → Dec 31, 2026 ← active in finance plan
- vectorbuilds.dev → 6 articles published ← DEFERRED / KILLED until post-offer
Original 12-Week Track (Mar 18–Jun 7)
| Wk | Date | DSA | AWS | SD | Gaurav Sen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| W1 | Mar 18 | Sliding Window | IAM/S3 | URL Shortener | — |
| W2 | Mar 23 | Two Pointers | EC2 | Rate Limiter | DB Deep Dive + Rate Limiting |
| W3 | Mar 30 | Linked Lists | VPC/Lambda | Notification System | Consistency + Caches |
| W4 | Apr 6 | Trees | Kinesis/Glue | API Gateway | Networks + DB Replication |
| W5 | Apr 13 | Trees | SageMaker | YouTube | Security + Observability |
| W6 | Apr 20 | Tries | Athena | Twitter Feed | Distributed Consensus |
| W7 | Apr 27 | Heap | Bedrock | ML Feature Store | WhatsApp + Uber HLD |
| W8 | May 4 | Backtracking | MLOps | RAG/LLM | Maps + Recommendation HLD |
| W9 | May 11 | Graphs | A/B Testing | Uber/Maps | Hotstar + Google Docs |
| W10 | May 18 | Adv Graphs | Tutorials Dojo | SOLID + Patterns | |
| W11 | May 25 | 1D DP | Exam Cram | Frontend SD | Machine Coding |
| W12 | Jun 1 | 2D DP | MLA-C01 EXAM | Full Mock | Machine Coding |
Progress reported as of Apr 12 (before break)
- ✅ Completed: Arrays, Two Pointers, Sliding Window, Binary Search (W01–W04)
- ❌ Break taken: Apr 13–26 (2 weeks)
- 🔄 Restart: W05 = Apr 27 with Linked Lists planned
Original Target Companies
| Tier | Companies | Why |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sarvam AI, Krutrim | AskTGE + RAG fits |
| 2 | Razorpay, PhonePe, CRED, BrowserStack, Zepto, Juspay | Product eng |
| 3 | Google, Amazon, Microsoft India | Reach, post-W12 |
Original "Honest Profile" framing (used Apr 17)
Full-stack engineer with backend performance chops and AI integration experience. Lead war story: AskTGE — DynamoDB redesign + 2s→200ms latency + hallucination fixes. Self-described: "Not a distributed systems architect (yet). One real backend project will close that gap."
⚠️ Note for memory update: AskTGE was originally framed as the primary war story. Current Claude memory only has WebSocket geo engine + ML Thresholding + Service Insights (from Crest). Confirm whether AskTGE belongs in profile too.
Decisions made Apr 17 (carried forward to revised plan)
These were already correct and kept in the revised plan:
AWS MLA-C01 cert→ deferred post-offerGo mastery track→ talking point onlyBlog articles→ after offerLangChain deep dive→ existing experience sufficient5 parallel tracks→ focused tracks
Original key principles
- AskTGE is primary war story — lead with it
- 80 fluent NeetCode > 150 half-memorized
- Apply Jun 1, not Jul 18. Don't wait for perfect prep.
- Salary floor ₹42 LPA
- Never miss 2 prep days in a row
Original Gaurav Sen Course Map (InterviewReady)
- W02–W06 Fundamentals: DB Deep Dive, Rate Limiting, Consistency, Caches, Networks, Replication, Security, Observability, Distributed Consensus
- W07–W09 HLD: WhatsApp, Uber, Maps, Recommendation, Hotstar, Google Docs (+ stretch: Gmail, Tinder, Chess, WA Calling)
- W10–W11 LLD: SOLID + Game Engine + Machine Coding (Cache, Rate Limiter, Splitwise)
- Research papers (Memcached, TAO, Kafka, Gorilla/Monarch) — bonus only
Original Portfolio Plans
- vectorbuilds.dev — Next.js 16 + TypeScript + Tailwind v4 + Framer Motion
- Features: Spotify widget, Aura Mode, Pomodoro, Digital Garden, GitHub calendar, AniList, TMDB, LLM mode
- Repo: github/vatsal30/my-portfolio | Local: /Users/vector/Documents/Github/my-portfolio/
- Blog: 0/6 articles ← deferred post-offer in revised plan
Why this was replaced (May 11, 2026)
- Plan started Mar 18, took a 2-week break, restarted late, no applications sent
- Imposter syndrome diagnosed as primary blocker, not skill
- New plan strips: portfolio articles, AWS cert, LangChain deep dive, side projects
- New focus: pure DSA + SD + behavioral + applications
- New deadline: Nov 11, 2026 (6 months from new start)
- New target: 50+ LPA confirmed, ₹42 LPA floor unchanged
→ Current plan: Private/Project_2026/Coach/project_job_switch_2026.md