Main Plan
Main Plan
The strategy layer — goal, budget, hours, funnel math. Changes rarely. For current state (what week it is, what's next) see [[Interview Prep/Coach]]. For today see [[Interview Prep/Dashboard]]. For this month see [[Interview Prep/Monthly Plan/index]].
Goal
Senior SDE / SDE2 at a product company (Indian product, FAANG India, or remote US mid-tier) | 50+ LPA target | by Nov 11, 2026
Salary floor: not pre-committed — decide at offer stage vs comparison, don't anchor low.
Why: escape HCLTech's ceiling on challenging product work, maximize earning, get to product engineering. Distraction-prone by nature — this plan exists to give one clear path with no noise (see Coach.md kill list for what gets refused).
Current comp: 26 LPA @ HCLTech (Apr 2025–). Married, decent runway, risk-tolerant for cash. Based Pune, open to Bangalore/remote/abroad.
Hours Budget
28.5h/week: weekdays 4h (3 slots) + weekends 8h each.
| Track | Hours/wk |
|---|---|
| DSA | 15h |
| System Design | 7h |
| Behavioral | 3h |
| Applications/mocks | 3.5h |
Weekday template: 1h morning (warm-up problem) → 0.5h lunch (SD theory/DDIA/Redis) → 1h evening (SD problem or Redis hands-on) → 1.5h night peak (hard/weak-pattern problem).
Weekend (×2): Sat — 3h DSA (4 problems) + 3h SD deep + 2h Redis/buffer. Sun — 2h revisit misses + 2h SD write-up + 1.5h retro/scorecard + buffer.
Application Strategy (apply phase — not active yet)
- 75+ apps total, referral-first: leverage Splunk + Amazon contacts before cold applications.
- First 10 apps = practice-tier companies — builds interview rep before dream-company shots (combats the 5-year interview-rep deficit: 3 real interviews in 5 years).
- Full company list + tiers: [[Interview Prep/Job Switch/30 Company Target List]].
Funnel target: 75 apps → ~12 screens → ~6 onsites → 2-3 offers.
Mock cadence: 25 total — 15 paid (~₹30k budget, ~₹2k avg) + 10 free peer mocks (NeetCode Discord / Pramp / LinkedIn).
Hard Rules
- Never miss 2 days in a row.
- Sunday night = retro + scorecard + next-week gate — this is the rule that broke down for 4 weeks; it's the one to protect most.
- New learning idea (cert, framework, side project) → default NO. Check the kill list in [[Interview Prep/Coach]] before agreeing to anything new.
- No applications during the DSA/SD sprint phase. Apply phase starts only when Content's HLD/LLD queue + DSA techniques are actually done, not calendar-driven.
- Imposter-syndrome fix: apply before "ready." First 10 loops are practice, not judgment.
Cross-links
[[Interview Prep/Coach]] · [[Interview Prep/Dashboard]] · [[Interview Prep/Monthly Plan/index]] · [[Interview Prep/Job Switch/index]] · [[Coach/project_job_switch_2026]]