अभ्यास • Week 20

Weekly MUST Budget Standard

25.0h / 27.0h cap

Hour Calibration

actual hours logged

Rule: slippage > 1.25x triggers Scope-Cut Rung 2

Week Execution 0%

0/ 20 tasks 0.0h

target

Week Objective & Target Output

Target Output

February 15 – February 21, 2027 — IAT1 predicted Feb 15–19. Focus: Bit Manipulation Basics; Heaps Medium/Hard FAQs; Primary Source Paper: "Attention Is All You Need"; REST API Design: Validation, ProblemDetail Errors, Pagination, Idempotency & OpenAPI; STAR Stories v2 + Quantified Resume Bullets.

Weeks: W16 W17 W18 W19 W20 Active

MUST — Critical Path

13 Tasks • ~25.0h

Non-negotiable core curriculum

DSA (Java) 4 tasks

DSA Bit Manipulation Basics 6 problems

Check if ith bit is set, set/clear ith bit, toggle ith bit, remove last set bit, check if power of 2, count set bits. TUF+ A2Z Step 8.1

3.5h

DSA DSA Transfer: No-Hint Timed Bit Set 2 problems LC #

Sit 2 unseen Bit problems you have never attempted (pick from the LeetCode topic tag, NeetCode “similar questions” or a company list; never a problem named in any learning task), at least 72 h after the learning task — move the set to the first half of next week if needed. Format: 25 min per problem (35 min for a Hard), including 5 min for edge cases and a dry run; no hints, no AI. Pass bar: 2/2 solved inside the time box; on a miss, log the miss reason in the Journal and re-sit a fresh pair within 7 days.

1.5h

DSA Heaps Medium/Hard FAQs 5 problems

Kth Largest Element, Kth Smallest, Merge K Sorted Lists, Task Scheduler, Find Median from Data Stream. TUF+ A2Z Step 11.2

3.5h

DSA DSA Transfer: No-Hint Timed Heap Set 2 problems LC #

Sit 2 unseen Heap problems you have never attempted (pick from the LeetCode topic tag, NeetCode “similar questions” or a company list; never a problem named in any learning task), at least 72 h after the learning task — move the set to the first half of next week if needed. Format: 25 min per problem (35 min for a Hard), including 5 min for edge cases and a dry run; no hints, no AI. Pass bar: 2/2 solved inside the time box; on a miss, log the miss reason in the Journal and re-sit a fresh pair within 7 days. Ledger checkpoint: ≥ 245 unique problems logged in the Journal (cumulative; tracked metric, Architecture §3).

1.5h

Competitive Programming 1 tasks

CP Contest & Upsolving (Week 20) LC #

LeetCode Weekly Contest (+ Codeforces Div.2/3 when it fits) and mandatory upsolving within 48 h.

2.5h

Backend (Spring Boot) 1 tasks

SPRING REST API Design: Validation, ProblemDetail Errors, Pagination, Idempotency & OpenAPI

Bean Validation, RFC 9457 ProblemDetail error responses, cursor/offset pagination, idempotency keys for POST, OpenAPI/Swagger UI and a Postman collection. Capstone milestone 5: PlacementPilot API contract. Why: API-design questions appear in every backend loop.

2.0h

Professional 2 tasks

PRO STAR Stories v2 + Quantified Resume Bullets

Rewrite the 5 STAR stories after the first mock feedback and convert every resume bullet to action + metric + stack form (e.g. "cut query time 40 % with an index"). Why: quantified bullets are what recruiters scan.

1.5h

PRO Readiness Scorecard Dry Run 1

Fill the Architecture §4.2 table with whatever evidence exists today; mark each metric green/amber/red and move the two reddest into W21–W25 as extra MUST reps.

1.0h

Recruiting Pipeline 3 tasks

PIPELINE Target Company Lens: Finalize Target-40 (Track A/B/C/D)

Finalise the Target-40 into tiers (apply now / prepare / stretch) across Tracks A Product/Big Tech, B Banks/Fintech, C AI-Platform, D GCCs & startups; note OA vendor and round structure per company.

1.5h

PIPELINE GSoC 2027 Readiness Check

Check GSoC 2027 timeline and eligibility on the official site [VERIFY: org announcement Jan, contributor window Mar, coding from late May]; shortlist 3 orgs with Java/Spring/Python projects and read their contribution guides.

1.0h

PIPELINE Recruiting Pipeline Weekly (Week 20)

Calendar check against the Opportunity Calendar (Architecture §16); send ≥ 5 personalised outreach messages (alumni, seniors, recruiters) and log each in the Tracker; follow up open threads; ask for a referral 1–2 days after any OA invite; apply within 72 h of any new posting on the Target-40. Re-check the W2 Premium / company-list decision against your first OA experiences.

1.5h

Core CS (Java) 1 tasks

JAVA Spring Internals: IoC, Bean Lifecycle & AOP Proxies

IoC/DI and bean scopes, bean lifecycle callbacks, how @Transactional and @Cacheable work through JDK/CGLIB proxies, the self-invocation trap and how to fix it, @Configuration proxying. Why: bank and GCC Java loops probe exactly these.

2.0h

Core CS (LLD) 1 tasks

LLD Machine-Coding Primer 2 (90 min): Parking Lot

Multi-level parking lot in Java inside 90 minutes: spot-allocation Strategy, ticket and fee calculation, thread-safe spot assignment, unit tests. Review against Architecture §15.2; get one external code review.

2.0h

SHOULD — Depth & Mastery

(6 Tasks)

Execute when MUST pace is on track

DSA NeetCode 150 Tree Pattern Pass

Review NeetCode tree visual walkthroughs.

2.0h

APT Quant M20

Probability & Statistics basics.

1.5h

DSA DSA Daily Quota (Week 20)

Solve 5 problems from the TUF+ A2Z step currently in progress (the daily practice behind Architecture §14); log each in the Journal.

2.5h

CORE "Attention Is All You Need"

Read Vaswani et al. (2017). Understand scaled dot-product attention, multi-head attention, positional encodings, and encoder-decoder architecture. Architecture §6.2

2.5h

AI/ML The Neural Net)

Implement Neuron, Layer, and MLP classes using Value. Train a 2-layer neural network on a 2D toy binary classification dataset (moons). Verify loss decreases and gradients flow correctly. Push to ml-from-scratch GitHub repo. Architecture §6.1

3.0h

CORE Problem-Solving Journal Spaced Review (Week 20)

Re-solve 3 tagged tree and stack problems.

2.0h

STRETCH — If Ahead

(1 Tasks)

Bonus reps & competitive advantage

CORE Visualize Self-Attention in Python

Write a 20-line NumPy script computing attention weights A = \text{softmax}(QK^T / \sqrt{d_k})V on toy token vectors.

1.5h

verified_user

Weekly Clearance Gate

0 / 12 Cleared

[T: Bit Manipulation Basics] DSA: Have you completed “Bit Manipulation Basics” (Check if ith bit is set, set/clear ith bit, toggle ith bit, remove last set bit, check if…)?

Evidence: one problem from this task re-solved cold in ≤ 25 min a week later, logged in the Journal.

[T: Heaps Medium/Hard FAQs] DSA: Have you completed “Heaps Medium/Hard FAQs” (Kth Largest Element, Kth Smallest, Merge K Sorted Lists, Task Scheduler, Find Median from…)?

Evidence: one problem from this task re-solved cold in ≤ 25 min a week later, logged in the Journal.

[T: REST API Design: Validation, ProblemDetail Errors, Pagination, Idempotency & OpenAPI] Backend: Have you completed “REST API Design: Validation, ProblemDetail Errors, Pagination, Idempotency & OpenAPI” (Bean Validation, RFC 9457 ProblemDetail error responses, cursor/offset pagination,…)?

Evidence: GitHub PR link with passing CI run.

[T: Target Company Lens: Finalize Target-40 (Track A/B/C/D)] Have you completed “Target Company Lens: Finalize Target-40 (Track A/B/C/D)” (Finalise the Target-40 into tiers (apply now / prepare / stretch) across Tracks A…)?

Evidence: Tracker rows with dates and links.

[T: GSoC 2027 Readiness Check] Have you completed “GSoC 2027 Readiness Check” (Check GSoC 2027 timeline and eligibility on the official site [VERIFY: org announcement…)?

Evidence: Tracker rows with dates and links.

[T: Recruiting Pipeline Weekly (Week 20)] Recruiting Pipeline: Have you completed “Recruiting Pipeline Weekly (Week 20)” (Calendar check against the Opportunity Calendar (Architecture §16); send ≥ 5 personalised…)?

Evidence: Tracker log shows ≥ 5 personalised outreach messages this week.

[T: CN Application Layer] CN: Have you completed “CN Application Layer” (DNS (resolution steps, recursive vs iterative, record types A, CNAME, MX), HTTP/1.1 vs…)?

Evidence: written answers in your notes repo.

[T: DSA Transfer: No-Hint Timed Heap Set] Ledger: Does your Journal show ≥ 245 unique problems logged (cumulative)?

Evidence: Journal ledger count and LeetCode submission links.

[T: Mock Interview 3 (Java & CS Fundamentals Grill)] Mocks: Have you completed 3 total mock interviews with rubric sheets recorded?

Evidence: rubric sheets for mocks 1–3 saved in Journal.

[T: DSA Transfer: No-Hint Timed Bit Set] DSA: Did you pass “DSA Transfer: No-Hint Timed Bit Set” — 2 unseen Bit problems, 25 min per problem, no hints, pass bar 2/2 solved?

Evidence: timed result and miss reasons logged in the Journal.

[T: DSA Transfer: No-Hint Timed Heap Set] DSA: Did you pass “DSA Transfer: No-Hint Timed Heap Set” — 2 unseen Heap problems, 25 min per problem, no hints, pass bar 2/2 solved?

Evidence: timed result and miss reasons logged in the Journal.

Health & Guardrails: 1 full rest day taken every 2 weeks?

tune

If Behind / Life Interruption Protocol

Triage Rule

When academic exams spike or weekly time slips, execute this contingency plan:

shield Protect (Non-Negotiable)

Bit Manipulation Basics + Primary Source Paper: "Attention Is All You Need" + Recruiting Pipeline Weekly (Week 20)

schedule Defer (Safe to Shift)

NeetCode 150 Tree Pattern Pass → weekend; Aptitude: Quant M20 → Week 21

edit_note

Week 20 Technical Notes & Journal

#LeetCode #Java #DSA #Week20