90-Day Cloud Architect Study Plan

A structured approach to interview preparation maximizes your chances of success. This plan balances depth and breadth across technical and behavioral domains.

Phase 1: Foundation Building (Days 1-30)

Week 1-2: Cloud Fundamentals Review

Daily Time: 2-3 hours

AWS Core Services:

• Compute: EC2, Lambda, ECS, EKS
• Storage: S3, EBS, EFS, FSx
• Networking: VPC, Route 53, CloudFront, ALB/NLB
• Database: RDS, DynamoDB, Aurora, ElastiCache

Key Activities:

• Complete AWS Solutions Architect Associate material (if not certified)
• Set up a practice AWS account with budget alerts
• Build 2-3 hands-on projects (web app, serverless API, data pipeline)

Week 3-4: Architecture Patterns

Focus Areas:

• Microservices vs. monolith trade-offs
• Event-driven architecture patterns
• CQRS and event sourcing
• Saga pattern for distributed transactions

Study Resources:

• AWS Well-Architected Framework (all 6 pillars)
• Martin Fowler's architecture articles
• AWS Architecture Center reference architectures

Phase 2: Deep Dive & Practice (Days 31-60)

Week 5-6: Multi-Cloud & Comparison

Daily Time: 2-3 hours

GCP Essentials:

• Compute Engine, Cloud Functions, GKE
• Cloud Storage, BigQuery, Firestore
• VPC, Cloud Load Balancing, Cloud CDN

Azure Essentials:

• Virtual Machines, Azure Functions, AKS
• Blob Storage, Cosmos DB, SQL Database
• Virtual Networks, Azure Front Door

Comparison Matrix Practice:

Capability	AWS	GCP	Azure
Serverless Compute	Lambda	Cloud Functions	Azure Functions
Container Orchestration	EKS	GKE	AKS
NoSQL Database	DynamoDB	Firestore	Cosmos DB
Data Warehouse	Redshift	BigQuery	Synapse
CDN	CloudFront	Cloud CDN	Azure CDN

Week 7-8: System Design Practice

Daily Practice: 1 design problem per day

Problem Categories:

• Distributed Storage: Design Dropbox, Google Drive
• Real-time Systems: Design chat app, live dashboard
• High Throughput: Design rate limiter, metrics aggregator
• Data Processing: Design ETL pipeline, recommendation engine

Practice Framework:

1. Requirements clarification (5 min)
2. High-level design (10 min)
3. Component deep dive (25 min)
4. Bottlenecks and scaling (10 min)
5. Trade-offs discussion (10 min)

Phase 3: Interview Simulation (Days 61-90)

Week 9-10: Mock Interviews

Schedule: 2-3 mock interviews per week

Mock Interview Sources:

• Pramp (free, peer-to-peer)
• Interviewing.io (practice with real interviewers)
• Study groups and Discord communities
• Friends currently at target companies

Self-Recording Practice:

• Record yourself solving design problems
• Review for clarity, structure, and communication
• Time your explanations

Week 11-12: Behavioral Preparation

Build Your Story Bank: Create 15-20 STAR stories covering:

• Technical leadership and influence
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Handling failure and learning
• Customer/stakeholder management
• Conflict resolution

Company-Specific Preparation:

• Research target company's architecture blog
• Understand their tech stack and challenges
• Prepare questions showing genuine interest

Weekly Schedule Template

Day	Focus	Duration
Monday	Cloud services deep dive	2-3 hours
Tuesday	System design practice	2 hours
Wednesday	Cloud services + hands-on lab	2-3 hours
Thursday	System design practice	2 hours
Friday	Multi-cloud comparison	2 hours
Saturday	Mock interview or long design session	3 hours
Sunday	Behavioral prep + review	1-2 hours

Key Metrics to Track

Metric	Target by Day 90
System design problems solved	30+
Mock interviews completed	10+
STAR stories prepared	20+
Hands-on projects completed	5+
AWS services explored in depth	25+

Certification Timeline (Optional)

If pursuing certifications alongside interview prep:

Certification	When to Take
AWS SAA (if not held)	Day 30
AWS SAP	Day 60-75
GCP Professional Cloud Architect	Day 75-90

Reality Check: This plan assumes 15-20 hours/week of preparation. Adjust based on your current experience level and available time.

This concludes the Cloud Architect Interview Landscape module. Test your understanding with the module quiz. :::