A study plan that starts from what you already know.
Pick the job you want. Terminus works out what it takes, leaves out what your background already covers, and puts the rest in order. Every stop comes with a good book, a good video course and, where there is one, a place to practise. All free.
First stations to backend engineer, from the very beginning
Programming. Ready to start.
Maths foundations. Ready to start.
- Discrete maths40 h
Maths foundations. After Mathematical proof.
- Recursion8 h
Programming. After Programming in Python.
Programming. After Recursion.
Programming. After Functions and abstraction.
Then 17 more stops to get hired, about 464 hours in all.
Where you can go
Software engineering
Data and machine learning
Infrastructure
Finance, economics and quant
Product, design and delivery
Or learn just one tool: Go, C++, Redis, Power BI, Spring Boot, Containers and Docker, PyTorch. All 78 tools
How the route is worked out
Every role lists what it needs in three tiers: what gets you hired, what the first year expects, and what's good to have. Every topic lists what you need to know before it. Terminus walks back from the role through those prerequisites and stops wherever your background already covers the ground, so a CS graduate aiming for backend work never sees an intro programming course. What's left goes in order, starting the longest chains first and keeping you on one line at a time where it can.
So far there are 108 concepts, 67 tools and 16 projects. 187 have a book or written guide picked and 149 have a video course. Role lists are drafts until they've been checked against real job postings. The design notes have the details.