A practical crash course on AWS for backend engineers — from IAM and Lambda to multi-region architecture. No console-clicking tutorials. Real patterns, real tradeoffs, real code.
AWS has 200+ services. You need maybe 15 of them to build production backend systems. This crash course cuts through the noise and teaches the AWS services, patterns, and tradeoffs that backend engineers actually use every day.
No “click this button in the console” tutorials. This is AWS the way engineers think about it — architecturally.
What This Course Covers
Fifteen lessons that take you from “I know backend development” to “I can architect on AWS”:
AWS Core Concepts Every Developer Needs — Regions, AZs, the service model, and the mental framework for thinking about cloud
IAM — Roles, Policies, Least Privilege — The permission system that gates everything else
Lambda — When to Use It and When Not To — Serverless compute with honest tradeoff analysis
SQS vs SNS vs EventBridge — Choosing Right — AWS messaging services and when each one wins
S3 — Beyond Basic Storage — Object storage as an architecture building block
DynamoDB — Data Modeling That Actually Works — NoSQL done right with single-table design
API Gateway — Patterns and Pitfalls — Request routing, auth, throttling, and the sharp edges
CloudWatch — Building Real Observability — Metrics, logs, alarms, and dashboards that actually help
VPC — Networking for Developers — Subnets, security groups, NAT, and connectivity patterns
AWS Security Best Practices — Defense in depth for production workloads
Cost Optimization — Stop Wasting Money — Practical strategies to cut your AWS bill
Serverless vs Containers on AWS — Lambda vs ECS vs Fargate decision framework
CI/CD on AWS — CodePipeline to ECS — Automated deployment pipelines on AWS
Multi-Region Architecture on AWS — Global availability and disaster recovery patterns
Real Project — Build a Serverless API — Putting it all together with a complete build
Who Is This For?
Backend engineers moving workloads to AWS
Developers who use AWS at work but don’t understand the “why” behind architecture decisions
Engineers preparing for AWS-heavy system design interviews
Anyone tired of clicking through the AWS console without understanding the underlying patterns
Prerequisites
Solid backend development experience (any language)
Basic understanding of HTTP, REST APIs, and databases
Familiarity with command-line tools
An AWS account (free tier is enough for all examples)
