C++ Mastery Roadmap (9-Month Plan)
Phase 1: Foundation + Core Mastery (Months 1–3)
Month 1: Deep Dive into OOP, Memory, Pointers
- OOP: Classes, Inheritance, Virtual Functions
- Rule of 5, Copy/Move semantics
- Pointers, Smart Pointers
- Object lifetime, Stack vs Heap
Tasks:
- Build: String class from scratch (deep copy, move constructor)
- Practice pointer-based sorting, linked lists
- Implement: Shape hierarchy using polymorphism
Milestone: Use smart pointers confidently, understand vtables and object slicing.
Month 2: STL & Templates
- STL Containers: vector, map, unordered_map, set, list
- STL Algorithms, Iterators, Lambdas
- Function & Class Templates, Specialization
- Functors, std::function
Tasks:
- Create: Generic Stack/Queue using templates
- Implement: LRU Cache using unordered_map + list
- Practice 30 STL-based Leetcode problems
Milestone: Fluent STL usage, debug STL-heavy code.
Month 3: File I/O, Compilation & Build Tools
- File Handling (Text & Binary)
- Preprocessing, Compilation, Linking
- Header Files, Namespaces, Makefiles
Tasks:
- CSV Parser using file streams
- Multi-file project with Makefile
- Use g++ -Wall -O2 -g and gdb
Milestone: Understand code-to-executable flow.
Phase 2: Advanced Concepts + Systems (Months 4–6)
Month 4: Modern C++ (C++11–20)
- auto, decltype, range-based for
- Move semantics, constexpr, nullptr, noexcept
- unique_ptr, shared_ptr, Lambdas
- Concepts, std::optional, std::variant
Tasks:
- Create: Move-enabled class with std::move
- Rebuild: LRU Cache using modern C++
- Use std::optional in robust API design
Milestone: Comfortable with modern C++ idioms.
Month 5: Multithreading & Concurrency
- std::thread, mutex, lock_guard
- condition_variable, future, promise
- Thread safety, atomic operations
- RAII, resource cleanup
Tasks:
- Thread-safe queue
- Producer-Consumer problem
- Multi-threaded downloader project
Milestone: Confident with concurrent programming.
Month 6: Projects + Debugging
- Use gdb, valgrind, perf
- Project Structure, Logging, Unit Testing
Tasks:
- In-Memory Key-Value Store (Redis-style)
- Chat App (Sockets + Threads)
- File Compression (Huffman Coding)
Milestone: Complete one real-world C++ project.
Phase 3: Interview Prep & DSA (Months 7–9)
Month 7: Data Structures
- Arrays, Linked Lists, Stacks, Queues
- Trees (BST, AVL, Trie)
- Heaps, Hash Tables
- Custom Implementations
Tasks:
- Solve 100 DSA questions (DS-specific)
- Implement Trie, LRU, Heap manually
Milestone: Master common DS implementations.
Month 8: Algorithms + Competitive Coding
- Sorting, Searching
- Recursion, Backtracking
- DP, Sliding Window, Two Pointer
- Graphs (BFS, DFS, Dijkstra, Union-Find)
Tasks:
- Solve 120 algorithm problems
- Platforms: Leetcode, Codeforces, AtCoder
Milestone: Solve medium-hard problems in under 45 mins.
Month 9: Interview Simulation & System Design
- DSA + C++ + Systems interviews
- Mock interviews (Live or timed)
- Rapid Fire: Virtual, Copy/Move, Templates, Smart Pointers
Tasks:
- 10 mock interviews (system + coding + concept)
- Design: Elevator System, Cache System, Real-time Notification Engine
Milestone: Handle top tech interviews confidently.
Tools
- IDE: VSCode, CLion
- Compiler: g++, clang++
- Debugger: gdb, valgrind
- Practice: Leetcode, Codeforces, InterviewBit
- Version Control: git, GitHub
- Build: Make, CMake
