🗺️ Roadmap: Principal Engineer to Azure Solution Architect (2026-2027)

Current Role: Principal Engineer (App/Dev Focus)
Target Role: Enterprise/Platform Architect (Infrastructure, Governance & Strategy Focus)
Core Philosophy: "Mechanics over Magic." Shift focus from building code to governing the ecosystem.

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📚 Phase 0: Foundations & The "Architect's Mindset"

This runs continuously alongside the technical phases.

📖 The Architect's Library

• Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann (The Bible of distributed systems)
• Fundamentals of Software Architecture by Mark Richards & Neal Ford (Formalizing trade-off analysis)
• System Design Interview by Alex Xu / ByteByteGo (Refining interview patterns)

🧠 Habits & Routine

• Read: Azure Architecture Center reference architectures (1 per week).
• Read: Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) (The official blueprint for enterprise Azure).
• Watch: John Savill's Azure Master Class v3 (Selective Deep Dives).

🗣️ Soft Skills & Leadership (The "Hidden" Requirement)

• Stakeholder Management: Learn to explain why we need to spend $5k/month on a firewall to a non-technical CFO.
• Influence without Authority: How to convince a team to use your standard Bicep modules instead of their own Terraform.
• "The Art of the Proposal": Practice writing one-pagers (RFCs) that define a problem, 3 options, and a recommendation.

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🏗️ Phase 1: The "Plumbing" (Networking & Identity)

Goal: Stop treating the cloud as a black box. Master the wires and boundaries.

Module A: Networking Mechanics (CRITICAL GAP)

Primary Resource: Azure Master Class v3 - Module 6

• Watch: Module 6 (Focus on Peering, UDRs, Private Link).
• Concept: Master the Hub & Spoke Topology (The Industry Standard).
• Concept: Explain Transitive Routing (Why VNET A -> B -> C fails).
• Deep Dive: Private Link vs. Service Endpoints (Know the trade-offs).
• Deep Dive: Traffic Routing - Azure Front Door (Global/Anycast) vs. App Gateway (Regional).
• Lab: Deploy a VNET, block public access to SQL, and connect via Private Endpoint.
• Lab: "Traceroute Test" - Setup two VNETs, peer them, and verify ICMP flow.

Module B: Identity & Security

Primary Resource: Azure Master Class v3 - Module 2

• Watch: Module 2 (Identity).
• Concept: Authentication (AuthN) vs. Authorization (AuthZ).
• Concept: Managed Identities (System vs. User Assigned) - Kill connection strings.
• Concept: RBAC Layers - Management Plane vs. Data Plane.
• Lab: Refactor a demo app to use Managed Identity for SQL access (No secrets in appsettings.json).

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🛠️ Phase 2: The "Platform" (Governance, IaC & Gateways)

Goal: Shift from "Clicking in Portal" to "Defining the Platform."

Module C: Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

• Skill: Bicep (Azure Native) - Stick to this for .NET shops.
• Resource: Microsoft Learn - Bicep Fundamentals.
• Concept: Idempotency (Running the same script twice changes nothing).
• Lab: Write a Bicep module to deploy your Phase 1 Network (VNET + Private Endpoint).

Module D: Governance & Landing Zones (The "Enterprise" Standard)

Primary Resource: Azure Master Class v3 - Module 3

• Watch: Module 3 (Governance).
• Concept: Azure Policy - Enforce rules (e.g., "Deny Public IP creation").
• Concept: Azure Landing Zones (Enterprise Scale) - Understand the "Management Group" hierarchy.
• Lab: Create a Policy that blocks the creation of resources without specific tags.

Module E: API Management (The "Platform" Interface)

• Service: Azure API Management (APIM).
• Concept: APIOps - Managing APIs via GitOps pipelines.
• Concept: Policies - Throttling, Caching, and JWT Validation at the gateway level.
• Lab: Deploy APIM in "Internal Mode" (inside a VNET) and expose a private backend API.

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🧠 Phase 3: Modern Applications (AI & Data)

Goal: Architecting for the AI era using .NET strengths.

Module F: AI Integration (The "New" Stack)

• Framework: Semantic Kernel (C# SDK) - Avoid Python-centric frameworks.
• Pattern: RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation).
• Service: Azure AI Search (Vector Search mechanics).
• Resource: Build AI apps with Semantic Kernel.
• Lab: Refactor Text-to-SQL app to use Semantic Kernel & Planner patterns.

Module G: Data & Messaging

Primary Resource: Azure Master Class v3 - Module 5

• Concept: The Messaging Triad - Event Grid (Reactive) vs. Event Hubs (Telemetry) vs. Service Bus (High Value).
• Concept: Cosmos DB Consistency Levels (Strong vs. Eventual).

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🛡️ Phase 4: Reliability & The "Architect's Eye"

Goal: Designing for failure, scale, and migration.

Module H: Reliability & Migration

• Concept: RTO (Recovery Time) & RPO (Recovery Point).
• Concept: Strangler Fig Pattern (Legacy Migration strategy).
• Concept: Reliability Patterns (Circuit Breaker, Bulkhead, Throttling).
• Lab: Design a DR Plan for the Text-to-SQL app (Region Failover w/ Traffic Manager).

Module I: Observability

• Concept: Distributed Tracing (OpenTelemetry) - Tracing a request across microservices.
• Tool: Azure Application Insights & Log Analytics (KQL).
• Lab: Write a KQL query to compare P99 latency between two regions.

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🎯 Final Capstone Project: "The Enterprise RAG Platform"

Build this to prove readiness.

1. Core: .NET Core Web API using Semantic Kernel.
2. Data: Azure AI Search + SQL DB (Both behind Private Endpoints).
3. Network: Hub-Spoke VNET topology protected by Azure Front Door (WAF).
4. Gateway: Azure API Management (APIM) fronting the API.
5. Security: All access via Managed Identities (Zero Trust).
6. Deploy: Fully automated via Bicep modules.

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Current Focus: Phase 1 - Networking Mechanics. The "Architect's Challenge": Why do Private Endpoints still require a Private DNS Zone even though they have a static IP?