Engineering & Technology
Software Engineering Challenges
Real software-engineering projects on Ewance — design, build, and ship features against production-shaped constraints, not toy exercises. Solve them to build a portfolio of verified, recruiter-checkable proof you can do the work — not just describe it.
Recommended challenges
- StrategyBeginnerNew
Maintenance Plan for a Donated NGO Web Platform
Run an inventory: dependencies (with known-CVE check), secret exposure, test coverage, deploy process, observability, and on-call. Author a 12-month maintenance plan covering pr…
- Software Maintenance
- Dependency Management
- Security Hardening
Software Engineering Foundations - CodeBeginnerNew
Add a Test Harness to an Untested Open-Source CLI
Fork the repo (test mirror provided), set up Vitest with coverage and a CI workflow that fails under 75 percent on the targeted modules. Write characterization tests first (asse…
- Unit Testing
- Integration Testing
- Test Coverage
Software Construction - AnalysisIntermediateNew
Reverse-Engineer a 22-Year-Old COBOL Batch Pipeline
Use SonarQube + cobol-language tooling + JCL parsers to extract job dependencies and data-flow across the 140 jobs. Build a job-dependency graph (Graphviz). Run impact analysis:…
- Reverse Engineering
- Legacy Systems
- Dependency Analysis
Software Evolution and Maintenance - AnalysisIntermediateNew
Defect-Trend Analysis and Quality Action Plan for an EV Charging Platform
Pull 18 months of defect data from Jira + the field-incident system + customer-service tickets. Categorize defects by component, severity, and root-cause taxonomy. Run statistic…
- Defect Analysis
- Statistical Process Control
- 5 Whys & Fishbone Root Cause Analysis
Software Quality and Process Improvement Practice your coursework on real scenarios.
Every challenge is shaped from real-world context — not generic exercises. The work mirrors what your degree prepares you for.
Why Ewance
- CodeBeginnerNew
Characterization Tests for an Untested Pricing Engine
Drive the pricing engine with around 800 representative input vectors generated from anonymized production quotes (provided). For each vector, capture the current output as the …
- Characterization Tests
- Approval Testing
- Legacy Code
Refactoring and Code Smell Detection - CodeIntermediateNew
Specification-First Refactor of a Payments Module
Read the module, the last 12 months of incidents touching it, and the existing tests. Write a 6-page specification using a precondition / postcondition / invariant format per pu…
- Specifications
- Refactoring
- Characterization Testing
Software Construction - DesignIntermediateNew
Design an Event-Driven Reporting Pipeline for an Enterprise BI Team
Map the 9 source systems by extraction approach: CDC where possible (Debezium for SAP HANA + MES databases), event hooks where the source supports them (Salesforce streaming API…
- Change Data Capture
- Kafka Event Streaming
- Debezium
Enterprise and Business Software Engineering - CodeIntermediateNew
Build and Audit an ERC-20 Vesting Contract for a DeFi Startup
Implement an ERC-20 vesting contract with: per-beneficiary cliff (default 12 months) + linear vesting (default 36 months), revocable allocations (for founders only), pause funct…
- Solidity
- Smart Contracts
- Foundry
Blockchain and Decentralized Systems Engineering - Browse challenges
Explore role
Product Manager
Ship product that solves real user problems. Combine user research, prototyping, and stakeholder alignment to turn ambiguous briefs into measurable wins — the role at the centre of modern software teams.
- DesignIntermediateNew
Design an Idiomatic REST + Webhooks API for a Logistics SaaS
Read the team's draft + the public APIs of 3 reference logistics platforms (anonymized, briefing pack provided). Author a 5-page API design guideline covering URL structure (nou…
- REST API Design
- REST API Design
- Openapi
Software Design and Design Patterns - AnalysisIntermediateNew
ISO 25010 Self-Assessment for an Aerospace Avionics Vendor
Read the module's documentation (architecture, requirements, test reports, defect history). For each of 8 ISO 25010 characteristics (functional suitability, performance efficien…
- Iso 25010
- Quality Assessment
- Do 178c
Software Quality and Process Improvement - StrategyBeginnerNew
Design a Sustainable Maintainership Model for a Mid-Tier OSS Project
Read the project's last 12 months of issues, PRs, and Discord/Slack archives (anonymized). Identify: top maintainer-burnout signals, the 5 highest-friction issue categories, and…
- Governance Models
- Maintainership
- Issue Triage
Open Source Contribution and Maintainership - DesignBeginnerNew
Use-Case Specification for a Marketplace Disputes Workflow
Identify 5 primary use cases (e.g., 'Buyer opens dispute within 7-day window', 'Seller counters with evidence', 'Operations escalates to refund'). For each: actors, precondition…
- Use Cases
- Cockburn Template
- Requirements Specification
Requirements Engineering Build a verifiable portfolio.
Submissions become evidence. Reviewers with shipping experience score against a rubric; the result becomes a credential anyone can verify.
Why Ewance
- StrategyIntermediateNew
CMMI Level 3 Process-Improvement Roadmap for a Defense Subcontractor
Read the company's current process documentation + recent CMMI Level 2 appraisal report. Run a gap analysis against the 11 additional Level 3 process areas (Requirements Develop…
- Cmmi
- Process Improvement
- Process Models
Software Quality and Process Improvement - CodeIntermediateNew
Strangler-Fig Modernization of a Healthcare Reporting Service
Audit the report categories (around 14) and pick operating-theater utilization for the pilot extraction (high volume, moderate complexity, low regulatory blast-radius). Design t…
- Strangler Fig
- Legacy Systems
- Feature Flags
Software Evolution and Maintenance - CodeIntermediateNew
Apply Hexagonal Architecture to a Payments Microservice
Design the settlement domain in pure Kotlin (no Spring imports, no framework annotations). Define ports for: payment-network adapter (one inbound per network — SEPA, Faster Paym…
- Hexagonal Architecture
- Ports And Adapters
- Kotlin Programming
Domain-Driven Design - CodeIntermediateNew
Upstream a Strategic Patch to a Major CNCF Project
Pick a published roadmap area on the chosen project (instructor will sanity-check the choice). Read the project's CONTRIBUTING.md, RFC template, governance model, and the 3 most…
- Oss Contribution
- Rfc Design
- Pr Etiquette
Open Source Contribution and Maintainership - ResearchIntermediateNew
Industrial Case Study: Why a Microservices Migration Failed
Conduct 8 1-hour interviews across CTO, 3 tech leads, 2 platform engineers, 1 SRE, and the product VP. Analyze 24 months of artifacts (ADRs, RFCs, incident reports, deployment d…
- Industrial Case Study
- Qualitative Research
- Software Architecture
Advanced Software Engineering - StrategyBeginnerNew
Estimate and Plan a 6-Week MVP for a Local Logistics Startup
Read the product brief and decompose it into 8-12 modules (driver app, dispatcher console, shipper portal, billing, etc.). Estimate each module using 3-point estimation (optimis…
- Estimation
- Scheduling
- Risk Management
Software Engineering Foundations - DesignIntermediateNew
Design a Versioning Strategy for a Public REST API
Receive the OpenAPI spec for the 14 endpoints, 8 months of partner-support tickets tagged 'breaking-change', and the partner-mix breakdown (which endpoints which partner uses). …
- REST API Design
- REST API Design
- API Versioning
API Design and GraphQL - CodeIntermediateNew
Add Idempotency Keys to a Payment Webhook System
Read the current Go webhook-sender code and 30 days of duplicate-delivery incident logs. Design the idempotency scheme: server-generated key per event (UUID v7 — time-ordered), …
- REST API Design
- Idempotency
- Webhooks
API Design and GraphQL - DesignIntermediateNew
Build a Quality Metrics Program for a Medical-Device Software Team
Read the team's QMS (Quality Management System) documents and the IEC 62304 software lifecycle requirements. Design a metric catalog of 12-15 metrics covering process (review-co…
- Quality Metrics
- Iec 62304
- Process Improvement
Software Quality and Process Improvement - AnalysisIntermediateNew
Architecture Evaluation via ATAM for a Healthcare Platform
Run a 2-phase ATAM (Phase 1: present architecture + elicit quality-attribute goals + analyze approaches; Phase 2: broader stakeholder validation). Capture: business drivers, qua…
- Atam
- Architecture Evaluation
- Quality Attributes
Software Architecture - CodeIntermediateNew
Refactor a Tangled Order Aggregate at a Logistics Platform
Work in the provided Spring Boot 3 + Java 21 codebase. Identify the true aggregate roots (likely candidates: Order, Shipment, Invoice) and split the god object accordingly. Extr…
- Tactical Ddd
- Aggregate Design
- Java Refactoring
Domain-Driven Design - StrategyIntermediateNew
Requirements Management for a 2-Year Banking Core Migration
Pick a requirements-management tool (Jama Connect, Polarion, or a Confluence + Jira pattern) and justify the choice against the bank's audit + compliance needs. Define a metamod…
- Requirements Management
- Traceability
- Governance
Requirements Engineering
How it works
From brief to credential, in six steps.
Step 01
Browse challenges aligned to your studies.
Step 02
Accept the one that fits your goals.
Step 03
Work through it with AI Copilot guidance.
Step 04
Submit for structured evaluation.
Step 05
Earn a verified credential.
Step 06
Add it to LinkedIn with one click.
Related fields
View all →Industry teams behind a decade of practitioner briefs
Hiring from this pool?
Sponsor a challenge and meet candidates through actual work.
Industry teams can shape briefs around the skills they hire for, then evaluate students on rubric-scored deliverables — not resumes.