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
- CodeIntermediateNew
Strangler-Fig Migration of a Monolithic Order Service
Stand up an HTTP facade in front of the monolith (Nginx or a small Go proxy) that routes by URL pattern. Slice 1: extract the order-status read endpoint, dual-write nothing, rou…
- Strangler Fig Pattern
- Refactoring
- Legacy Modernization
Refactoring and Code Smell Detection - StrategyBeginnerNew
IDE-Assisted Refactoring Bootcamp for a Junior Backend Team
Design a 5-day curriculum centered on 10 katas chosen for refactoring-pattern coverage (e.g., Gilded Rose for replace-conditional-with-polymorphism, Tennis kata for extract-meth…
- Refactoring
- Katas
- Ide Tooling
Refactoring and Code Smell Detection - 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 - CodeIntermediateNew
Supply-Chain Hardening: SLSA-Aligned Build Pipeline for an Apache Project
Audit the project's current release pipeline (GitHub Actions, release-script). Map the current state against the SLSA v1.0 requirements (source, build, provenance, dependencies)…
- Supply Chain
- Slsa
- Sigstore
Open Source Contribution and Maintainership Develop in-demand professional skills.
Each challenge names the skills it strengthens. Over time, your profile fills with the competences a hiring manager would actually look for.
Why Ewance
- DesignSeniorNew
Design a Cross-Chain Bridge Protocol with Honest Threat Model
Read the Vitalik 'cross-chain interoperability' essay and survey 3 existing bridge designs (lock-and-mint, atomic-swap, optimistic-rollup-native). Design your protocol around a …
- Blockchain Protocols
- Smart Contracts
- Solidity
Blockchain and Decentralized Systems Engineering - StrategyBeginnerNew
Strategy Brief on Layer-2 Choice for a Web3 Gaming Studio
Survey the three L2 categories with 2026-current numbers: per-transaction cost at expected game throughput (around 50 TPS sustained, 500 TPS event spikes), finality latency (mat…
- Layer 2 Protocols
- Blockchain Protocols
- Research
Blockchain and Decentralized Systems Engineering - 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 - CodeBeginnerNew
Build and Ship a Bug-Tracker MVP with Full CI/CD
Week 1: write a 1-page SRS + Figma wireframes for 5 screens (login, bug list, bug detail, file bug, dashboard). Week 2-3: implement with Next.js + Supabase + Tailwind, with unit…
- Full Stack Development
- Requirements Engineering
- Ci Cd
Software Engineering Foundations - Browse challenges
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Strategy Analyst
Frame the business question, model the options, build the recommendation. From market sizing to competitive analysis, this role is where strategy consulting meets in-house decision-making.
- AnalysisBeginnerNew
Rescue a Stalling Scrum Team at a Series-B HealthTech
Review 8 hours of recorded ceremonies and 3 sprints of Jira data (story sizing, carry-over rate, cycle time per story, blocker tags). Diagnose the top 3 root causes (likely cand…
- Scrum
- Agile Metrics
- Retrospectives
Agile Methods and Practices - PresentationBeginnerNew
Requirements Validation Workshop for a Government Permits Portal
Convert the 12 main flows in the requirements document into concrete executable scenarios (think Gherkin: Given / When / Then) with realistic data (anonymized real permits). Wal…
- Requirements Validation
- Executable Scenarios
- Gherkin
Requirements Engineering - 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 - CodeIntermediateNew
Refactor a Reckless Inadvertent Debt Hotspot
Read the class + git blame to map its responsibilities. Write characterization tests (using approval testing) until you can change behaviour without surprise — target at least 7…
- Refactoring
- Mikado Method
- Characterization Testing
Technical Debt Management Get recognized by recruiters and employers.
Credentials are blockchain-anchored via LearnCoin — tamper-evident, portable, link-shareable on LinkedIn and beyond.
Why Ewance
- 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 - StrategyBeginnerNew
Negotiate a Debt-Paydown Budget Inside a Roadmap
Pick 3 well-known debt items (e.g., flaky tests blocking deploys, manual tenant provisioning, a legacy notification service). For each, model the carrying cost in engineer-hours…
- Technical Debt
- Stakeholder Communication
- Refactoring Budgets
Technical Debt Management - CodeIntermediateNew
Design a Saga Orchestrator for a Cross-Border Payments Flow
Model the payment flow as a saga: 6 forward steps + their compensations. Choose between orchestration (Temporal) and choreography (event-driven via Kafka) and defend the choice.…
- Saga Pattern
- Temporal Workflow
- Compensation Logic
Event-Driven Architecture - CodeIntermediateNew
Refactor a God-Object Order Service with Strategy + Command
Read OrderService and the last 18 months of bug tickets touching it. Author a 5-page design document showing the current class diagram, the target Strategy-per-order-type + Comm…
- Design Patterns
- Refactoring
- Strategy Pattern
Software Design and Design Patterns - CodeIntermediateNew
Build an Indexer for an On-Chain DeFi Analytics Product
Receive the 6 protocols' ABIs + the team's required event coverage spec (around 40 event types). Build a TypeScript indexer using viem + Postgres: subscribe to new blocks via We…
- Blockchain Indexing
- Typescript
- Ethereum
Blockchain and Decentralized Systems Engineering - DesignBeginnerNew
Organize a Distributed Team Across 4 Timezones
Audit the current state via 8 interviews (4 in SF, 2 in Warsaw, 2 in Bangalore). Design 4-5 squads each owning a domain end-to-end (not split across timezones for handoff). Buil…
- Team Management
- Distributed Teams
- Communication Design
Software Project Management - 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 - AnalysisIntermediateNew
Technical-Debt Quantification for an Acquired SaaS
Run a static-analysis sweep (SonarQube + custom dependency scripts) and a 4-hour structured walkthrough with the acquired team's 3 senior engineers. Categorize debt into: code-q…
- Technical Debt
- Code Analysis
- Estimation
Software Evolution and Maintenance - DesignIntermediateNew
Migrate a RabbitMQ Topology to Kafka for a Healthcare SaaS
Analyze the current RabbitMQ topology + 30 days of message volume data. Map each queue to a Kafka topic with the right partition key (likely patient_id, encounter_id, or clinic_…
- Kafka
- Rabbitmq
- Message Broker Migration
Event-Driven Architecture - CodeIntermediateNew
Migrate an Internal Service from REST to gRPC
Receive the existing OpenAPI spec, the Go service code, and 7 days of traffic data. Pick the top 2 RPS-by-method endpoints and design Protocol Buffers (protobuf) message + servi…
- Grpc
- Protobuf
- API Design
API Design and GraphQL - DesignIntermediateNew
Design Schema Evolution for a Multi-Tenant Event Platform
Design a schema-evolution model covering: schema-registry topology (per-tenant subjects vs shared), compatibility modes per topic class (strict vs forward-only vs none), tenant-…
- Schema Evolution
- Kafka
- Schema Registry
Event-Driven Architecture - 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
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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.
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