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Building My Learning Workflow: A Structured Approach to Leveling Up

Building My Learning Workflow: A Structured Approach to Leveling Up

Over the past several months, I’ve been focusing on rebuilding and sharpening my full-stack development skills in a more systematic way. As someone who has spent over a decade working across both software and hardware engineering—with my current role centered around hardware test automation—I wanted a workflow that reflects how I actually learn, build, and iterate.

This post explains why I created a new learning workflow, how I’m structuring the projects, and what my goals are moving forward.


Why I Built a Learning Workflow

I didn’t want tutorials or copy-paste examples. I wanted a process where I could:

  • Learn step by step
  • Build real things
  • Submit work, get feedback, and improve
  • Develop production-grade habits
  • Keep everything consistent and versioned

This led to what I’m calling my Learning Projects Workflow — a structured, iterative process focused on practical mastery rather than passive learning.


How the Workflow Is Structured

Instead of random experiments, I’m organizing everything into a repeatable model:

1. Daily/Session-Based Progress (day-1, day-2, etc.)

Each day or session is its own folder. This helps me track what I learned, what I built, and how the project evolves.

2. Real Tasks, Not Tutorials

Every session includes small, realistic tasks:

  • Build a page or component
  • Refactor something
  • Add a feature
  • Integrate a service
  • Solve a design or architecture problem

This forces me to think like an engineer, not a student.

3. Submit → Feedback → Iterate

After each session, I submit my work for review. This gives me:

  • Immediate corrections
  • Better patterns
  • Cleaner code
  • Professional-level habits

It mirrors a real engineering workflow — design, build, review, iterate.

4. Focused Technical Areas

Right now, I’m deepening my skills in front-end engineering using:

  • React
  • Next.js (coming soon)
  • Modern component patterns
  • State management
  • API integration
  • Clean project structure

This will later expand into backend services, DevOps, and full-stack architecture.


Why React / Next.js?

I specifically chose these because they reflect what most modern companies use, especially for:

  • Scalable product frontends
  • Internal dashboards
  • High-performance UI systems
  • Developer-friendly workflows

React gives me foundational knowledge, while Next.js provides a full application framework for real-world deployment scenarios.


A Bit About My Background

I currently work as a Senior Hardware Test Engineer at Las Vegas Sands Corp., building automated testing systems for gaming hardware and software. My day-to-day involves:

  • QA automation
  • GRPC services
  • Embedded systems workflows (Yocto, Bitbake)
  • Golang development
  • Python tooling
  • Ensuring reliability and reproducibility at scale

Before that, I spent years working across both software and hardware engineering roles, always with a focus on building robust, maintainable, production-grade systems.

This learning project is my way of sharpening the software side even further using a structured, disciplined approach.


What’s Next

Over time, this workflow will cover:

  • Building a full portfolio site
  • Creating API-driven components
  • Deploying a complete Next.js application
  • Expanding into backend and cloud services
  • Building tools that integrate hardware + software expertise

I’ll continue posting updates here so prospective employers — or anyone following along — can see how I grow, learn, and build.


If you’re reading this as someone evaluating my work: This workflow reflects exactly how I learn, how I think, and how I approach engineering problems.

It’s iterative, deliberate, and focused on producing real results.

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.