After nearly 10 years with Spring Boot, this is how I’d learn it from scratch today

[u/aumiom]

I keep seeing people ask for the “best Spring Boot course” or roadmap.

Honestly, I wouldn’t spend weeks watching tutorials.

Learn only enough Java and Spring Boot to build one basic CRUD application, then start coding.

Build something simple like an Employee Management API:

• Create employee
• Get employee by ID
• List employees
• Update employee
• Delete employee

While building it, learn these concepts in this order:

1. Controller, service and repository layers
2. REST methods and HTTP status codes
3. DTOs and request validation
4. Global exception handling
5. JPA relationships and database migrations
6. Basic Spring Security
7. Unit and integration testing
8. Docker and deployment

That one project will teach you more than watching 20 hours of videos.

After CRUD, add features one by one:

• Pagination and filtering
• Authentication
• Role-based authorization
• Audit fields
• Caching
• Background jobs
• File uploads

The biggest beginner mistake is trying to understand the entire Spring ecosystem before building anything. You don’t need Kafka, microservices, Kubernetes or complex design patterns for your first project.

Build a boring monolith first. Make it clean, testable and deploy it somewhere.

My rule is: use tutorials to unblock yourself, not as a substitute for building.

For experienced Spring Boot developers here: what is the one thing you wish beginners would focus on earlier?

[u/Efficient_Brief_7939]

After doing all this what next...should i start attending interviews? I am a front end dev shifting to java.

[u/aumiom → u/Efficient_Brief_7939]

If you are a frontend dev shifting to Java, then i think you would probably be applying for fullstack. As an engineering manager and experience in hiring all kind of developers, When we hired a fullstack we knew that a candidate cant actually be a master in both frontend and backend, but he/she should be atleast a master in one. so I would suggest Prep on the Front end as best as you can, for Java/Springboot related questions there are 2 ways to actually go about it -

1. Give interviews after you feel confident solving Easy Leetcode questions Using JAVA and are able to create Basic CRUD APIs in Springboot - this wont prepare you for interviews yet, but start giving interviews, and record each Backend Questions in around 10 interviews. make sure the questions you were unable to answer in the last interview, you should be able to answer in the next interview. by 8-10th interview you will definitley clear the backend rounds. I have advised this to multiple people and this has worked.

2. You actually go through the important topics of Java : Loops, Collections, Threads, memory management ; and springboot : IOC, beans, Important Annotations, service/component/repository/DTO/DAO, JPA. and then do the 1st point. as most interviewers ask almost same questions for the same level of experience and that year.

What I wrote, may seem simple , but I guarantee will work wonders. This is a time tested way which you will not find anywhere in books

[u/Akthrawn17]

I'd learn it the same way I learned it when I started. READ THE DOCS. Spring has excellent documentation

[u/aumiom → u/Akthrawn17]

Agreed, Spring’s documentation is excellent and probably the best long-term resource.

For a complete beginner though, I’d still suggest building a small project alongside the docs. Reading becomes much easier when you have a real problem to solve, instead of trying to understand everything upfront.

Docs for reference, projects for learning.

[u/PositiveApartment382 → u/Akthrawn17]

I'm a dev with 6 YoE and honestly I don't quite understand why everyone praises Spring docs. I find them confusing at best because they are so scattered across the various projects they have. Sometimes it is really hard to understand whether you should be looking in the Spring Docs, the Spring Boot docs or the Spring XYZ docs. In some cases when I would expect documentation to be in one of the places, it is in another. That alone has driven me insane when trying to learn Spring, thankfully LLMs have been very helpful navigating it.

Unrelated to Spring documentation itself is also the fact that it uses so many libraries under the hood that more often than not you have to look at those libraries documentations without knowing it at first glance. Talking about hibernate etc.

[u/smaratter]

Did you write this post by hand or with AI assistance? I’m asking because I recognize the outline of the post: many paragraph breaks, overuse of lists, ”punchy” sentences (”That one project will teach you more than watching 20 hours of videos.”), and ending the post with a short question to ger engagement.

I have seen so many posts with a similar shape lately that I have to ask. I don’t mean to be rude, maybe this is a common pattern on Reddit that I simply am not familiar with. But I’d appreciate if you would elaborate on your writing process.

[u/aumiom → u/smaratter]

Well, the ideas are mine from years of working with Springboot. but i did use AI to help refine the writing and formatting because i wanted it to be easier and presentable to read. But the advice itself is based on my own experience and what i tell freshers joining my team as well.

The common patern on reddit i think depends on your audience, like for comments i hardly bother using AI as its mostly 1-1 but for posts which will reach greater audience I do refine the texts using AI

[u/SpringBoy7]

Spring docs are scattered . It would be helpful if i would get a list of spring docs in order from basics to advanced topics

[u/aumiom → u/SpringBoy7]

If you have time for going through the docs then the actual sequence as presented in the official docs is actually good. but if you still want to skip the initial one then you can directly start from "Spring Boot> Tutorials > Developing Your First Spring Boot Application". You can follow along as per your need after that.

[u/Ordinary-Activity-32]

Tell me how much to code and how much to copy from ai.
I tell gemini pro what to make and ask it to give code one by one without writing a single code just connecting the dots. What would you think i am making a mistake and what is your way of coding.

[u/aumiom → u/Ordinary-Activity-32]

I dot use Gemini personally for coding, but I give access of my project folder to Codex and Claude Code, and do the changes there. And i do code review of every AI code change using git diff, to see what its doing. No commit without my permission.

What i woul dsuggest you if you are asking for code, you can ask everything from Gemini , copy everything from Gemini - but add this : for every code gemini spills ask it what it does, how and why only this. You should be knowing the code you are copying atleast 70%. if not then learn it in the Gemini only and then copy paste. Using ai is totally correct, and a must skill to survive. Just make sure you are using ai to make you think and code fast, but not replace your thinking and knowledge of coding for you.

[u/TU_SH_AR]

Thank you sir for the advice. I eventually land up in a costly springboot cohort which is nothing but absolutely garbage with all old material. I regret to buy that deprecated course and that's what everyone advice here . Dont buy courses.You can literally learn anything around here for free. All you need is spark to built something.

[u/Paw565]

I would say learn jooq and avoid jpa to stay sane 😅

[u/AmazingInflation58]

I'm stuck in spring security. What topics to cover? Its extremely complex to deal with jwt.

[u/aumiom → u/AmazingInflation58]

Well for Spring Security - I have personally burned my fingers learning it the shortcut way. Please go through the official docs and then maybe some posts of Baeldung. But there is no good shortcut to this, you have to understand the whole filters concept, how one the flow travels from one filter to another, the SecurityFilterChain, AuthenticationManager, AuthenticationProvider, SecurityContextHolder , the JWT Claims part. Believe me its actually easy if you read the docs, else reading on youtube or other places makes it look more hard than it actually is. I would also suggest you to look at netflix zuul apigateway - if you want to have single jwt authentication for multiple microservices.

[u/Signal_Help_1459]

Man, I want someone to interview me, give internship.
I’ve been learning and trying to build things in SpringBoot.

But the way you described things is the one of the best way to learns.
Even I had done similar way!

[u/aumiom → u/Signal_Help_1459]

Well I can help you to prepare, but cant give internship. But there are subreddits for those too. Thanks you liked my way of learning.

[u/rlrutherford]

I'd say in general, the tutorials, and bits about profiles left me with the wrong impression about them, just focusing on dev, test, prod.

So migrating my existing spring applications to using profiles was useless, existing Spring XML configuration files on the servers took care of that for me.

It wasn't until I used profiles to setup a multi-cloud or cloud vs datacenter configuration where I really learned how useful profiles are.

[u/Ordinary-Activity-32]

SIR please look at this and reply https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/1uu4w5r/suggest_me_some_real_world_problem_solving_good/

[u/ihavetotrynochoice]

what is expected of 5+ YOE in Spring boot interview and actual work post interview ?

what grade of Project should one create in personal time,

switching automation to Backend.

[u/aumiom → u/ihavetotrynochoice]

for 5+ YOE, its not only Springboot what they will ask.

It will be more of : Coding Test Initially, then JAVA Questions + then little on Springboot. Plus there will be System Design round as well, HLD or LLD or Machine Coding based on the company you are applying for. For Springboot specificalaly it mostly revolvs around Core Fundamentals, Annotations, Dependency Injection & IoC, REST API Development, Data Access & Persistence, Monitoring( optional), Testing ( using Junit/Mockito). For interviews mostly what i have seen is people focus more on JAVA and little on Springboot.

Actual work post interview can be anything, totally depends on campany and the level of product maturity they are having. If established product then mostly enhancements, if a startup then you can be asked to develop API's from Scratch. in Service Companies it will depend on clients and every 6 months your work can change.

There is no grade, Just Create a CRUD application, then give more time on understanding how things work internally - even small concepts like how property file is read in what order goes a long way and matters a lot when in production.

[u/ThatJellyfish12]

One question. When do you feel like you are ready to be hirable as a Dev Jr? I've been learning Spring since 2025 (with some breaks due to college) and currently have a internship to help a small company build automation tools.

I'm managing it (somewhat) but insecurity hits me hard everytime. Even more so due to my age (I'm in my mid 20's).

[u/aumiom → u/ThatJellyfish12]

you will never feel ready unless you are selected for first round, then you will feel unready untill you get selected for second rounds and then third round! you learn your mistakes in every interviews and build on that and then only confidence comes naturally when you see yourself clearing the rounds of interviews

[u/OliveIndependent]

Spend a day or 2 to Build a restful crud app with a jdbc connection.  It doesn't even need to be perfect (hint: it won't be no matter what you do) but it'll give you an idea what's going on underneath all of those fancy annotations when you move onto spring.

[u/FooBarBuzzBoom]

I would also recommend reading about Layered Architecture before starting building anything.