From B.Com to Backend Engineer: My Masai School Journey

By Shubham Bhati — Backend Engineer at AlignBits LLC

The unlikely path

I have a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya in Indore. Three years later, I'm a Software Engineer at an iPaaS company, shipping production Java microservices that integrate enterprise systems.

In between those two facts is one institution that changed my trajectory: Masai School.

This is the honest version of how I went from balance sheets to backend systems — what worked, what was hard, and what I'd do differently.

Why a B.Com grad picks up Java

I didn't grow up writing code. My undergrad was accounting, taxation, business law. By the final year of B.Com (2022), I had a clear realization: the work I was being prepared for didn't excite me. The work that did — building software — required skills my degree never gave me.

I had two options:

1. Spend ₹4–8 lakh on a Master's degree
2. Find a focused, intensive program that taught backend engineering for software jobs

I picked option 2 and applied to Masai School for their Software Engineering — Java Backend Specialization (then a 30+ week program in Bengaluru).

What Masai actually teaches

Forget the marketing. What I actually learned, in order:

Phase 1 — Foundations (HTML/CSS/JS, DSA)
Surprisingly tough. As a non-engineering grad, the first month was just adapting to "thinking like a programmer" — abstraction, recursion, big-O.

Phase 2 — Java + OOP
Where the Java backend specialization really started. Generic types, collections framework, exception handling, multithreading basics.

Phase 3 — Spring Boot + databases
The career-defining phase. REST APIs, Spring Data JPA, Hibernate, MySQL. By week 18, I was building functional CRUD APIs.

Phase 4 — Production-grade
Spring Security, JWT, OAuth 2.0, microservices patterns, message queues (RabbitMQ basics).

Phase 5 — Capstone projects
Real, deployable projects. Mine included Chatterbox (Spring Boot WebSockets) and a Shopzilla e-commerce backend.

What worked

1. Showing up every day
Masai is intense — 9–10 hours of focused work, six days a week. The students who showed up consistently are the ones who got hired. Talent matters less than this.

2. Building things outside class
I built side projects on weekends. SnapResize, TIC_TAC_TOE with JavaFX, and WorkFolio — these became my real portfolio.

3. Studying production code
Reading open-source Spring projects taught me more than tutorials ever did.

4. Practicing Java interview problems daily
HackerRank, LeetCode (easy/medium). I have an Intermediate badge for Java on HackerRank — earned by daily practice.

What didn't work (or what I'd change)

1. Spreading too thin
I tried to learn React + Java backend simultaneously in the first months. Mistake. Going deep on one stack beats being mediocre at two.

2. Skipping system design early
Masai covers basics, but interview-grade system design (LB, caching, partitioning, CAP, consistent hashing) — I learned that mostly on the job after joining IHX. Should have started earlier.

3. Not building public presence
I waited until job-search stage to make a GitHub portfolio. Should have been pushing code from week 1. Recruiters search GitHub more than they admit.

What happened after Masai

IHX Private Limited (Jun 2023 – Aug 2024) — Associate Software Engineer on healthcare backend systems. FHIR-standard integrations. This is where I learned production engineering: incidents, on-call, monitoring, SLOs.

AlignBits LLC (Sep 2024 – present) — Software Engineer on an iPaaS platform. Microservices at scale, message queues, AWS, cross-system integrations. Got promoted from Jr. in my first year.

In two years from graduating Masai I've:

• Resolved 15+ production incidents
• Managed 10+ client integration pipelines
• Earned 25+ certifications (AI Engineer, Java, Prompt Engineering)
• Stayed at backend engineering — never had to pivot

Is Masai worth it?

Honest answer: yes, conditionally.

It's worth it if:

• You're committed to backend engineering as a career
• You can dedicate 9+ hours/day for 30+ weeks
• You have no engineering background and need structured fundamentals
• You're OK with the pay-after-placement model (you don't pay until you're earning)

It's NOT worth it if:

• You're looking for a credential to put on a resume without doing the work
• You already know Java and Spring well — you'll be bored in the first half
• You can't commit full-time

What I'd tell a B.Com student today

1. Pick one stack, go deep. Don't be a full-stack jack-of-all-trades. Java + Spring Boot is a solid bet for India in 2026.
2. Push code to GitHub from day one. Even bad code. Recruiters notice consistency.
3. Get a working website. Mine is at shubh2-0.github.io. It pulls more recruiter messages than my LinkedIn.
4. Solve 1 LeetCode problem a day. Not 10. One, every day, for a year.
5. Find a community. I'd struggled alone for months before joining Masai. Don't.

What's next

I'm currently exploring backend engineering roles — remote, hybrid, or relocation — with companies building products that scale. If you're hiring or know someone who is, my LinkedIn is the fastest way to reach me.

If you're a B.Com student staring at a coding bootcamp wondering if it's worth it: it is, if you do the work.

Shubham Bhati is a Backend Engineer at AlignBits LLC, working on iPaaS platform integrations with Java, Spring Boot, and AWS. Based in Gurgaon, India. Portfolio · GitHub · LinkedIn

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