Welcome: A Practical Learning Path for Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)

If you've ever opened an AEM project and wondered how the author, publish and Dispatcher pieces actually fit together, or why your change works locally but not in production, this blog is for you.

I'm Madhusudhan, an AEM developer and lead with 8+ years of experience on AEM Sites and Assets. This blog collects what I've learned into a structured path, from first principles to architecture and career topics. It's practical first: every post aims to solve a problem you'd meet on a real project.

How the Blog Is Organized

The content is grouped into five series. Each one builds on the one before it, but you can also jump straight to the topic you need.

1. AEM Foundations (5 posts)

Start here if AEM is new to you. What AEM actually is (Sites, Assets and Forms), how Author, Publish and Dispatcher work together, how to set up a local environment, how Sling resolves requests, and how an AEM project is structured.

2. AEM Core Development (6 posts)

The everyday developer toolkit: building components with HTL, every data-sly-* statement, Sling Models, dialogs with Granite UI, fixing injection issues and modeling content with Content Fragments.

3. AEM Assets Deep Dive (4 posts)

Working with the DAM at scale: workflows and automation, Smart Tags, folder structure best practices and custom processing with Asset Compute.

4. AEM Architecture & Operations (4 posts)

Running AEM in production: Dispatcher caching and invalidation, troubleshooting replication, AEM as a Cloud Service compared with 6.5, and performance tuning.

5. Advanced AEM & Career (4 posts)

Going further: headless AEM with GraphQL, Edge Delivery Services, architect interview preparation and lessons from migrating to Cloud Service.

Where Should You Start?

• New to AEM: read Series 1 and 2 in order
• Experienced on 6.x, moving to Cloud Service: start with Series 4, then the migration post in Series 5
• Working with the DAM: go straight to Series 3
• Preparing for a lead or architect role: read Series 4, then the interview and Edge Delivery Services posts in Series 5

A Note on Accuracy

AEM changes quickly, especially on Cloud Service. Menu paths, tool versions and recommended approaches shift over time, so treat each post as a solid starting point and check Adobe's current documentation before you rely on a specific detail in production. If you spot something out of date, please let me know through the Contact page, and I'll update it.

Stay Updated

Subscribe to get new posts by email as they're published. You can also read more about me on the About page.

Thanks for reading, and I hope this saves you some of the head-scratching I went through along the way.

The views on this blog are my own and don't represent my employer or any client.