Leverage layoff and severance to pivot to SWE

Uber / Ops
xnfO04

Go to company page Uber Ops

xnfO04
Apr 30, 2020 7 Comments

I’ve been considering pivoting to SWE from Ops for a while now. If I were laid off, what should I focus my time and effort on studying/learning with the 2-3 months of (hopeful) severance in order to accomplish this?

Top courses/topics/books? Whats not important or worth studying just yet? For context, I have a degree in industrial engineering, have taken some intro level CS courses, and frequently use Python/SQL.

(and yes, i know i need to grind LC lol)
#layoff #SWE

TC: 100k

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TOP 7 Comments
  • Uber
    lavidaloco

    Go to company page Uber

    lavidaloco
    Do your leetcode but find a book on building a python application and follow it all the way through. There are “project” books for this.

    Then try to build your own data scraping app in Flask. Scrape job, scheduler, a simple ETL layer, db storage, file storage, and a simple UI with tables to show the data.

    An example would be scraping a forum you read, or stock quotes plus enrichment of the data by also downloading news articles.

    Doing this takes 4-8 hours for a senior dev, and could be 100-300 hours for someone new. It’s a great way to lightly touch on many of the core software patterns to actually build something.
    Apr 30, 2020 5
    • Uber
      lavidaloco

      Go to company page Uber

      lavidaloco
      If you’re clever and capable of self motivation then you don’t need any expensive course. Lots of $20-$100 online courses are solid material.

      The most important thing is finding something to build though.

      The credentialed undergrad DS&A course is only if you want to apply for a CS masters degree - because they’ll ask for it.
      Apr 30, 2020
    • Cisco
      BJIQ78

      Go to company page Cisco

      BJIQ78
      Can you comment on python project books you refer to above? An example would be nice.
      Apr 30, 2020
  • Airbnb
    kYFK02

    Go to company page Airbnb

    kYFK02
    Go for it. Market is flooded with swe now though so it might be a while till you get a job
    Apr 30, 2020 0