John

Change log located at the bottom of the post.

For many people in tech, keeping up your knowledge about the industry can be hard. Whether that be finding your next Job, keeping up in the industry or just understanding what it means to be a software engineer.

In light of this, and a few people pointing out to me that there isn't really a congregated place for one to look for information, I've decided to take a crack at collating the sources that I (and others) use to stay informed.

Naturally, this list is one that will continue to be updated. I welcome any and all suggestions so feel free to let me know of some either in the comments, or by contacting me 

As all things should be in life, you should not take these sources as the rule. It is up to you to do your due diligence and formulate your own opinions. 

The majority of these sources are focused on Software Engineering but should be applicable to most careers within tech and Computer Science.
Personally, these sources have helped me to form many of my perceptions, which are always challenged and changing, in hopes of providing the most clarity that I can get when tackling a topic.

Take everything with a grain of salt and remember, 

you can only know as much as you're willing to dive into.

Reddit - The treasure trove for anecdotes

One of the largest congregations of like minded software engineers. A good source of 

Each region/continent usually has their own smaller "CS Career Questions" sub-reddit (i.e 

) where you can find more specialized information

A mostly useful source for Leetcode anecdotes and information

Includes insights into interviews, Leetcode questions and how to prepare for technical interviews

A sub-reddit for undergraduates/recent graduates studying Computer Science

A good source of anecdotal information relative to an early career Software Engineer

A polarizing (even extreme) forum where driven engineers come to discuss everything (and anything) there is about tech and pay

Users can sign up with their work email to identify which company they currently work at 

A good source for how the most driven and high performing engineers are doing (mostly monetarily) with many reference points for Job Offers with compensation

A website used to learn and refine and study coding techniques

What every and all engineers gravitate to and use to prepare for interviews

You can check out my experience with Leetcode 

Most if not all other sources will refer to Leetcode when covering Technical Interviews

: A curated list of Leetcode problems that touches a good portion of the topics covered in Technical Interviews

Leetcode Interview experience forums provide many sources of information too!

A curated list of coding problems and courses used to study for Technical interviews

Includes courses and questions on system design, algorithms, data structures, etc...

Can be used to track progress and topics already covered in your interview preparation

"Anonymous mock interviews with engineers from Amazon, Google, Facebook, and other top companies"

Practice questions for getting better at system design

A massive database on all the patterns that you can be tested on in a coding interview

The golden standard for books that cover how to approach Technical Interviews

Covers everything from how to approach solving interview questions to how certain companies like to pick their questions

A book to help you land a job as a project manager

System Design Interview – An insider's guide

The quintessential guide to undergoing system design interviews

A book about algorithms and how to build them in the best way during a coding interview

Proceed with caution and be very aware of selection bias! Usually people who are proud of their salaries will be more open to sharing.

Crowd-sourced data on Software Engineer salaries

Provides a collection of useful career tools

 (salary negotiation, resume review, etc...)

Crowd-sourced data on all salaries by role

Most things are locked behind you having to create your own account and submit your own contribution (every 12 months)

Provides user reviews on all things about a company

Usually split by region/continent/country

New reports are created in intervals and dissected by career stage (early, mid-level, experienced) as well as cost of living

Statistics and trends about hiring and job postings

Broken down by location/country, industry and practice

All sources that will help you keep up to date with what's actually going on

Possibly the largest social collection of professionals in the world

Can be used as an index to find information about companies and individuals 

how many Software Engineers work in Google at Sydney

A site that congregates all information about the layoffs that are occurring in the tech industry

Provides data about the impact of said layoffs including

Spreadsheets containing information on the individuals who have been let go and how to get in touch

An index of industry information that anyone in tech can use to keep up with what's happening in the field

Career resources for those in tech

Privacy has increasingly become a more important topic for me as I continue to learn the (scary) power of data. For the longest time, I had teetered between 

"I should really value my privacy and data"

. Things recently have started to change, possibly for the better (or worse depending on how you look at things).

For the past year, I have put more and more effort and consciousness into the decisions I make when selecting which products I use. First, it was my notes, then buying my own NAS, adding my password manager, and converting my DNS provider and domain registrar. These moves, however, were nothing in scale compared to what I was about to do; move off of Google Workspace.

I always thought that Gmail's autosuggestion, while convenient, was quite creepy. Somehow, in some way, Gmail began to learn what I wanted to say, do and prefilled begin to auto suggest entire sentences to me. Initially, it didn't make me so worried, that it was "just my email", but slowly and slowly, I began to realize a couple of quite outstanding things.

I have important documents and details stored in my email

Yes, we all do it. You can't be bothered to use a USB or have access to a network-shared and password-protected drive so you will email yourself important scans and documents. Either that or you have had to send some important documents to whoever you needed to send them to. Either way, you most likely have very important things stored in your inbox that you would 

rather not have leak out onto the internet

Google Workspace is no longer the only workable option

You don't have to use it. There are so many emerging competitors or collections of services that will provide similar services. This point really was nailed home when Canva came out with 

. It's so easy to keep how you're doing things now but sometimes the grass on the other side is not greener, but healthier.

An opportunity to support emerging technologies making positive impacts

Money talks. Being able to support smaller businesses that want to achieve good and do the right thing is something that I feel very earnest about doing. Whether it's a good game or a good service, I will be willing to shell out what it deserves for a good experience, even if it means a rougher transitional period.

I mean predicting what I'm going to say? Come on.

Which means you are probably the product. 

Imagine how a pig on a farm gets free food, shelter, and health care.

Free services must come a cost. How else will these places stay open? Whether that is your data, user experience, dependability, sanity; free 

All of this adds up to make it a quite compelling argument to leave Google Workspace, especially considering how easy it is nowadays to move Mail providers. It is not that it is a bad service, in fact, Google has served me well for a number of years, but it's time to switch.

After the observations, I made a selection criterion for whatever my next choice was going to be. Any strategy or option would most preferably fill most of these criteria. This list, in no particular order, is:

The flexibility of development (Easy SMTP server access, API docs, good support)

Feature set (minimum requirement: replace Gmail, Goal = Replace Google Workspace)

A deceptively comprehensive list of items that happened to knock out a lot of the big players in the space. Think Google, Outlook, Yahoo, and iCloud. This left my selection really narrowed to only a couple of options:

The first and most prevalent option was to pick something that was distributed, meaning that many services collectively replaced the original solution. These were my options for the various features that were going to be replacing Gmail

Mail (A good comparison list can be found 

You kinda get the point. There are ways to replace Gmail and the Google workplace suite in this way but it can get quite messy and expensive if we factor in all the things you actually have to sign up for and pay for. 

Ultimately, the more that I dug into this option, the more nonviable it became. It just wasn't realistic to use, manage and pay for so many services all at the same time. 

This isn't to say that this is a bad option, but rather for my own personal sanity, I would rather invest into at least one larger privacy-first ecosystem and not have to pay 5 different bills a year.

is an open-source self-hosted collaboration tool suite that allows users to regain control over their data. The suite provides:

Nextcloud Talk: Calls, chats, and web meetings

Nextcloud groupware: Calendar, contacts, and mail

The key here is "self-hosted". Since I already had a NAS, I have the ability to host my own instance of Nextcloud and was quite willing to go down this route for a while, that is until I figured out a couple of things.

I can't trust myself with ensuring that Mail is 100% reliable. I don't know about you but sometimes I get some really important emails. To have to support, maintain and provide enough redundancy so that I ensure that I do not miss a single email is quite perilous and expensive!

It still costs money to license (basic @ 100 users for 36 EUR/user/yr) even though you are hosting it yourself

Drive storage is kind of redundant since that's what my NAS already does

I don't need to chat with anyone on Nextcloud Talk! It's just me...

All in all, I ended up discounting Nextcloud but still think it's a great option if you're willing to go through the setup and ensure that your service has 100% uptime. I just don't have the time to do that right now.

That being said, when you consider the well rounded office suite that it offers, I'll always be tempted to spin up an instance of my own. You simply can't completely say no to something that is complete (and can replace Google Workspace) like this!

was the next option that presented itself and is a SAAS productivity software suite. I personally was only interested in the email and collaboration software which includes:

Writer: Word processor for focused writing and discussions

. There are other tiers that can accommodate more users and extra features (which I mostly did not need). This combined with a few more reasons ended up making Zoho a stick in the mud (something that is always there as an option but I won't pick it)

Free means not private (sometimes). In most cases, free things come at a cost (

). Most likely, I will be faced with the same points that made me want to move off Gmail and Google Workspace in the first place.

All of my anguish in finding a provider was quickly resolved after I discovered the (new) wonders of 

. Proton is a privacy-focused company that provides open-source productivity software. Once just a mail company, they have begun diversifying into other spaces and now provide:

I found that although the feature set mostly encompassed that of Gmail and Google workspace, there were still some drawbacks:

They are relatively new, only recently expanding into Calendar and drive. This means that OS is not fully available and some apps straight up don't support any clients outside of the web (Drive). This also means that the usability of their apps can be not quite polished compared to larger providers.

However, these drawbacks were small prices to pay for the amazing returns

Well-documented, tested and supported by Swiss data laws

VPN Included! (Free tier still includes VPN but at a lower speed/availability)

An easy developer experience. Quick setup with SMTP access, Domain setup (DMARC, DKIM, SPF)

Good limits on cloud storage. Unlimited = 500GB. Visionary = 3TB! 

Ultimately, the decision was quick. It checked the criteria and when faced with their Black Friday sale, I jumped the gun and bought two years of unlimited, which then turned into an upgrade to Visionary through 

This is quite a bland topic for most. Many people don't really care or worry about their data and don't really understand the ramifications that can arise if a data leak occurs.

Documenting my experience with data privacy and the decisions that lead me to migrate to the Proton (Mail, Calendar, Drive, and VPN).

Moving to Proton

Everything written here is strictly reflective of my opinion and has not been influenced by any external party.

 The concepts I refer to are things that I have figured out for myself and may contradict or challenge the things that you have experienced so take everything with a grain of salt.

I've always had a strange relationship with Leetcode. For a good portion of my computer science life, I've avoided anything that had to do with Leetcode including technical interviews and screening. This was for a few factors:

Fear of testing and defining my own abilities

But after a long time of pondering and seeing the mass of people on 

 encouraging that I at least try, I eventually put my head down and did the work and this article is the result of studying for a month (14 days of solving Leetcode problems).

The simple definition of Leetcode is that it is a platform that allows coders to solve coding problems. This by itself doesn't particularly mean much but with the advent of 

(Meta, Amazon, Netflix, Google and Apple)

, previously FAANG, and big technology companies pushing for Leetcode-style questions in their interviews, Leetcode has become synonymous with technical Interviewing. For one to be successful in pursuing the top Software Engineering jobs, one must be literate in Leetcode. 

 reason why I chose to start Leetcoding, rather I felt that I had a massive deficiency in my understanding of practical applications of Data Structures and Algorithms. There really is only so much you can do by reading and learning theory and so I went ahead and logged into an account I created a long time ago when a previous motivation tried to kick me into the rabbit hole. 

Below are the resources that I have used and will refer to throughout this post.

Assuming that you indeed do have a solid understanding of Computer Science fundamentals and have coded before, there are a few steps I would recommend before diving into the deep end.

You can only be as good as your aspirations are. Are you looking to interview for 

 or big tech? Are you looking to learn more about your language and about coding? Are you trying to get into competitive programming? Or is it for a course that you are taking at 

You need to understand this before even touching Leetcode as your approach and attitude will greatly affect the way the outcome may be.

You don't have to be interviewing to use this book and appreciate the value it brings.

Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakmann McDowell is an excellent book that teaches about the various aspects of technical interviews. Before diving into Leetcode, I had read the vast majority of this book (but didn't attempt the problems).

I would suggest doing the same and tackling some questions that are available in the book. This book remained an excellent reference throughout my small grind and I referred back to it for every other question.

Much like a math test there really are only so many ways to assess the same set of skills. The more questions you do, the more evident it becomes that there exists "patterns" within the questions you do and thus the variations become more trivial.

In my experience there are a few patterns (not all but the ones I found to be most occurring) that exist within Leetcode and are all explored in 

To master a math test means to master the textbook. To master Leetcode means to master its patterns.

Everyone approaches Leetcode differently and should be doing so. Everyone learns differently and the way that I have might not be so suited to you. I knew what I wanted to achieve so I devised a very specific strategy to help get myself to do Leetcode effectively and achieve my goals. 

Leetcode is most effective when it is undertaken with an intent to 

 not to memorize. Sure some people may prefer to remember hundreds of Leetcode questions in preparation for an interview but I didn't really set out to do that. 

I wanted to deepen my understanding of the code I write and memorization wasn't an option in that case.

I work full time. There are definitely stories where people have Leetcoded full time but I couldn't afford to do so. The majority of the time I had to Leetcode was after my 9-5 until I went to sleep. Note that I never said when I slept so there were definitely some very 

I believe that those who are undertaking Leetcode without understanding core CS fundamentals are doing it wrong. You must establish these understandings before diving into the rabbit hole that is Leetcode. Leetcode is not a platform to learn how to code, it really never was and probably never will be. 

For those who want to learn more about coding before trying Leetcode, try to undertake a course to learn a language, or start a personal project and get comfortable with coding before trying Leetcode.

"Leetcode should be the whetstone for your coding skills" 

Many people think that grinding Leetcode means seeing and completing as many problems as possible in the shortest amount of time. This thinking is mostly synonymous with grinding and studying for interviews but for me, this approach simply doesn't work.

I think that for someone to be most effective on Leetcode, one must pick the 

 questions. This meaning really varies from individual to individual but for me, I had a criteria in my mind that a question had to pass for me to attempt it.

Is the problem actually interesting to me?

Is it one that is unique compared to what I have already attempted?

Does it seem like a challenging question that I can't just solve in 5 minutes?

It might seem pretty logical but asking these questions when reading a Leetcode question filtered a lot of tedious, repetitive and boring questions that I had no interest in solving and thus, ones that wouldn't teach me much over what I already knew.

The way I actually did Leetcode was very structural.

Select a problem that I found interesting (refer to "Picking the right questions")

If you don't want to pick or think you are bad at picking, use 

If solved, optimize using solutions and analyse time and space complexity

 your failure to solve it optimally and look at solutions

Study the solutions (both optimal and non-optimal) and why they work 

 is tested and quickly explain what the solution does and why it works

 every line of the code and try to understand and explain out loud what it does

Attempt to write a solution or improve the existing solution

(Optional) Comment code for future reference

Revise and explain the solution out loud to yourself or someone else.

This is how I did Leetcode. It might not be for you but I found it to be very fluid and good for those who need to hustle to get prepared for Interviews and the like. From here, you would begin with Leetcode easy and increase in difficulty as they got easier. To clarify some details, I'll start exploring some interesting things that I've identified throughout this short process.

I never expected to complete questions that I saw for the first time within 30 minutes. In fact, doing so was rare and if It happened consistently, then the questions I was doing were too easy. It is 

 to be hard and the intention is to continually push your own standards higher and learn under high pressure.

Aim for the stars, get on the moon (optimal vs non-optimal)

Sometimes you are not able to get the optimal answer and that's okay! The idea is for you to understand and learn how to tackle these problems so achieving a non-optimal answer is fine. Though I had a rule in place that I would not leave a problem before I got the optimal solution so try to use your understanding of the non-optimal answer as a ship to take you to the optimal.

This is a massive topic that I won't dive into. To get good at these questions, you need to understand and be able to verbalize test cases and the cases you need to cover. 

After doing quite a few questions, one stood out the most and that was Leetcode 

This problem is a culmination of everything I wanted Leetcode to be for me. It was a very smart and practical problem that fell into the 

 category of questions. It stood out to me for three reasons.

It tested your core understanding of CS in a smart way

Not to spoil the solution but the optimal approach to this question is very, very interesting and you would not be able to 'see' the answer by just knowing more algorithms but rather by understanding them and what these algorithms did.

It's a question that looks easy to solve but isn't so easy to write code for

This can really apply to all questions on Leetcode but especially this one. You can look and easily count the islands but to tell code to do that? Not as easy.

All in all, it's a witty question that I recommend anyone try to solve. You may be able to see the solution quickly or go straight to the answers but I would highly recommend an honest challenge at solving it!

A practical question like this always picks at my curiosity. To a certain extent, you can see how this Leetcode problem could be reflected in real coding practice. Just to prove a point, we can reword the question to something like you've built some program that needs to identify the number of mugs in an image represented by a 2d array. The solution to "Number of Islands" would fit snugly as a solution to that problem and this is what made the question even more interesting than it already was.

Some other questions I found very interesting were the classic 

This single blog post is not enough for me to thoroughly explore the rabbit hole that is technical Interviewing and Leetcode.

For many people, Leetcode is a means to an end and that to get their dream job they just need to grind Leetcode problems. I think this shouldn't have to be the case. 

Above all, Leetcode showed me a lot of the attributes that I find to be vital in any trade outside of your ability to simply solve a problem such as your thought process, communication skills and attitude.

I think this is for one vital reason: when companies give Leetcode problems, they are not only assessing you on your ability to get the optimal answer but all of those traits I mentioned and more. This idea (and the breakdown of the intention of the technical interview process) is explored extremely insightfully in a video I stumbled upon by 

 a good mindset to think that you will pass technical interviews by just solving problems that were similar to what you have seen before because your assessment is going to be much deeper than that. 

To be deemed a good problem solver, you have to be able to 

that you are a good problem solver and Leetcode is a great medium for enabling that to happen but isn't the only one available.

What I learned after my short experience with Leetcode and the resources I used to get better.

The Leetcode experience

In response to the incoming undergraduates starting in university in recent weeks as well as me officially becoming a graduate from UNSW, I thought It would be appropriate to write a prolonged guide on how I 

 survived uni and how I think you can extract the best that you can out of your own experience.

For most of you, this guide may seem to mostly echo what you already know but hopefully somewhere buried deep in this post, you will find something useful for you.

For those not bothered to read through all this, below is a 

 that summarises the various experiences in university. Skip to 3:05 for the real talk.

What many people coming into uni, myself included, assume is that in some, way, shape, or form, is that you live and die by your marks. Let me get this out of the way for you right now, 

your marks don't matter as much as you really expect them to

. Of course, they play some part in getting past job screening or allowing you to do some course with a mark hurdle, but in reality, 

you shouldn't define yourself by your mark

This means that you are effectively working with a blank slate when entering uni and thus, you should be treating it that way. 

This is your opportunity to do what you love without defining yourself by how well you did.

Determine what you want out of university

The value of uni comes out of what you really want out of it. For some, uni means it's a connective experience, for others, it's a way to get a job. Have a sit-down and really think about what you really want out of it, else you'll be setting yourself up for disappointment.

uni is an experience so you should treat it as one.

If you are determined to get a job, smash your classes, 

 and learn valuable skills. If you're looking to make friends, join societies. Adapt the experience for 

Career resources for those in tech

Moving to Proton

The Leetcode experience

How to survive university

UNSW course reviews and suggestions

How to get internships and graduate jobs

Task Master

Scribee

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