Software Engineer
About This Book
Dedication
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Why I Wrote This Book
What This Book Is Not
What This Book Is
Who This Book Is For
A Note on Names
Part 1: The Work
Chapter 1: The Job Description vs. The Job
The Posted Version
The Actual Job
Autonomy and Its Weight
What “Scalable” Actually Means
What “Ownership” Actually Means
The Parts Nobody Posts
The Real Qualification
The Gap, Illustrated
What Changes and What Does Not
Chapter 1 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 2: Production Is the Teacher
The Education That Cannot Be Replicated
The Difference Between Staging and Production
What Production Systems Require
The Production Mindset
Five Years at Scale
The Antivirus Years
Learning Production Before You Inherit It
Chapter 2 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 3: The Ownership Mindset
Two Engineers, Same Codebase
What Ownership Is Not
What Ownership Is
The Operational Health Criterion
Improvement Without Permission
The Goals That Force Clarity
Ownership and Career Growth
Starting Where You Are
Chapter 3 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Part 2: Getting Hired
Chapter 4: Reading the Job Description
What the Job Description Is
The Required/Preferred Split
The Technology Stack as Signal
The Culture Signals
The Company Research That Actually Matters
The Hidden Requirement: Production Experience
When the Job Description Is Wrong
Reading the Seniority Level
The Compensation Signal
The Red Flags
Chapter 4 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 5: Your CV
What a CV Is For
The Structure That Works
The Six-Second Scan
Writing About Production Experience
The Technology List Problem
Tailoring to the Role
What to Cut
The Cover Letter
Chapter 5 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 6: The Technical Interview
The Format Has Reasons
The Architecture Question
The Scalability Questions
The Resilience Questions
The Observability Questions
The CI/CD Questions
Technical Topic Reference
Before the Interview
Chapter 6 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 7: What They Are Actually Testing
The Question Beneath the Question
The Insider Account
What Marcus Got Wrong
What the Debrief Said About Me
What Pedro Got Right
What They Are Actually Testing
The Depth-Breadth Calibration
The Self-Evaluation Problem
The Defensive Response Pattern
Building the Interview Character
A Note on Scope
Chapter 7 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 8: The Interview in Practice
Theory Into Rehearsal
Scenario 1: The Depth Overreach
Scenario 2: The Generic Answer
Scenario 3: The Defensive Response
Scenario 4: The Vague Production Story
Scenario 5: The First-Person Rewrite
Scenario 6: The Unprepared Candidate
Catching Yourself Mid-Interview
Chapter 8 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 9: The Offer
The Evaluation Goes Both Ways
Reading the Offer
The Negotiation
Deciding Between Offers
When the Offer Goes Silent
Before You Start
Chapter 9 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Part 3: On the Job
Chapter 10: Your First Ninety Days
What the First Three Months Are Actually For
The First Two Weeks
The First Month
The First Three Months
The Team Map
Setting Goals That Are Actually Goals
Remote Onboarding
The New Person’s Advantage
Chapter 10 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 11: Building Production Systems
The Architecture Is Not the Design
The Serverless Model at Scale
Asynchronous Messaging Patterns
Database Patterns
The Security Patterns That Prevent the Most Common Failures
Cost as a Design Constraint
Version Control as Deployment Infrastructure
The Questions That Reveal Depth
Chapter 11 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 12: Incidents, On-Call, and Recovery
The Test of Operational Maturity
Before the Incident: The On-Call Setup
During the Incident: The Response
After the Incident: The Post-Mortem
The Culture of Blameless Post-Mortems
On-Call as a Learning Opportunity
Chapter 12 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 13: Communication as Engineering
The Resistance
What Engineering Communication Actually Is
Clarity Without Simplification
Writing That Works
Facilitation: The Multiplied Communication Skill
The Stakeholder Relationship
The Compound Effect
Chapter 13 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Part 4: The Career
Chapter 14: From Junior to Senior
What the Titles Mean
The Transition to Mid-Level
The Transition to Senior
The Technical Depth Requirement
When the Promotion Does Not Come
Setting Goals That Compound
The Quality Standard
Tests Are Documentation
The Feedback Loop
Managing Upward
Chapter 14 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 15: Mentoring
The Leverage Argument
What Mentoring Actually Is
The Dependency Failure Mode
Giving Feedback That Changes Behavior
Being Mentored
The Nurture and Growth Responsibility
The Long Return
Chapter 15 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 16: Influence Without Authority
The Title Is Not the Leverage
Why It Works
The Technology Introduction
Systems Architecture as Influence
Changing What You Disagree With
Influence and Visibility
The Evidence, Not the Argument
Chapter 16 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 17: Building in Public
The Compounding Asset
Open Source
Writing as a Technical Credential
The Visibility Flywheel
Twenty Years
Chapter 17 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 18: The Long Game
Twenty-Two Years
The Technology Is the Medium, Not the Message
The Arc of a Career
The Geographic Move
When to Leave
When It Is Not Your Choice
When the Problem Is Named
Chapter 18 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Chapter 19: Building Deliberately
Building Something of Your Own
What Carries Forward
Staying Relevant
The Letter Forward
Chapter 19 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Part 5: The Profession
Chapter 20: Ethics and Responsibility in the Age of AI
The Code That Already Exists
Honesty About Competence
Avoiding Harm
The AI Coding Tool Question
Honesty in the Interview Context
Privacy and the Systems You Build
The Standard That Was Already There
Chapter 20 Quiz
3 attempts allowed
Final Exam
Final Exam
2 attempts allowed
Appendix A: Hiring Process Checklist
Before You Apply — CV Preparation
One Week Before the Interview
Two Days Before
The Night Before
During the Interview
Self-Assessment Rubric
After the Offer — Evaluation Checklist
Appendix B: Career Review Questions
Part 1: The Past Year
Part 2: The Current State
Part 3: The Next Year
The Archiving Rule
A Note on the Books in This Series
About kdeps
Further Reading
Contact and Feedback
Software Engineer: The Course
Get hired, ship to production and grow from junior to senior with a professional's playbook.
A practical guide to getting hired and growing as a software engineer. Every chapter ends with a quiz, and a final exam earns a certificate.
Minimum price
$79.00
$79.00
You pay
Author earns
About
About the Course
Software Engineer
Get hired, ship to production and grow from junior to senior with a professional's playbook.
What You'll Learn
✔ See the difference between the job description and the job
✔ Read job descriptions and write a strong CV
✔ Prepare for technical interviews and what they test
✔ Evaluate and negotiate an offer
✔ Plan your first ninety days
✔ Build production systems and handle incidents and on-call
✔ Communicate, mentor and influence without authority
✔ Grow from junior to senior and think about ethics in the age of AI
Who Is This Course For?
Aspiring, junior and mid-level software engineers, and career changers entering the field.
Prerequisites
None. Some programming experience makes the production chapters more concrete.
Why This Course?
It covers the full career arc in one place: getting hired, doing the work well and building a long career.
How It Works
- 20 chapters, each ending with a 5-question multiple-choice quiz (3 attempts, best score counts)
- A 20-question final exam covering the whole course
- 120 quiz questions in total
- Score 70% to pass; 85% or more earns honors
- Pass to receive a certificate of completion
Written by Joel Bryan Juliano.
Instructor
About the Instructor
Hi, I'm Joel.
I am Dutch-Filipino Software Engineer with 20+ years of experience.
And with over 20 years in the game, I’ve seen it all and loved every minute of it.
My journey has taken me through a variety of industries, from sports streaming to cybersecurity, both in the private sector and for the Dutch government, and everything in between.
Along the way, I’ve picked up a diverse set of skills and experiences, in which I document into books.
Material
Course Material
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