Are you a web developer?

Here's a list of websites that offer free & beautiful website templates:

🧵👇🏻

Are you a Senior Developer & struggling to switch your job?

Here's a thread on how you should prepare before sending out job applications:

🧵👇🏻

First of all know that there's a lot of demand for good software developers.

It's hard for companies to hire good mid level developers. Some of the interviewers I've talked to recently have mentioned this!

So, if you're good, you can always get into a high paying job.

I have 6.5 years of experience mainly as a Backend Developer. Although I do work a bit of front-end tasks as well as part of my current job.

In this thread I'm going to talk about how I would prepare if I was going to apply for a job interview.

As a mid level developer having 4 - 8 years of experience, you will be expected to have certain skills to be hired by companies. Skills like:

- Problem Solving
- HLD
- LLD
- Mentoring / Code reviews
- Taking responsibility
- Leading end-end development & release of projects etc

Problem Solving:

Even though we mostly never write a lot of game changing Algorithms and use data structures, you're still expected to know the most common ones and how to use them to solve problems:

- Tree
- Linked List
- Heap
- Hash Map
- Array etc

Do you want to learn AWS (or an experienced AWS dev) ?

Here's a list of Github repositories you should check out:

🧵👇🏻

1. Serverless:

Serverless Framework – Build web, mobile and IoT applications with serverless architectures using AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google CloudFunctions &

2. Localstack:

💻 A fully functional local AWS cloud stack. Develop and test your cloud & Serverless apps

3. data-science-ipython-notebooks

Data science Python notebooks: Deep learning (TensorFlow, Theano, Caffe, Keras), scikit-learn, Kaggle, big data, matplotlib, pandas, NumPy, SciPy, Python essentials, AWS, and various command

4. awesome-kubernetes:

A curated list for awesome kubernetes

How should one approach System Design questions during an interview?

Here's the step by step guide:

🧵👇🏻

System design interviews are generally open ended discussions. There's no one right answer.

The main focus in this round is to see your thought process and whether you'll be able to design a minimal system keeping future scale in mind and by following the standard principles.

Know that many interviewers deliberately make it hard to see how you approach a given problem.

You cannot possibly design a complex system in 1-2 hours which engineers usually take months to years to design, develop and build.

So this is how you should approach this round:

1. Clarify the requirements: As mentioned earlier the questions are generally very open ended. So you need to ask a lot of question to set the scope clear for the discussion.

Example: "Design an application like Twitter"

Twitter has a lot of features like:
- Post tweet
- Home timeline
- Profile timeline
- Analytics
- Likes
- Retweets
- Following
- Bookmark
- Trending etc

You get the idea!

It’s underremarked upon that stablecoins accomplish basically all of the original design goals for Bitcoin qua a transactional mechanism (instant free value transfer anywhere), but that nobody cares about this because nobody ever cared about that part of the pitch.

“Why do people care about stablecoins then?”

A mix of “they encourage dollar-denominated liquidity in the cryptocurrency ecosystem and discourage withdrawal of the same” and “they’re good for money laundering.”

“But they make value transfer between exchanges much faster!”

This was a solved problem in traditional finance, too, mostly through the extension of credit. (It doesn’t matter how long settlement takes if there is sufficient trust to enable credit.)

The Bitcoin ecosystem is *positively allergic* to credit, so you have to call it a coin for them to accept it. And after you call it a coin they ignore everything the world has learned about credit, like risk management.

“Stablecoins aren’t credit!”

They’re pretty much exactly credit? A tether is a zero-coupon Bitfinex bond with a non-functioning call option. I

Google's interview system is not great but there are various reasons why it feels less than it is. Most candidates don't know what the goal of our interviews are. First rule, it is not about finding an optimal solution or any solution at all.

You are interviewed for multiple skills simultaneously. Cognitive skills, communication, leadership are a few to name. If the point is not finding a solution, then what is it? Let me explain.

Your interviewers try to understand what it feels like to work with you on a daily basis. An interview question is just a tool in achieving that, it is not there to specifically measure your skills on a topic but a tool to understand the depth of your thinking.

Before the interview starts, ask them what they want to get out of this interview. Good interviewers should already have a plan and a set of expectations. Ask them what you should do. Don't start coding yet. Ask them you should produce. Discussion, diagrams, pseudo code, code?

Then, start cracking the question. List whatever questions you think it is important to solve this question, ask your edge cases. Get to a point where you are discussing about pros/cons of the solutions. These steps are critical. Don't just start coding. Have a consensus first.

Last weekend, I made a threat on the ongoing #SocialMedia shutdown in Uganda and some implications on the future of #internet & Uganda's #digital agenda.

The thread attracted a lot of engagement and questions. Tonight, I will share some final thoughts on the subject. (1)

Conceptually, social media sites are the largest on-boarding platforms for internet users in Uganda. Notably, Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram & Snapchat attract the highest internet traffic- which drives demand for other platform services e.g Google and Zoom recently.

So- when we talk about an "open internet", we mean the FULL resources of the internet. Any encumberance on selected applications has ripple effects across the entire network thus jeorpadizing standardization of internet/data transmission which is essential for innovation & growth

Furthermore, shutdowns hinder network interoperability (technical ability to plug/link one digital product or service into another product or service). Interoperability is the heart of the "Internet of things" eg business, devices, networks, services, e-govt, integration etc #IoT

Because the internet is a global resource, shutdowns enhance a digital divide (the gap between demographics and regions that have access to modern ICTs, and those that don't or have restricted access). Ironic that 3rd world countries have the highest number of shutdowns globally.