

Ask HN: Which online CS course to take if I want a job tomorrow? - coralreef

Background: I taught myself iOS app development and have been doing so for about 3 years. I have enough income&#x2F;savings to survive for a while, so there&#x27;s no rush, but I&#x27;ve been considering finding a job, perhaps at a startup or an app dev shop. My apps are mostly kids games&#x2F;entertainment, nothing super complicated.<p>I took a couple courses, CS1 and Intro to C&#x2F;Unix, at a local university, got 4.0 GPA each (bell curved up).<p>I can program, but I lack most of the formal CS education that normal engineers have. If I wanted to apply for a job after 1 month, what online CS course would be most beneficial for me (things I would actually need&#x2F;use day to day or in an interview to show competency)?<p>Algorithms? Databases? Data Structures? Entry level courses of course. Any input appreciated. Thanks
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wallflower
If you're doing iOS development and have previously only done non-business
apps, competency could be demonstrated by being able to architect a non-
trivial app. The lines of code don't matter as much as how you manage the code
(low coupling, strong cohesion).

Unfortunately, the non-business apps may hold you back from a portfolio
standpoint, especially since you said there was nothing complicated in their
inner workings.

It might be worth your while to work on a more serious/business-oriented app
(that scratches an itch of yours - not something that you have no interest
in). Something along the lines of something that reads from an API and
displays it/allows the user to do something with the data. Throwing in some
nice visual eye candy with UIDynamics or the older CoreAnimation is a nice
touch, as well.

In general, during the course of the interview, since you have a non-
traditional background, you want to demonstrate that you took on technical
challenge(s) and solved them. Since your apps to date appear to be not too
complicated, please consider building something complicated in the month you
have allotted yourself - just for the experience of it. The bar keeps getting
higher with each successive iOS SDK release - at this point, you should be
comfortable with storyboards, blocks, not blocking the main thread, handling
async stuff, networking, and the many open-source libraries out there that
make things better for iOS developers.

For bonus points, build the app all in Swift (and then you can tell the
interviewers about it - most developers have not seriously delved into Swift
for lack of time/bandwidth).

Also, start reading the articles curated by
[http://iosdevweekly.com](http://iosdevweekly.com) if you have not already

Good luck!

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jimeuxx
If you're familiar with online courses, then you probably know Coursera, but
there are two decent algorithm courses that cover a lot of good stuff about
data structures and algorithms starting again in the new year. You can check
them out on these pages:

[https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partI](https://www.coursera.org/course/algs4partI)
[https://www.coursera.org/course/algo](https://www.coursera.org/course/algo)

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andsmi2
Just go get a job. Half the normal engineers have forgotten any of their
formal CS the other half don't have a CS degree. If you taught de yourself
Objective C and have published some apps you should be able to get yourself
into an entry level dev job at a mobile shop. Then learn from there. If you
are in a location where there are jobs like this available. If not and you
just want a dev job start applying and networking to find one.

~~~
coralreef
In my research, I found that the dev shops I'd apply to do ask technical
questions in the interview (oop design, APIs, data structures, etc.).

It would probably increase my chances a lot more if I could answer some of
those questions. It would probably also give me more bargaining power for
salary. I think its a worthwhile investment to make, even if the skills are in
vain.

~~~
rhgraysonii
[http://www.learnhowtoprogram.com/](http://www.learnhowtoprogram.com/) is the
entire curriculum of the
[Epicodus]([http://www.epicodus.com](http://www.epicodus.com)) Boot Camp. It
seems to go directly towards understanding these concepts. I used it when
first doing exactly what you are in a similar situation. Now I work remote for
a wonderful startup and couldn't be happier. Email is my my profile if you
would like to ask anything specific. Cheers and happy hacking!

~~~
coralreef
Thanks, I'm doing iOS development however!

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eli_gottlieb
Algorithms and discrete mathematics.

