1.
M
a
ri
a
Sol
a
no
https://www.m
a
ri
a
-sol-os.com/
Howtoleveragesideprojects

2.
Whoisthisgirlanyway?
• Completed my undergrad in McGill
University (BSc of mathematics and
computer science).
• Currently a software engineer at
Microsoft, (TypeScript/JavaScript
tooling for Visual Studio).
• I take rubber duck debugging
seriously.
• I also have a cat, her name is
Ophelia.

3.
“A side project is something you’re
willing to do for free, during your spare
time, and which will potentially won’t
result on anything beyond a bunch of
code in a GitHub repo”.

4.
HowIgotstarted
• In the middle of a pandemic, no fancy summer internship.
• 4 months of binge-watching Udemy videos.
• Possibly the most enriching experience of my coding development.
Summer of 2020

5.
WhatIlearnedfromit
• Learned so much about “real world” software development that no university
course had taught me.
• Allowed me to remember why I loved computer science.
• Great addition to my CV, and became a great topic for coding interviews.
• Next summer I was a Microsoft intern.

6.
Don’t just w
a
tch the videos
• Follow the exercises.
• Use your own code style. Use
di
ff
erent libraries.
• Take your time on setting up your
environment. Coding with the right
tools makes a huge di
ff
erence.
• New function/API/tool? Look up
the documentation for it.
Understand the code.

7.
Watchingvideosisn’tmything
• That’s
fi
ne. Then think of an app/website/IDE extension/something that you like
and that you feel is missing something. Then work on it.
• Is there a new programming language you want to learn? Write the coolest Hello
world program using it.
• Extend an existing university assignment or work deliverable.
• You don’t need to have a clear idea from the very beginning. Have a startup
mentality of creating an MVP and complete multiple iterations of it.

8.
• Don’t want to work on an independent
project? No problem, try contributing to open
source.
• Don’t work on it if you don’t want to. Side
projects are about the development
process, not the end result.

9.
Ramble
• My web dev b
a
by
• Rebuilt it from scr
a
tch m
a
ny times
• As I le
a
rned, I directly
a
pplied it

10.
Ratón
• Pl
a
ying
a
round with g
a
me dev
• W
a
y more th
a
n just scripts: There’s
a
nim
a
tion,
a
sset cre
a
tion, AI
a
nd
ML…
• Before my current job, Unity w
a
s
my only experience with C#

11.
Bragaboutit
• Share it on GitHub.
• Make a post about it on LinkedIn.
• Add it to your CV.
• Create a portfolio.

12.
RecommendedResources
• React: https://www.udemy.com/course/react-the-complete-guide-incl-redux. In
general, I love the content from Max Schwarzmüller.
• Full stack web dev: https://www.udemy.com/course/the-web-developer-bootcamp.
This was the very
fi
rst Udemy course I took, and I loved how it covered the “big
picture” of full stack, from styling your frontend to writing a vanilla REST server.
• Game dev: https://www.udemy.com/course/unitycourse/. The courses from
GameDev.tv are all great!
• The bible: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/. Basically ANYTHING related to
JavaScript will be here, with great examples included!

13.
exit(0);
Thankyou