Hi everyone! I visited Bali last year, and I believe it's an incredible destination for solopreneurs and digital nomads. I recently learned about an opportunity to study iOS development at the Apple Developer Academy, and there's limited time left before the application deadline. If you're interested in pursuing this opportunity, don't miss your chance to live your dream life in Bali! ?

Hello everyone!

I'm excited to share another opportunity with you all. Recently, I learned about EPIC Institute of Technology, an online educational institution backed by EPAM Systems from my ex colleague. As a huge fan of rs.school, which is also supported by EPAM, I believe that these courses are of great quality. If you're looking for a chance to learn and potentially secure an internship or job offer at EPAM or other leading companies, this is an opportunity you should try out.

EPIC Institute of Technology offers four programs, each lasting one year:
Complex Logic
Real-Time Backend
Real-Time Frontend
Time Series Analysis

These programs have rigorous curricula that cover fundamental topics such as:
Math and Statistics
Data Science
Algorithms and Data Structures
Advanced Programming Languages

If I had the time to study, I would definitely enroll in one of these programs. The institute offers two ways to get admission:
Passing three entrance exams successfully or Submitting a resume

To be eligible, you just have to be at least 18 years old.
I hope this information is useful to at least some of you. In any case, if you believe someone you know might benefit from this information, please share it. Here's the link to the admissions page: https://epic-institute.io/admissions/

The next exam dates are August 13, and August 19.

Let's pray that this world will be filled with more bright and kind people in power, Ameen ?

PS: I used perplexity.ai to proof read my post, I am not a big fan of chatgpt for reasons they are everything but open. Perplexity.ai is a very good alternative that references things they share. And I am a fan of it).
It is like Google but much better :)

epic-institute.io

EPIC Institute of Technology Admissions Rules

EPIC Institute of Technology Admissions Rules.

Now we are coming to the second part of this post where I will talk about the Silicon Valley Internship program (https://siliconvalleyinternship.com/). I learnt about this program back in 2016 from the Techwomen community. I think it is an amazing program for fresh graduates who have a good Data structures and Algorithms background and hopefully have some work experience as well. You need to have a computer science, software engineering or other STEM related degree to be eligible. So when I learnt about this program, I decided to apply and the first thing I noticed was the type of questions they had in the technical assessment stage. They were basically not something I was comfortable with. This program was the reason why I started studying Data structures and Algorithms early on in my career as a software engineer. And because this program was open to graduates within the last 5 years, I had a chance to reapply to this program over and over again since I had my last masters degree in Entrepreneurship back in 2014 (and I had my bachelors degree in Business Computing back in 2008). I think I was lucky to have this safe opportunity to learn Data structures and Algorithms for over several years. But at first I wondered why on earth people ask questions that are not really related to daily work, but then I understood that it is very important for a candidate to have the ability to think and solve complex problems. In any case, I really advise you to try to apply to this program if you are a graduate of CS related degree within the last five years and if you are interested in entrepreneurship and want to work in Silicon Valley startups for 1 year to 18 months. As of now, they pay $80 000 per year which is not that much for Silicon Valley but if you are still early on in your career and you do not have that many options anyways, I think this is a cool place to grow. I used to talk to the founder and manager of the program in the past and I believe they are really cool people. Hope this opportunity will sound interesting for some of you and maybe someone from this group will get there one day). The program usually starts accepting applications in January which means you still have plenty of time to learn Data Structures and Algorithms before the application process opens. And yes I forgot to mention how this program affected my career. I think most people fail during the Data Structures and Algorithms technical assessment stage when they apply to Toptal, and in my case I had a good chance to study it well in advance, and I would advise you to do the same thing. I think you won't regret studying Data structures and Algorithms because for some, Toptal could be a transitional step before they join some FAANG companies if they want to.
Thank you for reading this post until the end and I hope that it was useful, if I missed mentioning something important, please let me know in the comments. And happy weekends <3)!

It's been a while since I posted here, and after having an event about "First steps in freelancing" at Amity university in Tashkent yesterday I felt motivated to write another post related to freelancing work and one specific program that I wanted to write about for some time now.
In the first part of this post I wanted to leave some answers to questions that I got yesterday during the event. I hope the answers will be useful for others as well. And in the second part of the post I wanted to speak about a specific program called Silicon Valley Internship program and how it affected my career.

So yesterday during the event at Amity university in Tashkent, I was asked if there is a chance for people who want to work as freelancers to land some stable jobs for the long term. And the answer is YES. Basically, this is my personal preference as well. When I just joined Toptal I knew that I only wanted a full time job for a long term. And I got one in two weeks. I have been working with the same team for almost 8 months now. And I am super happy about it. So when we talk about freelancing we usually talk about short term projects where people work solo. But there are other freelancing jobs where you work as part of the team and usually for a longer term. And this is the answer for all who want stability at work but at the same time want to enjoy all the benefits of freelancing which are many including freedom of movement, financial freedom, and owning your own plans as for when and how often you want to take breaks. Another thing that I wanted to mention is that one of the girls whom I got to know recently during the Women Techmakers event shared a really good success story from her experience. She got a full time job as a freelancer through Upwork platform in a startup acquired by Cisco. She specializes in AI vision. I was super happy for her. And that makes me think that it is very possible to get a full time job at Upwork as well. The only thing that you have to deal with is to try to compete with many other talents to get the job. I think in her case it was great that she had a very specific skill set which matched perfectly the job description. And I am sharing this so that maybe someone will use the same strategy and land a full time job through Upwork.

Now on that note, I recall a second question that I got from another participant who happens to be our Rolling Scopes school graduate). So the question was what to do if someone does not really want to compete for jobs. This concern really resonates with me as well because I never wanted to be part of Upwork just for the same reason. I wanted to be part of a network where I can get an opportunity to choose between the jobs, and where I know I do not have to struggle to show off my skills every time I land a job. So there is always a tradeoff. It is hard to get into Toptal but once you are there, it is easier to get your projects. While it is different in Upwork, it is easier to get there, but then you will have to compete for clients which may not be the most comfortable thing to do. But again, I will definitely advise Upwork as a platform for those who are still early in their career and hopefully Toptal once they get at least 2 years of experience.
If by any chance my answers seem to you not complete, please comment on this post so that I can update my answers in a way that would satisfy your curiosity).