1.
Get Django, Get Hired
An opinionated guide to getting the
best job, for the best salary, fast.

2.
Section 0: Why?
• Knowledge vs Experience
• Confidence
• Swagger
• Tool Chest

3.
Section 1: Learning
Look through job boards
Create an outline of skills
Research tutorials and libraries for each skill
Create a personal project
Integrate each skill learned into your personal
project

4.
Section 2: Preparation
Create a github repo for side project
Create a dev account on major social
networks
Create a dev account on amazon, heroku,
cloud providers
Keep notes

5.
Section 3: LEARNING

6.
Section 3: Learning
Basics
Language & Framework
Models/QuerySets
Views
Auth
Templates
Testing

7.
Learning: Language & Framework
Python: basic modules, language
Django: basic framework features
Python: standard library, collections, itertools
Django: DRY, contrib, utils, features, docs
Python: internals
Django: deep knowledge of 3rd party lib ecosystem

8.
Learning: Models/Querysets
Build basic models, relations
Query Performance, table structure, usage
patterns
Deep profiling, extra/raw SQL, alternative
ORM

9.
Learning: Views
function views
specialized Class-Based Views(CBV), mixins &
generics, forms, uploads
exotic content-types, API views

10.
Learning: Auth
local passwords
OAuth, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), API keys
exotic 3rd party providers/endpoints

11.
Learning: Templates
basic syntax: blocks, tags, context, extends,
includes
building templatetags, filters, context
processors
incorporating 3rd party engines like jinja2

12.
Learning: Testing
No tests (oh noooo)
Nose
Jenkins, Continuous Integration, git
integration, etc

13.
Section 3: Learning
Basics
Language & Framework
Models/QuerySets
Views
Auth
Templates
Testing
Not-So-Basics
Databases
3rd party data sources/APIs
RESTful APIs
Tasks & Email
NoSQL and Alt. Backends
Hosting/Deployment/Assets
Search
Frontend

14.
Learning: Databases
Basic setup (create, drop, auth, etc)
Query optimization, caching
Routing, replication

15.
Learning: 3rd Party Data Sources/APIs
Basic requests using 3rd party libs
Deep site integration, error handling, tests
Streaming, high-performance and/or async
integration

16.
Learning: RESTful APIs
returning JSON responses
using basic REST framework (Django-REST-
Framework, etc)
Advanced REST interface w/custom auth, api
keys, etc

17.
Learning: Tasks & Email
synchronous
async w/RQ
async w/Celery or Amazon SQS

18.
Learning: NoSQL & Alt. Backends
None
memcache, redis
MongoDB, Cassandra, PouchDB, DynamoDB,
Kinesis

19.
Learning: Hosting/Deployment/Assets
Local only, or Heroku w/effortless setup
Production system, manual setup (gunicorn,
nginx, local storage, fabric)
Production system, scaled bigtime (uwsgi,
nginx, shared file storage, CDN, CI)

20.
Learning: Search
Database queries
Whoosh (python solution)
Solr/Elasticsearch/Cloudsearch (externally-
hosted solution)

21.
Learning: Frontend
Basic HTML/CSS/JS
Bootstrap or Foundation, jQuery
Sass, Angular/React/Ember/Backbone,
Grunt/Gulp

22.
Section 4: Specialties

23.
Section 4: Specialties
• DevOps
• Big Data
• Machine Learning
• Web Scraping
• GeoLocation
• AWS & Cloud
Providers
• Social Networks
• Real-time Apps

24.
Section 5: Getting The Job

25.
Section 5: Getting The Job
• Review job requirements
• Resume
• Interview
• Negotiation

26.
Getting The Job: Job Requirements
• Ignore the BS filler requirements
• Focus on core technologies they use
• Come prepared to talk about their
requirements
• Prepare questions in advance. Their
business model, their tech, their goals,
their past employees

27.
Getting The Job: Resume
• Focus on real-world, production usage of
your skills, technologies used, APIs
• (But doesn’t have to be commercial)
• Tune resume to highlight the exact things
they asked for, using the words/phrases they
used
• Update your LinkedIn

28.
Getting The Job: Interview
• Ask what is most important to the, then
speak to those points
• Talk about overlap: needs/experience
• Familiarity with tech landscape as a whole
• Push back against riddles, quizzes, “gotcha”
questions, things that don’t reflect real-world
challenges

29.
Getting The Job: Negotiation
• Don’t feel guilty about money. Companies
won’t feel guilty about asking for overtime.
• Research comparable job positions, then ask
for that much (at least). Bring examples.
• Research their funding beforehand, in case
they claim to be broke
• Slightly overcharge so they can negotiate
down.

30.
@MarcelChastain
@LADjango
Questions?