Gabriel Márquez

Instructor notes / Recording plan

Job-Ready Software Engineering

Eight practical lessons for developers and QA professionals preparing for their next opportunity.

Cohort dates defined upon registration · Instructor: Gabriel Márquez

Recording rhythm: explain the concept, demonstrate it on Launchpad, give viewers a pause-and-practice challenge, then close with a concrete artifact they can add to their portfolio. The standalone slide decks and speaker notes live in the repository’s workshop/ folder. Open the browser presentation viewer →

Before every recording

A repeatable production checklist

  1. Open the matching deck from workshop/ and rehearse the speaker notes once.
  2. Prepare a clean Launchpad branch, sample data, and one failure or decision to demonstrate.
  3. Remove private repositories, credentials, customer data, and employer-specific examples.
  4. Record the slide explanation and demo in one focused take; add a pause card for the exercise.
  5. End with the artifact, next lesson, and invitation to join the public list at /workshop#signup.
  6. Publish with chapters, captions, a short description, and the relevant exercise.

Session plans

What to teach each week

01

How software teams actually ship

Teaching goal: Give participants a shared picture of how a software idea becomes a change in production, then connect that picture to the role they want next.

90-minute flow

  1. 10 min — Welcome, goals, and a quick skills self-assessment
  2. 20 min — Walk through ticket → branch → pull request → CI → release → feedback
  3. 20 min — Compare developer, QA, product, and operations responsibilities
  4. 25 min — Group activity: map the workflow for a simple login feature
  5. 10 min — Share maps and discuss where defects or delays appear
  6. 5 min — Assignment briefing

Assignment: Create a one-page map of how a feature moves through a team and identify two skills to strengthen.

02

Git, GitHub, and collaboration

Teaching goal: Teach the Git workflow participants will encounter in real teams and show how a clean pull request communicates competence.

90-minute flow

  1. 10 min — Review the project and explain the team branching model
  2. 15 min — Demonstrate clone, branch, status, diff, commit, and push
  3. 20 min — Explain commit messages, pull requests, reviewers, and merge conflicts
  4. 30 min — Guided activity: make a small change and open a pull request
  5. 10 min — Peer review using a simple checklist
  6. 5 min — Assignment briefing

Assignment: Open a pull request with a clear title, summary, testing notes, and screenshots or evidence.

03

APIs, HTTP, and debugging

Teaching goal: Give participants a repeatable way to understand a failing request, gather evidence, and explain the likely cause clearly.

90-minute flow

  1. 10 min — Warm-up: read a request and response together
  2. 20 min — Explain HTTP methods, status codes, headers, JSON, and authentication
  3. 15 min — Demonstrate browser/network tools, API clients, and useful logs
  4. 30 min — Guided activity: reproduce and diagnose a broken endpoint
  5. 10 min — Each participant gives a two-minute bug report
  6. 5 min — Assignment briefing

Assignment: Write a bug report with reproduction steps, expected and actual results, evidence, and a suspected cause.

04

Data, SQL, and system thinking

Teaching goal: Connect user stories to tables, relationships, queries, and the edge cases that often create production bugs.

90-minute flow

  1. 10 min — Translate a user story into the data it needs
  2. 20 min — Explain tables, keys, relationships, constraints, and nulls
  3. 20 min — Demonstrate SELECT, JOIN, WHERE, GROUP BY, and ordering
  4. 25 min — Guided activity: investigate a reporting defect with SQL
  5. 10 min — Discuss performance, data quality, and privacy trade-offs
  6. 5 min — Assignment briefing

Assignment: Add a small data feature to the project and document the schema and queries you used.

05

Testing that gives teams confidence

Teaching goal: Teach participants to choose tests based on risk and user impact, with developers and QA practicing the same feature from different angles.

90-minute flow

  1. 10 min — Ask: what would make this feature unsafe to release?
  2. 20 min — Explain unit, integration, API, UI, exploratory, and regression testing
  3. 15 min — Show a test pyramid and examples of brittle tests
  4. 30 min — Pair activity: design and prioritize tests for a checkout or signup flow
  5. 10 min — Review cases for clarity, coverage, and risk
  6. 5 min — Assignment briefing

Assignment: Submit a prioritized test strategy with happy paths, negative cases, edge cases, and automation candidates.

06

CI/CD, cloud basics, and production readiness

Teaching goal: Demystify deployment so participants can discuss environments, pipelines, configuration, and release safety in practical interview language.

90-minute flow

  1. 10 min — Trace the project from a merged pull request to production
  2. 20 min — Explain CI, build artifacts, environments, secrets, and deployment
  3. 15 min — Demonstrate a simple pipeline and read its output
  4. 25 min — Group activity: diagnose a failed pipeline or unsafe release plan
  5. 15 min — Build a production-readiness checklist together
  6. 5 min — Assignment briefing

Assignment: Create a release checklist covering tests, configuration, monitoring, rollback, and ownership.

07

AI-assisted work with engineering judgment

Teaching goal: Show how to use AI for research, implementation, tests, and documentation while keeping verification, privacy, and judgment with the engineer.

90-minute flow

  1. 10 min — Where AI helps and where it creates risk
  2. 15 min — Demonstrate a clear task prompt with context and constraints
  3. 20 min — Use AI to propose tests, explain unfamiliar code, and draft documentation
  4. 25 min — Verification lab: find mistakes in an AI-generated answer or patch
  5. 15 min — Discuss secrets, private code, licensing, and responsible use
  6. 5 min — Assignment briefing

Assignment: Use an AI tool on one project task, then document the prompt, output, checks, corrections, and final result.

08

Portfolio, interviews, and your next opportunity

Teaching goal: Convert the workshop project into a credible story about impact, decisions, collaboration, and growth.

90-minute flow

  1. 10 min — Explain what makes a portfolio project useful evidence
  2. 15 min — Improve the README: problem, approach, setup, testing, and screenshots
  3. 20 min — Turn project work into STAR interview stories
  4. 30 min — Mock interview rounds with peer feedback
  5. 10 min — Build a focused 30-day job-search plan
  6. 5 min — Celebrate progress and explain next steps

Assignment: Publish the project, prepare three STAR stories, and send five targeted applications or networking messages.