Best laptops for programming? How to get a job at Google? - And other FAQ’s!

hi everyone in this video I'm gonna answer some of the most frequently asked questions on this channel the questions I'm gonna answer today include what laptops should I get for programming do you have any advice on getting a software engineer job Google by the way the reason I get this question a lot is because I used to work there and how old are you so let's get started okay so first of all what laptops should you get for programming well to answer that question you know you need to first think about Mac versus Windows and in my opinion I don't think it matters that much which one you get you know it really depends on your budget and preferences and everything for me personally I like Mac more just because I think it's easier to use but I know that you know some other people like Windows more - and there's always on an option of running you know windows on a Mac or running Linux on a windows-based computer or a Mac based computer - so I think any one of those configurations is fine I think pretty much the only time you need to get a Mac and not Windows is when you want to develop iOS apps so most people use Xcode to develop iOS apps and it only works on Mac so if that's not the case for you I think getting either Mac or Windows is just fine now what about hardware well the criteria I would personally use is I would look for something that's light portable and affordable I'd also look for something that's you know built well enough so it doesn't break easily personally I recommend MacBook Air because you know it's super light and portable and it's fast enough for most situations I think the only thing with MacBook Air is that it's a little bit you know expensive it's about a thousand to twelve hundred US dollars when I checked it last time and when you're choosing a MacBook Air I think getting 128 gigabytes of storage is probably okay but you know it might be a little bit too tight so if we can afford it you should get the 256 gigabytes one now personally I actually don't use a MacBook Air I use a MacBook Pro and the reason I got this one is mostly because I wanted to do you know video and photo ed on this one because it has more resolution it's a little bit faster but I think for programming like for most situations MacBook Air is fast enough ok what if you're looking for a windows-based laptop instead well I'm not too familiar with windows-based laptops so I asked my Twitter and LinkedIn for Lords about this and they gave me three recommendations they are Lenovo ThinkPad series now that's about six hundred US dollars and up on Amazon and they'll XPS series that's about eight hundred US dollars and up and Asus Zenbook series which is about seven hundred US dollars and up another one that's also popular for programmers is Microsoft Surface book too but it's a lot more expensive it's about twelve hundred US dollars but what if you're looking for a cheaper laptop well I also asked my floors about this and I got two suggestions for this the first one is Lenovo ThinkPad 320 which is about $400 on absalom and another solution I got is that you can just get a Chromebook and install Linux on it so this one I found is about two hundred dollars with four gigabytes of RAM on Amazon okay next question do you have any advice on getting a software engineer job at Google well yes and I actually wrote an entire article about this and in this article the argument I made is that there are six steps for getting a software engineer job not just at Google but also at other top tech companies like Facebook Microsoft and Amazon so the first three steps of these are something I already talked about on this channel in my video about how to learn to code basically learn to code if you haven't yet work on a few personal projects and then get your first programming job or internship and after that step number four is learn data structures and algorithms I have a series of seven videos on this topic on this channel and I also I also have another video about additional resources you can use to learn more on this topic so I'm going to put links to both of them in the description and step 5 is preparing for coding interviews basically just use sources like you know leak code and cracking the coding interview and then practice as much as possible ideally with your friends so you know do a lot of mock interviews with your friends and step six is apply I also have another video about you know four best ways to apply for software engineering jobs so I'm gonna put a link to that in the description too okay and there are a few common questions I get a lot about getting a job at Google and you know other top tech companies the first one is do I need to get a computer science degree well the short answer is no you know I don't have a computer science degree but I was still able to get a software engineer job there and the second question is do I need to go to a top university like you know MIT Stanford Carnegie Mellon etc well the short answer is no again you know it probably helps to go to one of those universities to get the initial phone screen interview but after that you know what matters a lot more is your performance your performance on the interview itself and the third question I get a lot is do I need to have a high GPA to get a job there well the short answer is no again you know again it probably helps a little bit for getting the initial interview but after that probably doesn't matter that much okay so when I list these things you know you might say what do I need then to get a job at Google well there are basically only three things that you need the first one is you know strong problem-solving and coding skills the second one is a solid base in computer science fundamentals including data structures and algorithms and the third one is you know interesting projects and interesting hopefully some work experience to show on your resume and you know that's basically all you need and you might say you know that's a little bit too simplistic but it's just true based on my personal experience and based on what I read out there okay the next question how old are you you know for me I kind of find it funny that I get this question a lot but I'm currently 26 years old and you know if you're curious about my birthday there's actually a super easy way to remember it it's just 2 to the power of 10 yeah I know it's a little bit nerdy but just think case that's not nerdy enough for you you can just run this Python code to find my birthday okay that last question what's the best way to contact you well for me the best way is either Instagram or Twitter you know I do respond on my Facebook page sometimes when I get messages there but it's just a you know it's usually much easier for me to use Twitter and Instagram but actually I might not be able to respond to you know everything in the future just because I've been getting a lot of you know messages and tweets recently so on Instagram alone I have like 40 unread messages and you know I'm gonna do my best to respond to everything but it just might not be feasible in the future so actually to mitigate this issue a little bit I decided to set up a subreddit for you guys to you know sort of ask each other questions the idea I have for this is if you ask questions there and if I can answer them that's great but if I can't you know hopefully other people will be able to sort of jump in and then provide their own you know thoughts and answers I'm not sure how it's gonna go but hopefully you know this will be a place where people will be able to you know help each other with any programming related questions so I'm gonna put a link to that in the description just in case you wanna check it out okay that's it for this video and actually this video is probably gonna be my last video before my vacation you know like I said in some of my other videos I'm planning to travel in Japan for about one month and I'm planning to move to Toronto after that I'm also planning to you know make some travel videos while I'm in Japan which I'm gonna post on my other channel called here YK anyway thank you as always for watching my videos you know I really can't do this without you guys and I appreciate you know all the comments and messages I get okay I'll see you guys in the next video