A great Software Engineer never stops learning and practicing. If you picture yourself as a Google employee, they’re offering great tips to make that happen for you!

What’s better than taking guidelines straight from the horse’s mouth? (Nothing. Nothing’s better.)

Do take note, these courses that Google vouches for should be used as a supplement your tertiary education. They’re a Google-Approved opportunity for you to grow your skills, and one-up your fellow grads with a ‘self-paced hands-on’ approach.

Pave your own path to your destiny with Google’s Recommended Academic Learnings for becoming a successful Software Engineer:

Step One:

Take an Introduction to CS Course. Google says this one’s free: Coursera - Computer Science 101

Step Two:

Learn a programming language. Then, learn other programming languages too.

Free for beginners:

Coursera - Learn to Program: The Fundamentals    

Free for Intermediaries:

Coursera - Programming Languages

Step 3

Test your code by learning how to catch bugs, create tests, and break your software.  Udacity - Software Testing Methods can help you with this. And develop logical reasoning and knowledge for discrete math with MIT Mathematics for Computer Science.

Step 4

Develop a strong understanding of Algorithms and Data Structures, as well as a strong knowledge of operating systems. Familiarise with these terms too: stack, queues, and bags, quicksort, mergesort, heapsort, binary search trees, red-black trees, hash tables and Big O.

Phew! Sound like a lot? This will help: MIT Introduction to Algorithms

Then Learn

UX Design, Artificial intelligence, how to build compilers, cryptology and parallel programming by creating and maintaining a website, building a server or building a robot.

And Work On…

a small piece of a large system (codebase), read and understand existing code, track down documentation, and debug things. Do a few projects with other programmers.

Finally, Practice…

your algorithmic knowledge and coding skills by becoming a Teaching Assistant and by interning. CodeJam and ACM ICPC are great programming competitions to keep your skills fresh.

Google advises budding software engineers to use the guide at their discretion, and advises users to also learn things outside of this guide. Coursera and MIT have free courses and come highly recommended by the search giant itself.

Here’s a full list that Google recommends for all future ninja techies: Guide to Technical Development