I just mass-uploaded every useful thing in my brain to jamesperalta.com/learn — and it's all free.
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I just mass-uploaded every useful thing in my brain to jamesperalta.com/learn — and it's all free.
Three pillars of content, covering everything I think matters for landing a software engineering job and getting better at the craft:
DSA (Data Structures & Algorithms) — my condensed notes on every data structure and pattern that actually shows up in interviews. Arrays, hash maps, trees, graphs, dynamic programming, sliding window, two pointers — all of it. Written the way I wish someone had explained it to me.
System Design — how to think about designing large-scale systems. Database choices, caching strategies, real-time messaging, URL shorteners, rate limiters — the full spread. Not textbook theory. Practical, interview-ready breakdowns.
Job Hunting — the stuff nobody teaches you in school. How to write a resume that actually gets callbacks. How to prepare for behavioral interviews so you're not fumbling through "tell me about a time" questions. The meta-game of getting hired.
None of this was written from scratch in a vacuum. I synthesized it from years of reading, practicing, and interviewing.
For DSA, the core sources were:
I pulled the best ideas from each, threw out the filler, and wrote my own version — the version that actually made things click for me.
For System Design, the main sources were:
Those four books shaped how I think about distributed systems. The articles on my site are my distillation of all of it.
When I was preparing for interviews, I had notes scattered across Notion pages, Google Docs, random markdown files, and half-remembered highlights from books.
I always wished I had one place with everything organized.
So I built it.
And I figured — if it helped me, it'll probably help someone else too. So it's all public. No paywall. No sign-up required. Just go read it.
The content is live, but I'm not done.
I'm going to add more discussions and interactive ways for everyone to engage with the material. Think of it less like a static blog and more like a living resource that grows over time.
For now — go explore jamesperalta.com/learn, poke around, and let me know what you think.
If something is confusing, if something is wrong, if you want me to cover a topic I haven't yet — tell me. This is built for the community.
Everything is there. Everything is free. Let's get better together.
Follow along on YouTube where I'm documenting my journey in real time.
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