Career Visibility & Personal Branding

• Translating your capstone pipeline into resume bullets (impact + metrics, not task lists, e.g. "designed a fail-fast ETL pipeline processing X records/day" vs "used Cloud Run")
• ATS (Applicant Tracking System) formatting: what gets your resume rejected before a human sees it
• Tailoring the same resume for different roles (Data Engineer vs Analytics Engineer vs Cloud Engineer)
• Common resume mistakes GCP/data engineering candidates make (buzzword stuffing, no quantification, listing every tool ever touched)

You'll walk away with: a resume built from your actual project, not a template, and defensible in any interview.

• Headline and "About" section that signal data engineer positioning (positioned, not "aspiring")
• Turning your capstone project into a LinkedIn Featured post with a real architecture diagram
• Skills section alignment with what recruiters actually search for
• Requesting and giving recommendations that carry weight
• Open-to-work signaling without looking desperate

You'll walk away with: a profile that shows up in recruiter searches for "GCP Data Engineer" and converts profile views into conversations.

• Where data engineers actually gather: r/dataengineering, r/googlecloud, r/bigquery, r/cscareerquestions, GCP-focused Discord/Slack communities, local meetup groups
• How to participate without looking like you're farming for a job (answering questions, sharing what you built, genuine engagement before ever asking for anything)
• LinkedIn networking: connecting with alumni, recruiters, and engineers at target companies with a message that gets a reply
• Informational interviews: how to ask for 15 minutes without sounding like a favor

You'll walk away with: a real network of people who've seen your work before you ever apply. This is the single biggest lever for beating the resume black hole.

• Cold-messaging templates that get responses (specific, short, relevant, not "please refer me")
• Turning your network from section 3 into warm referrals
• Working with recruiters: what to say, what not to say, how to stay on their radar
• Tracking outreach so nothing falls through the cracks (simple spreadsheet system)

You'll walk away with: an active pipeline of warm conversations, not just cold applications into a portal.

• Technical interview prep specific to the topics in Tracks 1 & 2 (SQL, architecture decisions, "walk me through a project")
• Behavioral interview prep (STAR method, framed around your capstone project)
• Mock interview practice and feedback loops

You'll walk away with: the ability to confidently narrate your own project end-to-end under interview pressure.