Welcome to CatZep

Deep-dive notes, interview prep, presentations and a few small apps.

200+ pages20 slide decks5 apps
🧩System DesignScenarios and classic interview designs 🔧System InternalsKafka, Redis, Cassandra and more, inside out 🧭Leadership & PeopleManaging, partnering, interview prep 📚BooksCLRS and The Science of Programming 🐍PythonPatterns, problems, flashcards 🎤PresentationsSlide decks from basics to theory and information 🎮Apps & GamesOffline tools and little games
⚙️

Engineering

System design, how real systems work inside, and the craft of writing and reviewing code.

System Internals2 pages
  1. 01System Design
  2. 02System Internals Guides
Engineering Craft & Process4 pages
  1. 01Code Smells & Refactorings
  2. 02Scrum
  3. 03Design Patterns
  4. 04Basic Algorithms & Patterns
Code Review8 pages
  1. 01Beyond Correctness — Review Philosophy
  2. 02Performance, Scalability & Reliability
  3. 03Correctness in Distributed & Concurrent Code
  4. 04API, Schema & Query Compatibility
  5. 05Observability & Operability
  6. 06Privacy & Compliance
  7. 07Pushing Back on a Design
  8. 08Reviewing a Security-Critical Change
🧭

Leadership & People

Managing people, working across teams, interview prep and book notes.

Concept Explorers2 pages
  1. 01People Management
  2. 02Cross-functional Collaboration
People Management14 pages
  1. 01Coaching Senior Engineers Who Disagree
  2. 02Managing Underperformance
  3. 03Culture of Ownership & Operational Excellence
  4. 04Managing Globally Distributed Teams
  5. 05Growing Engineers into Technical Leaders
  6. 06Scaling a Team While Holding Quality
  7. 07Technical Decision-Making Under Ambiguity
  8. 08Mediating Engineering vs. Product Friction
  9. 09Instilling Product Thinking in Engineers
  10. 10Protecting a Team from On-Call Burnout
  11. 11Managing a Toxic High-Performer
  12. 12Delivering High-Stakes Feedback & Retaining Talent
  13. 13Defining Success for a Platform Team
  14. 14Delegating Without Abdicating
Cross-functional Partnerships11 pages
  1. 01Influence Without Authority
  2. 02Driving Platform Adoption
  3. 03Navigating Conflict & Breaking Stakeholder Deadlocks
  4. 04Downstream Consumers & Standardization
  5. 05Collaborating During Major Incidents
  6. 06Leading a Cross-functional Migration
  7. 07Aligning Eng with Finance & Infra
  8. 08Delivering Under Ambiguity
  9. 09Pushing Back on a Release Under Pressure
  10. 10When a Critical Dependency or Remote Team Falls Behind
  11. 11When a Timezone or Cultural Breakdown Threatens a Release
Leadership Interview Prep4 pages
  1. 01Project / Roadmap Leadership
  2. 02Technical Design
  3. 03SRE Partnership
  4. 04Operational Leadership
Interview Playbooks2 pages
  1. 01Interview Story Bank
  2. 02Leadership Interview Playbook
Leadership · Book Notes9 pages
  1. 01Crucial Conversations
  2. 02Mindset (Carol Dweck)
  3. 03Leaders Eat Last (Simon Sinek)
  4. 04The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Lencioni)
  5. 05Radical Candor (Kim Scott)
  6. 06The Manager's Path (Camille Fournier)
  7. 07An Elegant Puzzle (Will Larson)
  8. 08Staff Engineer (Will Larson)
  9. 09Thinking, Fast and Slow (Kahneman)
📚

Books & Learning

Book recaps, Python interview practice and slide decks.

Introduction to Algorithms · CLRS1 page
  1. 01Chapter-by-chapter recaps
The Science of Programming · Gries17 pages
  1. 00Overview & Hub
  2. 01Foundations — Correctness & Propositions
  3. 02Predicates, States & Quantification
  4. 03The Predicate Transformer wp
  5. 04Basic Commands & the Assignment Axiom
  6. 05The Alternative Command (IF)
  7. 06The Iterative Command (DO) & Invariants
  8. 07Developing Programs & Invariants
  9. 08Worked Examples
  10. 09A Natural Deduction Proof System
  11. 10The Procedure Call
  12. 11Bound Functions & Termination
  13. 12Iteration instead of Recursion
  14. 13Efficiency — Strengthening Invariants
  15. 14Two Larger Developments
  16. 15Inverting Programs
  17. 16Documentation & Historical Notes
Python4 pages
  1. 01Python Coding Interview — 16 patterns, 61 worked problems, 6 guides
  2. 02Python Interview Flashcards — drill all 61 worked problems
  3. 03Coding Interview Cheat Sheet — one printable page
  4. 04Python Built-in Functions — all 71, grouped by job
Presentations20 pages
  1. 01The Science of Programming (Gries) — Guided Tour
  2. 02The Science of Programming — A Practical Python Playbook
  3. 03Weakest Preconditions (Dijkstra)
  4. 04LLM Tech Talk
  5. 05PyTorch 101
  6. 06Adaptive Neural Infrastructure
  7. 07Neural Networks & CNNs — From First Principles (no background needed)
  8. 08Python 101 — Basics for a New Bee
  9. 09Monads in Python — With the Math
  10. 10Automata Theory — DFA, NFA & Regular Expressions
  11. 11Context-Free Grammars & Pushdown Automata
  12. 12Turing Machines & Undecidability
  13. 13P vs NP & NP-Completeness
  14. 14Lambda Calculus — Computation from Functions Alone
  15. 15Randomized Algorithms — Probability as a Tool
  16. 16Entropy & Shannon’s Source Coding Theorem
  17. 17Channel Capacity & Error-Correcting Codes
  18. 18KL Divergence, Cross-Entropy & Machine Learning
  19. 19Kolmogorov Complexity — The Information in One Object
  20. 20Compression in Practice — Arithmetic Coding, LZ & Beyond
🎮

Apps & Games

Small apps that run in your browser and work offline.

Apps & Games5 pages
  1. 01JPad — Markdown notebook with on-device AI
  2. 02Spad — Offline plain-text editor with Markdown highlighting
  3. 03GPL — Daily calorie log that stays on your phone
  4. 04Drop — Merge orbs, chain combos, don't overflow
  5. 05Ashwalk — Roll, leap, fight; never look back

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