Career Advice About DocuSign

Hi there!

I've been working in the data space for the past 3-4 years, in a role/function that's highly adjacent towards software. I essentially own all of the clickstream level tooling at my company.

I know JavaScript fairly well in that context + SQL to query and wrangle the data that I collect from the applications.

Since I had become obsessed with JavaScript working with it in that context, I went very hard in the self-study route and have been consuming essentially all the content that I could find to become a hireable SWE.

I'm starting to take on tasks like setting up the JS on Optimizely tests for Experimentation (in addition to the other work I do related to JS in data), and slowly have been building side projects, that intersect my love for software with data.

From Alex Chiou's , I've been focusing on just putting in the work and am about to complete my first (for me) large application ~500 lines of TypeScript/JavaScript with Playwright that solves a real problem in the data space that I am passionate about.

My question is... how do I know I'm ready to make the leap to SWE, and how can I tailor my path properly towards my long term goals? (below)

I believe that I have some technical gaps for SWE, for example:

• Since all my work has been in data, I don't have strong front-end & design skills yet(React, Tailwind, etc are gaps).
• Next.js
• DSA (which I know I can address with some of the courses here)
• OOP/System Design (because I just haven't been a SWE and had to really do this yet, although I'm starting to implement these practices in my application)
• TDD (writing/implementing tests although I've been experimenting with this lately).

Some folks have advised me to really lean into the data space, and try to expand deeper, like focusing on building apps with real-time data streaming (with Apache Kafka) and more backend, DB type stuff.

My dream job is to work at Netflix (in a Software Engineer - Data) type of function maintaining and building API layers that support great user experiences. In the long term, I want to build up the capability to build and ship data-centric software.

What would you all advise that I do here to set myself up for success?

At my previous job at Adobe, we were all given GitHub Copilot licenses. Management strongly encouraged its use—sometimes even calling out engineers who weren’t actively using it. Adoption across the team was mixed: some engineers never touched it, while others seemed almost unable to code without it.

Personally, I found it helpful when writing brand new code or classes. But when editing existing code, or working on features that touched multiple parts of the repo (which was common for me), Copilot didn’t add much value. It often felt like more noise than signal in those cases.

I do believe AI tools have a place in every strong engineer’s toolkit, but I’m still trying to figure out what that place is for me. I’ve also heard stories of people becoming so dependent on tools like Copilot that they start to lose touch with core programming skills—which makes me wonder:

How do you think tools like Copilot can be used to improve your career, without hurting your long-term growth as a software engineer? Have you found ways to integrate it that genuinely elevate your work—or does it feel like a crutch?

Curious to hear how others are thinking about this.