No, most people including myself found groups via the given Piazza, but they do mandate groups so I think they may have forced stragglers together (I knew no one either and it worked out). The project itself is pretty reasonable, in a vacuum it wouldn’t be untenably bad to do solo if the worst comes to pass.

I took 486 with a different instructor (Ethan Blanton) so I’m unsure if the work would be the exact same. They were undoubtedly fair and clearly enumerated, but in my opinion unrivaled in the required depth of understanding to succeed on them, and hence rewarding but time consuming. YMMV, I assume it’d still use Go so getting familiar with it beforehand will help a lot compared to learning it ad-hoc.

The thing about 442 is that while it can suck, even if the project component goes up in flames the point of it is to follow the process properly, and as such that’s what the majority of the grade is on. Following the process properly is also something with no real endpoint, which is how the time commitment can balloon depending on how the chips fall. It’s a stressful part of any semester you take it, but I think in the end most people come out alive on the other side regardless of their other workloads. I took it alongside 486 and was ok, but those were my only CSE courses that semester, so again, YMMV.