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I've built a few small personal projects using Vim with NERDTree only in C#. I keep doing this every few months (small means the solution has around 4-5 projects and it performs a few clearly defined little functions) and it is really is both helpful and interesting to realize how many things we take for granted, but how great it feels to better understand dependencies, which nuget packages are needed, version compatibility issues and many other things.

I also end up better knowing and remembering any new classes and methods because I have to dig through the reference documentation for each of these things.


It is. It really is.

I had posted something about jobs and looking for jobs some time before here, but the best advice I can give is that all of this "What color is your rainbow" and "Cracking the coding interview" and so on isn't really applicable or it never seemed applicable to me and my experience.

To expand on my previous comment, I'm now on my 9th job in 10 years. Over the last year or so I've had another 30-40 interviews give or take. It was probably more, but this is as close as I can get. I would have liked to spend more time on some of these jobs, but circumstances didn't work in my favor so I had to make changes. What I've learned throughout the process is that all of this is a numbers game. It also helped me spot red flags and cut the process short.

For anyone else looking for a job and for the OP, here are some things:

1. Someone who is motivated to hire someone for a job will be quick/good to communicate

2. They need to set a clear timeline and steps in the process (and if they don't, ask for one and any deviation will be a red flag)

3. They might also tell you how many others are applying for the role (not mandatory, but it's good so you have a rough idea of what your statistical chances are)

4. Be clear about salary expectations early on and if someone pushes to find your current salary, feel free to say it's higher than it actually is. Any deviation from this or if someone doesn't want to say, it's a red(ish) flag and I'd be careful. It doesn't matter and if a recruiter will comment on this - I don't care what your theory about this is, you will aim to pay the lowest amount you can humanly get away with. It's also the reason we have minimum wage laws, not because companies were showering employees with money, but because they would have kept slavery going if that made sense to their bottom line (and they still do).

5. Ask why they are hiring - did they fire a bunch of people previously, are people leaving every few months or is the team/company growing; these can help you save time later on and at least have an idea of what culture you might be joining

6. Ask how widespread the technology you're going to be using is within the company. If a company has 99% Go roles and you applied to the 1% of the roles that are in Java, why is there such a discrepancy? Is it some old code carcass left over with no documentation, testing and with no desire to further develop it but they just want a body in the chair in case something goes wrong... not sure, but that's not something I'd want to do.

7. Be CLEAR about remote work/hybrid working policies - unless it is clearly stated in the contract, it CAN be changed with no notice. A change in contract would at least generally give you some time, but without this being in the contract, you can't really back out of it (case and point, Atos had remote-ish contracts for some of their teams, then they said they updated the terms and conditions, issued a new contract and forced employees to sign or resign). At a previous role I left I was told that the team is highly flexible and remote working is normal, but it's not in the contract, but it's ok, because everyone likes it. On a Thursday we were told that from Monday its 5 days in the office.

8. Anything outside of your salary or contract is NOT guaranteed, so don't pick a job based on perks. Those tend to vanish at the first sight of trouble and also, don't be one of those people that drinks the free coffee at the office just because its free. Stuff costs to make, grow, ship, build - pay for it.

9. Don't be pressured into accepting. This is a bit weirder, but it can happen. Let's say you are interviewing at 2 companies at the same time, one is more motivated to hire, but you don't like it as much, the other has a longer process but you like their domain more. Be upfront about this - "I am interviewing with another company and would like to see both outcomes to make a decision". Being forced at this stage to drop out, being bullied into saying the company name or anything of the sort is a red flag to me. If you have an offer but you need to wait a few days or a week - say so. "I am waiting for a reply from the other company too and I can provide an answer at the end of the next week".

10. Just because you accepted a job doesn't generally mean you need to take it. This is not legal advice, so take it with a grain of salt, as it depends greatly on what you sign, how enforceable it is and where you reside. But the general idea is that, if you accepted a job, but a week or two after you get a better offer, just tell the company you accepted the offer "No". "No" is a complete sentence. You do not need to give justifications, you don't need to take abuse or anything else. You have to think about yourself. They won't. If there is some legal rationale through which you NEED to start that role, just start it and hand in your notice on the first day. Most of these contracts will have some sort of "1 week notice by either party during probation". So you can join, give your notice, work the week, get paid for it and start at the other job.

Also, it will suck. Searching for a job will suck. More and more companies (especially recruitment companies - Noir, Tietalent, Aristo Group, RM Group and Hays to name a few) are really just mining for data with little to no interest in pushing you to any of their clients. They will also tend to try and say that just because you had read about COBOL during Uni, you are now 100% COBOL dev and set you up with a rather terrible interview with some client. There are more, but I'll stop here. On a side note, if you do end up working or answering to a question from a recruitment company check their reviews, look up the person that contacted you, look up the client and apply the same rigor to them as to the company you would end up working with. This entire industry is focused on selling out people to whomever, so don't end up pushed into stuff you don't want to do by one of these enthusiastic second hand car sales people.


>To expand on my previous comment, I'm now on my 9th job in 10 years.

How does this work for you? I feel like by the time you would "ramp up" and actually start to have a good idea of the job you'd be moving on


well, most of the job hops were from jobs I didn't want to do in the first place, but I needed to do. Two of those jobs were about 4 months, so that brings it down to 7 jobs in 9 years and 2 months. Two more were 1 year each, so now were looking at 5 jobs in 7 years give or take. As for my software dev jobs I had 1 for 20 months, 1 for 25 months, 1 for 12 months exactly and I recently started a new one. The other roles were non-software related and I was going to get a software dev role.

As for ramp up, I always jump in with both feet and ask for tasks and its really domain that you need to figure out. I've worked in a lot of different fields (I think no 2 jobs were in the same field) so I've gotten accustomed to quickly figure out those few processes that keep the lights on in most roles.

Writing software is the easy part. Figuring out the domain is the longer task.

On red flags or that this is a red flag - I don't really care. I've had it mentioned maybe in... 3 jobs and got offers from 2 and rejected both. I'm not here to be questioned around that aspect as I make the decisions that make the most sense for me. Companies do the same for themselves. I'll reconsider once I see C-level pay not be 50 times minimum wage in a company and when executive members give up their salaries/bonuses during downturn to keep people on-board or retrain/redirect the company. In the meantime, I probably care about your company as much as you do about me.

Hope this helps!


tl;dr

also:

> I'm now on my 9th job in 10 years

like, i'm all about job hopping every 2-5 to get that $$$ but 9 for 10 is a red flag.


I've seen this mentioned before here in the comments, but custom fitted ear protection isn't that expensive if you consider the amount of time you can use them for and especially if you consider the damage to your hearing in terms of monetary elements.

I had to work in very loud and noisy environments and I also cycled to work through rush hour traffic in a busy city. The roughly 150$ for a custom molded in-ear protectors/filters (they lower between 10 and 25 db specifically aimed at limiting big event noises - music/announcers/etc). You can even get models with swappable filters, so you can easily get a few filters for different needs and swap them out.

Check with your local pharmacy or doctor and get them. If you can't afford them as $150 is a lot for many people, I've had a friend use the loop in ear protectors, but at an event where we worked a 16 hour day, he said that they got very uncomfortable, while my custom-fitted ones were still good!


One aspect that shocks me is someone complaining about having a 15.3% tax rate at an income of 84k/year. If your state is incompetent, corrupt and whatever else, its your duty as a citizen to do something about. Barring that, I guess paying less tax than the aprox 1.9 million Romanians getting paid minimum wage (aprox tax paid by a minimum wage employee is about 37%) while making about 3 times the average salary is still not good enough.

I appreciate the writeup and the thoughts on time and money, yet the complaints about taxation for someone making this much money in that country, cannot but ruin it a bit for me.


All I can say is: you’d complain the same if you’d live in this country and be yelled at by every state employee just because you had the audacity to ask them a question, and by every doctor because you got suddenly ill and so on. Only bribe money buys their reluctant cooperation.

Don’t focus on the money, I could be making a million a year and it would still not fix the problem of life insecurity and overall sentiment of hopelessness.


My argument is that most peopl, the very mast majority does not have the same option to pay less tax as a percentage of their salary. Complaining about having a huge advantage over the majority, while suffering from the same problem does smell a bit of privilege.

I also do not necessarily like the implications you responded with, as I was discussing something you posted publicly about yourself and a detailed description you gave. I have made my choices and continue to make the choices I can. I understand I also benefit from huge amounts of priviledge and I try to use it to change what I can, not complain about it. I understand its frustrating and most importantly, the things you described show how dignity is being taken away from you, but imagine, for a second, how those millions making less than you feel. How they can't make any choice and if you do not lead by example from your position,if you, who sits so highly on Maslow's hierarchy, feel such injustice, what do those millions below you feel?

Anyway, thank you for sharing the details, it was an interesting read.


I think the survivorship bias is strong in this thread. This is a normal flow though when we consider where we are. Because of this, my suggestion is not to let the opinions of people online (whoever well-read and educated they might be) to act as a guide on defining a smartphone policy that suits you and your children.

I also would advise that what I see here are a lot of straw man arguments - "discovered porn online? we had magazines and we turned out fine thus porn is fine". This is also a great example of where the two meet and create a very dangerous and incorrect (in my opinion) argument. The porn someone used to watch in a magazine would be limited to just that - a magazine. Static content that wouldn't change, that wouldn't gather information about you and at the end, you would be stuck with it for the foreseeable future until you would get your hands on another magazine. Online porn on the other hand watches what you watch, it creates recommendations and reinforces whatever behaviours you show to it in order to keep you engaged. It also has the nasty superpower of being there all the time, at any hour in any day and creating a self reinforcing cesspool that cannot and is not good for your development [1].

We're very quick to brush off that children just watch a few videos online and that those videos seem to only yield positive things, but the simple act of being always connected has negative downsides that have been studied. I feel like we're dealing with climate change discussions where we're still doing studies to figure out if it's really there. It is. It's really there. And so is the damage this always online society is doing to children, from their sleep [2], to their learning abilities and retention [3] as well as damage to self and body image [4].

These were all found in a quick search but the literature on this discussion in particular, the effects of technology and screens on younger people speaks for itself. It is damaging and just because we have 50-100 people who were fine, doesn't mean that the rest will be. They might be! Nothing might happen but that does not mean that the result is guaranteed and we should be so cavalier about dismissing any possible negative discussion around the topic.

It's also crucial to remember that in the end you cannot control what kids do. You can't. Just think of all the things you hid from your parents successfully. Now imagine that the thing they need to hide is just a browser tab.

[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/08/sexual... [2] - https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s... (there are other studies on this, this is just a review of existing studies) [3] - https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/pen-and-paper-beat... [4] - https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2023/02/social-media...


When I went full "no-google" on my smartphone I had to find a Google Maps alternative. Organic Maps filled the gap nicely and I've used it for personal navigation about 95% of the time since (2ish years now).

The one thing that makes me pull up gmaps now is public transport routing in new cities where the information boards in bus/tram/metro stations doesnt help me figure out the routes.

Also, for driving OM offers less hand-holding than GM so it took a while to get used to that, but it made me a better driver. I now use OM to get an idea of which way to go and thn rely on public signs to drive. It's been really amazing.

OM also just wins hands down when I'm hiking and cycling. I've donatrd to the project each year but every once in a while I'm just so happy with itthat I feel bad for not being able to afford giving them more money.


I had 7 jobs in the last 9 years. I've quit all of them. I interviewed at probably 50-60 places during this time and I'm currently moving to my next role, so I'll begin the 8th job in 9 years.

To practice interviewing you need to firat get details about the job and company and develop a list of questions. If I really wanted a job I'd get 30-40 questions prepared, from job specific to behavioral ("tell me of a time you had to deal with a difficult stakeholder"). Then add variations of the question so you get used to being asked the same thing different ways.

Then always use STAR (situation/task/action/result) to answer the question. This will help the interviewer remember you a lot better and it will also highlight what YOU did.

Practice going through your CV/resume back to front and front to back. Be prepared to highlight what you learned at each role and why you left from it/got made redundant.

With sufficient grind you will become proficient at this and it will make a world of a difference. I can now confidently say "I wont get this role because I messed up X, so if they were paying attention they will reduce my score for this". You will still get rejected (sometimes there is just someone better than you) but the goal is to improve your odds at being the one that gets the job.

Hope this helps!


I'm curious what the experience/incentive has been to change jobs so quickly. Was it a cluster of redundancies that is inflating the number or do you plan to stay at a job for no more than 1 year + a little? Do your interviewers find this suspicious or negative? I've always been told that if you switch jobs too fast then no one will hire you cause they know you'll leave as soon as you get up to speed.


I wanted to get into a more technical role and a lot of these roles were in customer service, sales, support, fraud prevention, etc until my most recent 2 jobs, which have been in software development.

The other aspect is that I will view a company the same way they view me - a resource and a means to an end. I've been asked in several of those interviews "You don't seem to hang around a lot, how do we know you won't leave in a year" and I tend to answer that "You don't. The same way I don't know that some economic downturn isn't on the horizon and that you would instead scrap me a year down the road.". Some don't like it and engage in that discussion more and some accept it.

At the end of the day, I'm here to do a task you hired me to do, I'll do it well (they can check a ton of references in this respect) and when I'll find something better I'll leave. If I don't get hired because of this, it's not a job I would want anyway. I'm pretty tired of how capitalism and "the market" applies only to workers but it never seems to apply to companies and when it does then you're "not a team player" or "not in it for the long run" or, as we've seen recently on HN, "not part of the family".

So to do my part I always advise / suggest to friends and family to quit. Start looking for something else, get some practice, see what's out there, see if you could get paid more for your skills and see if you could do more interesting work. Those are all possibilities. Unfortunately, most people like to stick with the devil they know and then end up scared and shocked when they get made redundant. Hope that this explains it. PS - the job I most recently accepted seems great, the team and the product seem interesting and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in. However, that doesn't mean that if I start getting bored, if change isn't being effected at the rate I push for and if the product/team turn out to be not great, I might decide to move on.


It's a great attitude to have. Just be aware that if you ever want to become a manager or higher it will work against you. If you just stick to technical positions you'll be fine (until ageism rears its ugly head).


I'm not sure why people are asking for search queries and posting search reaults. These are either way filtered by the profile determined for you as a "category" or cohort of users.

So saying that Google is useful for a generic search like "the best gaming laptop" is a bit wrong. The issue starts when the response to this begins with "scrlling past the ads and sponsored content" to "SEO optimized but not necessarily useful content".


I think 100r reminds me of the thing we're missing the most nowaydays - bravery.

We're afraid to take chances, to explore ideas, to take a slightly harder path or to explore difficult challenges. We're risk averse and we're unwilling to try new things. Reading about their trips, about all the work they do on the boat and their approach to code (love the concept of making software for one person!) makes me feel like a coward and how I would love to be more brave about how I deal with code, life and the environment around me...

I appreciate all your work Rek and Devine. I'm glad yo see you busy doing nothing...


[flagged]


This has got to be one of the saddest replies possible. We have everything to gain from it. If we're unwilling or unable to explore the parts of existence that scare us we cannot possibly come up woth new things. It is the very essence of our evolution and growth, going beyond the comfortable and known.

Capitalism is easily the worst thing that has happened to us.


> Capitalism is easily the worst thing that has happened to us.

Oh, I don't know about that. Sure capitalism is bad, but some of the worst famines and genocides came out of communist societies.


The understanding that initiative enlightenment is the fact that bravery is universally fungible across domains.

This eliminates the need to define the "correct" way of doing things as "the way everyone else does it", because you can acquire the bravery to accomplish your most important goals from any other domain. You can break the narrative.

The first step is just to have the bravery to start. That's where I'm stuck at fwiw. :/


> capitalism will crush you in the end

It's already crushing the majority of us. Unless some people are brave enough to forge alternate paths and live different lives, it will crush the rest of us too eventually.


Living your life on a boat in the middle of the ocean means you are not spending your life crushing capitalism back.

I saw a quote today somewhere on the fediverse: "It’s not the barricade but the rifle that you have to hold onto." - Buenaventura Durruti

If you defend your one boat from capitalism, while it subsumes everything around it, what have you really won?


Freedom to live your life on your own terms and as evidenced by this thread, providing a beacon on the path others can choose to follow.


A thousand tims this. When I moved away from stock Android and on to cuwtom ROMs a few years ago, I didnt find anything that met my needs but then I stumbled on GrapheneOS. I understand why it doesn't run on non Pixels but their approach to handling Google Services and preinstalled software in particulqr should really be copied by other ROM maintainers and developers (something I'll give a shot in a few short months).

My only gripe now on my 2nd Pixel with Graphene is exactly what Fairphone is fixing, which is easy hardware maintenance + 3.5mm jack. I guess a modular/repairable smartphone with w non-invasive os is "the dream".


> My only gripe now on my 2nd Pixel with Graphene is exactly what Fairphone is fixing, which is easy hardware maintenance + 3.5mm jack.

The hardware maintenance is true (even though I suspect the repairability of the usb-c port is what made me need to replace it in the first place) but starting with the 4, Fairphone doesn't have a 3.5 mm jack.

Source: I have a Fairphone 4 and have so far replaced the screen, battery, usb-c port and back cover.


> their approach to handling Google Services and preinstalled software in particulqr should really be copied

How does it work on Graphene?


You can find out a high level explanation here: https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play


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