I would not say it is that flawed, since many of not most of these h1b folks work for these big companies. I don't know the exact numbers but around 2017 there were almost as many contractors at Google as FTEs working in the same offices on the same projects, but getting half or third of the FTE salaries.
These large consultancies staff at a lot of places that aren’t big tech. While they certainly have some good talent the overwhelming reputation with body shops is that they place some pretty mediocre talent.
> I don't know the exact numbers but around 2017 there were almost as many contractors at Google as FTEs working in the same offices on the same projects, but getting half or third of the FTE salaries.
Contractors get overtime. That’s why. It’s the same thing at most big companies when you compare contract and FTE for any position - one has higher salary and the other has overtime. It’s common for the contractor to actually have a higher annual (cash) comp.
This reasoning obviously cannot compensate for a difference of more than 10% or so.
And in my experience in most places software contractors are paid more. Contractors are simply the people who are good enough to be technical people who demand higher salaries at non-FANG. They don't get, and don't have a need for, job security and in trade get a lot more dineros. This can be because of specialized knowledge (e.g. knowledge of bank protocols and encryption, including the softer side of it (ie. what particular kinds of encryption actually protect against)). These people are not needed often, and not constantly, but when they're needed they're critical. Hence, lots of pay, switch from bank to bank often. This exists for specialized mechanical engineers in defense too, for example.
Hello , I'm Sandor and I'm looking for a remote job. I've spent ~15 years in engineering roles at bigger companies like Google or Snapchat, however during the last 3.5 years I've been working for a startup. I also have 4ish years of engineering manager exp. I am open to both IC and management roles.
Why me?
- I believe I am a good engineer, who has a "pitbull" attitude. Throw problem at me and I don't let it go
until it's not solved.
- I've been a founder myself and have brought a product from idea to market.
- I know how to lead engineering teams: I've run a team of up to 12 people.
- I have been on both sides: owner, employee. This helps me to be a better team member.
- It is very easy to get along with me, I'm friendly, respectful, and kind.
- I wore many hats before: engineer, designer, product manager, engineering manager, so I have a good grasp how these people think and can act as a bridge between company silos.
I think there is an interesting aspect of the depopulation that I haven't seen discussed yet: the scientific progress.
If we have less and less people, there will be less brain power to innovate while as far as I can tell the innovation is getting more and more difficult as we moving forward. Just imagine inventing the wheel was probably easier than inventing the combustion engine.
I have a feeling that the huge technological advancements of the 20th century happened because of the exponentially increasing population. Also having more advanced technology helped back the population growth too.
So I think if the shrinking population will cause technological stagnation on top of the constant hardship due to the proportionally increasing number of elderly who need support.
Building a useful wheel isn't chipping it from stone. There is a lot of materials science and engineering evolved to make one, I wouldn't short change the effort in it. Anyway who cares if tech stagnates? I'd be more worried about a backslide where we lose hard won knowledge.
I think AI is just as, if not more of a threat, than population decline in this regard. With the ability to generate endless amounts of content on demand, an already overburdened and under-resourced education system is nowhere near sophisticated enough to deal with tools like ChatGPT. And scientific progress cannot happen unless we cultivate and nurture our education system.
We're already seeing younger people not understanding basic computing concepts like file systems because they grew up on locked-down mobile OSes that abstract this from users. AI is going to remove the affordances needed to learn on a scale we've never seen before.
“Also in case anyone mistakes my phrasing as some sort of pro-life or anti-suicide thing… their body their choise…” - applying a similar logic wouldn’t it fair to say: Their equipment, their choice?
The Netherlands backpedaled after a couple of very serious incidents regarding many psychedelics. Public suicide, animal sacrifice, crime etc. I don’t see how it will be different in SF.
This is ridiculous. A single French teenager(17yo) jumped off the Nemo Building[1], which lead to mushrooms being banned. There are several problems here. This building has a low railing around the tall publicly accessible portion, and no real safety features to prevent jumping. Teens this age are notorious for impulsively jumping from these types of structures, it's why The Vessel in Hudson Yards in NYC was closed. There's no real reason to suspect the mushrooms caused the incident given the previous two factors.
As for the animal sacrifices, I couldn't find a single news article from 2000-2007 referencing this. I also couldn't find any good crime numbers.
The whole illegalization push in 2007 from available news sources was tied to this one suicide and damage to French-Dutch relations.
Having stayed on a crane in Amsterdam (Faralda crane hotel) which was absolutely thrilling and simultaneously insane, I can vouch for the fact that 'safety standards' in Dutch buildings are far lower than those in the US. I actually found it refreshing, to be honest, from the railings and gates I'm used to in the US, but there was nothing that was going to stop me from even accidentally taking a dive off the crane. The upshot of that is a rooftop crane hot tub, though, so I mean...
It's a cool place for sure. It seems like the US at 14 per 100,000 and The Netherlands at 11 per 100,000 have similar suicide rates. Jumping makes up a far higher share in the Netherlands at 3rd or 4th most common depending on the year (per statista.com), and barely registers in the US. Gun availability may be the reason here, but I wouldn't count out the total lack of safety infrastructure around heights as a factor.
For sure; I have to say, while it was expensive (to the tune of $800-1000 euros for a single night, hence why I only stayed a single night), there is very little more thrilling than staying on a crane that still moves in the wind (giving you a new view every few hours), or skinny dipping in a hot tub on the roof of said crane because you're the only ones staying there, etc.
I know it sounds like I'm writing a Yelp review, but it was fantastic. :)
So silly, considering all the noise and accidents alcohol directly causes. But then a single bad case after someone taking psychedelics, and they reverse.
Its not silly, for some psychedelics are fine and they can handle them ok. But others have psychotic breaks that are irreversible. I feel like SF is already a city that is very dysfunctional with crazies screaming at nothing, why make a really bad situation worse?
Some people who drink alcohol are fine and they can handle it okay. Others drink and drive and kill people, or become addicted and/or kill themselves. Should we go back to prohibition?
This is a straw man argument, having a permanent mental change after having a "bad trip" on psychedelics is not analogous to drinking a beer or too much whisky and doing something dumb(or worse). There is not evidence that a person consumes one drink and goes into psychosis or has permanent mental changes like with psychedelics. I am not against having psychedelics for certain situations(under controlled situations) but you are playing with fire and your mind and sanity are the tinder and are rolling the dice so to speak.
Citation required. I have yet to see a single reputable paper or study that describes a 'permanent mental change' for the worse, like psychosis, after a single encounter with psychedelics.
Perhaps not a single bad trip, but a couple years of bad drug habits can lead to permanent brain damage among those who aren't careful and knowledgeable about what they ingest and the dosage. It is a factor in the homelessness crisis.
Yes, and both substances should be controlled. Uncontrolled hard drugs are harmful to society, but it seems like the ignorant, naive youth of today are going to have to learn some hard lessons on the topic from first principles.
Organized crime doesn't profit from murder to anywhere close to the same degree it did from illicit alcohol sales or still does from illicit drug sales.
Crying "whataboutism" isn't a rhetorical shortcut to dismiss a reasonable argument. It's hypocritical and silly to allow alcohol and not other recreational drugs with similar safety profiles. It's also untenable to completely restrict alcohol.
Yes, but hallucinations aren't the main problem. Assaulting people and zigzaging on the road after just a few drinks is a bigger problem than having blurry vision and seeing weird colors. I took a shitton of psychedelics, I never saw anything that wasn't there.
Psychedelics never made me black out, piss on the floor/all over the room, never made me want to assault someone, or made me act like an asshole, but alcohol on the other hand....
You might be overestimating the effects of hallucination. Someone who's hallucinating is not necessarily more impaired than someone who is drunk.
Imagine this- you hear something behind you (a real sound), and for a moment you are startled, thinking someone else is in the room. You soon realize that this isn't the case.
Someone on hallucinogens might take a moment longer to realize that there is nobody there. They imagine the intruder a little more vividly, their heart rate goes up a bit more. But just for a moment.
In contrast, if there actually is someone there, a drunk person might not realize it. Their senses are dulled. Instead of seeing things that aren't there, they fail to notice things that are there. It's the opposite.
You're right that the safety profiles are dissimilar, but if anything it's the other way around: alcohol is significantly more likely to result in long-term illness or death than e.g. LSD.
That said, alcohol is a lot more predictable in its effects for a given dosage. And also the dosages are a lot more reliable. There's a reason it's perceived "not as bad" as hallucinogenic drugs.
"Similar" does not mean "identical." Yes, they affect the brain in different ways. The net safety profile for individuals and society is (arguably) similar.
One drug is possibly more harmful but is already legal almost everywhere, deeply ingrained in many aspects of Western society and has a history of issues regarding criminalization
The other is possibly less harmful but it is currently illegal/controlled pretty much everywhere and has a niche demand.
I think its entirely reasonable to think that we should not open up a whole new can of worms.
How is the can of worms not already open? The War on Drugs has failed to put a dent in drug consumption habits.
My suspicion why there was an uptick of incidents in NL/Amsterdam was the influx of people specifically seeking those substances out, with little safety education or experience. If they were more widely available, the incidents would be far more diffuse, and likely fall below the noise floor. Plus, wider awareness means better overall substance education and understanding, meaning fewer folks getting in over their heads and acting a fool.
The same "can of worms" argument was leveled against cannabis legalization, and turned out to be overblown, there was no outbreak of reefer madness.
Good time to quote the cosmic bard, Terence McKenna.
"Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behavior and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong."
Psychedelics still can’t legally be sold in SF. What good is criminalizing simple possession?
Besides, for every animal sacrifice on LSD there are 100 (probably more) drunk drivers crashing into trees, parked cars, oncoming traffic, and pedestrians, and alcohol is totally legal and widely used.
> Besides, for every animal sacrifice on LSD there are 100 (probably more) drunk drivers crashing into trees, parked cars, oncoming traffic, and pedestrians, and alcohol is totally legal and widely used.
That seems to ignore the fact that there are far more people drinking than tripping. I'm not saying that with an equal numbers of users the math wouldn't still make drinking more dangerous, I really don't know, but it's an unfair comparison.
I think they meant "crashing into parked cars". Because if you interpret it the other way, it implies that they also consider the mere existence of oncoming traffic and pedestrians a bad thing.
I'd love to read a bit more about this. Do you have any interesting reading on how psychedelics were legalized or decriminalized in the Netherlands and the resulting affects on society? I'll Google it, but maybe you would know better :-)
I think the LC interview measures how determined your are. Are you willing to spend hours and hours to solve boring/meaningless coding exercises in order to pass the interview or not? Because even if you are smart and a good coder if you haven’t seen the problem before it is extremely unlikely to give optimal solution to 2 LC medium or 1 hard problem within 45 minutes. Your only option is to practice.
So if you willing to spend your free time mindlessly practicing, you will be a good ant at the company. Which is very desired since most of business programming is boring and repetitive and does not require creativity.
Also, validating the solution is simple. Does not need too much effort and creativity from the person conducting the interview.
I think it is because of the Applicant Tracking Systems. They scan for keywords and if you have them your resume gets better ranking. The actual recruiter is working only from resumes that the ATS recommends.
I read that that's one of the reasons sites started making you fill out their online form, in addition to uploading your resume. I've also heard of students using that method when they have a teacher who is a stickler about wordcount for assignments, and they are maybe 1-2 sentences short of the cutoff.
I've worked for a few companies that develop Application Tracking Systems.
Sometimes they may have a huge database of people or an account somewhere that lets them search for people that may fit the role. But the candidates found through those searches are typically pretty low quality.
Someone who applies for a specific position is just going to be checked if they meet the requirements and look like a good candidate.
I work full-time on my upstart. I have five kids, the oldest is 7 the youngest is 1. I am not sure if I will be successful, but I think it is doable. I might have a superhero wife tho. :)
