localghost3000

I’m probably gonna get downvoted into oblivion for this but did anyone else notice the kid in the trench coat has six fingers on his right hand?

In my nearly 20 year career, I have never gotten a job by applying directly. The few times I’ve tried it was shockingly bad. I feel for anyone where that’s the only option they have.

My advice is to invest heavily in your professional network and when you have one, treat it like the special garden that it is. This takes years to cultivate. I also see people try to come at it from a very transactional unauthentic angle which will always fail. The right way to approach it is honestly quite simple: make friends. Be nice. Help people. Mentor. Etc. Don’t expect anything from it. People remember that stuff. Opportunities find you.

I think the best description I have ever heard of Jobs was given by Bill Burr: "Jesus, Ghandi, John Lennon, ME!". Much like Lennon, he cultivated a whole peace/love/enlightenment image while being a garbage person. Lennon for example, beat the shit out of his first wife, abandoned his first son Julian, and then made sure they got no money from him. Sound familiar? Yeah Jobs did very much the same to his first wife and daughter (well, I am not sure if he physically abused his wife but still..).

I think you can make the argument that what Jobs brought to the table was impeccable taste. He was very good at pushing (some would say abusing) his people to make things that people genuinely loved. I think that design sense is notably absent in today's crop of tech CEO's. Again Burr nails it: "I want my entire album collection in this phone. GET ON IT!!"

I mean look, it was an arbitrary example I gave and not a very good one apparently. The bulk of these comments are all focusing myopically on that which is a bummer as it distracts from the point I’m trying to make. Managers need to be willing to have hard conversations and most new ones don’t.

I believe strongly in a blameless culture when it comes to bugs and such. The example I gave doesn’t really honor that. I can’t edit it unfortunately. I do stand my my larger point however.

Heh. Thanks for this. I am a bit disheartened about how much the arbitrary example I made is getting picked apart vs the actual point I was trying to make. It is what it is. HN gonna HN and all that lol.

Blameless culture is very important. You need psychological safety. Maybe I should have picked something else as an example like rudeness or something. Ah well.

This is literally the opposite of passive aggressive. That’s my entire point!! You have to be direct with people so the know where they stand. That applies to what they’re doing well on also.

As for the “sell out” statement… I have no idea how you got that out of what I said. Sounds like maybe you had some bad managers?

You’re basically validating my original point if I am reading your comment correctly. You absolutely cannot avoid conflict but there is a right and a wrong way to go about it. Simple, direct feedback that speaks to behaviors not character is very important.

To your point about being in the trenches I think maybe you’re extrapolating too much from that. Any manager who is any good is of course right there alongside their team in said trenches.

This misses the single biggest mistake every new manager makes: avoiding hard conversations with your reports. If you start managing folks you were recently in the trenches with this can be VERY hard. These are your comrades after all! You want them to like you. It’s all very natural. Sadly it is the single biggest cause for dissatisfaction I’ve seen on a given team. Being unwilling to give honest, direct feedback results in underperforming teams and unhappy reports. It’s counterintuitive but very important to get right as a manager. The big “AHA!!” moment for me was when I realized you need to speak to behaviors and outcomes not character. So instead of “you’re sloppy” you say something like “I’ve noticed quality issues in your code recently that’s resulted in some rollbacks. Can we talk about how we can address that?”. Involving them in the solution and explaining why it matters. It makes all the difference and folks ironically respect and like you more for it.

Coaching exists. I've had it and done it. I've worked with folks with disabilities too and been able to help them grow.

The problem is that companies often promote folks with excellent technical skills into people centric roles like an EM. Sometimes you get lucky and they are naturally good at the stuff. But more often than not, they really struggle. It's a conundrum. If you hire someone who nails it on the people stuff but is weaker on the technical side then they aren't able to make informed decisions.

I've been head of eng before. It's a hard job and I ultimately switched jobs to go back to IC work. I took the coaching aspect seriously when I was in the role though. I think ultimately you need to understand what your report wants and give them projects, feedback, and resources to achieve those goals. The big caveat being that sometimes the role that person is looking for isn't available. You can't have an entire team of principle engineers for example. So another aspect is to be clear about what is and isn't possible in terms of career path at your co. and try to find other incentives like pay etc to keep them happy. YMMV of course.

I understand his point and think it's an interesting observation, but honestly I disagree. What AI is great at is handling all the bullshit writing tasks that you have to do that no one reads or cares about. For example I got asked to write a blurb for a company newsletter recently. Told an LLM the things I needed to talk about and how long it should be, and the tone I was shooting for. Done in less than a few minutes. Previously that would have taken me at least an hour.

The intern use case is 50% of the value I get from LLM’s (I refuse to call them AI because they aren’t). The other 50% is as a better stackoverflow where I can look up syntax etc.

Anything that requires a deterministic outcome is not a good use case for them. Anyone who says different is selling snake oil.

These days I equate senior titles with more mid level. You've seen some shit but could use a bit more time in the oven so to speak. I see Staff Engineer and Engineering Lead used for what I would consider a senior role 7 or 8 years back. I fully expect those will become meaningless as well and we'll move on to something else.

From the post:

> This feature is available at no additional charge in all AWS Regions, including the AWS GovCloud (US) Regions and the AWS China Regions.

> I most often can’t see any use case for AI/ML

I'm admittedly a skeptic on all this so take what I am about to say with a grain of salt: You should trust that voice. We're in a hype cycle. It was VR before and crypto before that. Big tech is trying _very_ hard to convince you that you need this. They need you to need this tech because they are lighting billions on fire right now trying to make it smart enough to do anything useful. Short of them coming up with a truly miraculous breakthrough in the next 12 to 24 months (very unlikely but theres always a chance) investors are gonna get fed up and turn off the money fountain.

It's always a good idea to learn and grow your skillset. I am just not sure this is an investment that will pay off.

Anyone else getting the feeling that big tech is in full panic mode trying to find the Next Big Thing? Gotta keep the money machine going amiright?

Ok. Gave a listen to the whole thing. While this is certainly a lot more musical than the other stuff I’ve heard like Trout Mask Replica, it’s still not really for me. The absurdist lyrics are a real barrier as are some of the guitar sounds. That said I like this voice a lot. Has really interesting timbre. I had heard it before but this album does a good job of putting it front and center.

I mean look: investing in your skills is ALWAYS a good idea. AI or not tech becomes obsolete so you need to remain relevant. So yes. Do that. High ROI that.

AI is useful for getting started in some cases where you can clearly describe going in what you want. Therein lies the rub: no one knows what they want with total fidelity starting out. If we could, then we’d probably be able to give an accurate time estimate. It’s rarely that simple however. There’s always some complexity that hasn’t been accounted for. Something that an AI, lacking any kind of real understanding will be able to help with much less automatically fix.

Listening now. Will report back!

I call BS. If this were a reality stuff like Django’s admin panel or Wordpress or google forms or a million other things would have already done this type of dev in. It hasn’t. You know why? Because there’s always some weird requirement or an update to existing code that requires a high degree of context in the business. Stuff that AI sucks at. There’s also the fact that most stakeholders totally suck at describing what they want. This applies to humans much less a god damn machine.

You know, I have tried on numerous occasions to get into Beefheart and it never lands. Fans of his stuff describe it as some higher level of musicianship and sophistication but it just sounds to me like a band that can't play and is just kind of owning that.

I watched a Beefheart documentary once where a fan said something to the effect of "It sounds like noise but if you listen closely, each band member is playing a totally different time signature and key". I mean yeah. That's pretty much what it sounds like lol.

> They wouldn't need to push that hard if there were legal frameworks that paid them what they deserved in the first place.

Take a moment and re-read my original comment. The cohort I am speaking about values being able to increase their pay proportionate to their effort. An hourly wage. Even a fair one (which is VERY unlikely in the US) would cap their earning potential. That is unacceptable to the group I’m speaking of hence them pushing for the exploitative status quo.

Respectfully, this is a gross over simplification of the problem. There is a vocal minority of folks, mostly "front of house" that stand to make a decent living. No ones getting rich. It's just that you can make a good wage without a college degree. The appeal is obvious. THAT SAID, the vast majority of workers in hospitality are making poverty wages and working 70+ hours a week in conditions that most of us in our cushy tech jobs would not be able to tolerate. If you've never worked in the industry (and your comment makes me suspect you haven't) then its very hard to understand. It's the kind of thing you have to see.

> Question that rises from this sort of thing happening is that, if they are actually making what can be considered a lot of money

You can make over 6 figures at certain jobs/shifts. It's one of the few jobs where thats possible if you don't have a degree or are skilled in a trade. The entire industry is a hugely exploitive closer*ck without many easy answers. The margins in food and beverage are razor thin so having this messed up system where you don't have to pay your labor a living wage kind of perpetuates itself. There is benefit on both ends of the deal. At least for front of house employees. Back of house just gets screwed on every level.

I worked for tips for many years before one of my regulars helped me with getting into tech (yes I was very lucky). One aspect of this issue that doesn't get talked about a lot is that there is a portion of workers (think bartenders or servers) who work for tips that prefer that system because you can make a LOT of money on certain shifts with the right kind of hustle. To put it another way, if you are working one of these jobs and you have a big expense coming up, you can work your ass off and make more money. Your pay goes up proportionally to your effort. In an hourly job that doesn't happen. You just make what you make. To be clear: I AM NOT DEFENDING TIPPING CULTURE. I am just pointing out that there is a certain cohort of folks who perpetuate it to the detriment of everyone else. When the whole fair wage discussion gets brought up, those folks are the ones who rally the hardest against it. It's kind of insane.

Dude that sucks on your friend. I feel you. I’ve lost a lot of people for the same reason. It’s hard for people to accept that it’s not a moral failing. All I can say is that the ones who really matter will try to meet you halfway.

I too am high functioning and have a system that mostly works for keeping food on the table and the lights on. Professionally I’m doing great in fact. That said, a lot of personal stuff has fallen through the cracks and continues to. Hence the meds. I’m also working with a psychiatrist who specializes in ADHD and it’s been really helpful. Highly recommend.

I am 11 years sober now. I used to self medicate with alcohol and drugs. It worked but it also stunted me in ways that I am only now reckoning with. There are a ton of options out there for you to try these days. I'd recommend discussing with a medical professional and see what your options are. :)

Regardless, if you are struggling with ADHD, I would recommend going on youtube and looking at videos by a guy named Russell Barkley. He's got a bunch and wow did I feel seen after watching a few of them.

Diagnosed. Today is day 1 of meds. Wish me luck!!

Everything the GP comment said is still worth considering. It’s just that you might need some assistance if you’re neurodivergent. Also remember that it’s a spectrum and to be kind to yourself.

I am not sure where you got that number from but I will assume you got it from a well sourced study or what have you.

Assuming your number is accurate, that is still a minority of the country. They are large enough to have _some_ influence by virtue of being concentrated in certain regions to elect idiots like MTG and Matt Gaetz but not large enough to represent majority viewpoint of the country. I will grant you that they are a big enough base to cause some problems such as the grid lock we see in congress right now.

Bringing it back to the original topic, these right wing gun toting idiots aren't the root cause (I'm not even sure you can point to one root cause, its a complex problem...) of our very real policing problems but they certainly aren't helping.

Its regional and highly nuanced. Like there are folks that might support hunting rifles but not assault rifles. There are some that support a total ban. Some that think there should be no restrictions whatsoever. What I take issue with in the parent comment is when people speak of America as a monolith. Its not. Its a hugely diverse and massive country with a melting pot of view points.