A long article that is basically saying you can't gain deep expertise by merely reading instruction manual and executing the instructions over and over. Expertise comes from a lot of experience with various situations that develops a sense of what's right and what's wrong. That is not surprising to me at all.
I turn off my work computer after work day. I never install company chat apps / email on personal devices. So it really doesn't matter whether my manager messages me after hours or next business day because I'll only see when I login to work computer next morning.
IMHO, in middle age there's more to do and worry about. For example, I took off today and the morning was over before I knew it. That's because I spent an hour trying to make sure that my insurance agent is not gouging me by getting other insurance quotes and then trying to bring my premium down by increasing deductible. Spent some time going over property tax statement and HOA notice that rates are going to go up again. I had to none of these things when I was younger.
I have not read Lingua Franca so can't recommend a Sanskrit counterpart. It is hard to make a recommendation without knowing what your skill level is. You can go to the below bookstore and find something appropriate for your level. On the right there's a drop down 'Select a Catalogue' which shows different categories of books. I would recommend buying contemporary literature instead of ancient. Ancient literature is very obscure and difficult to understand. Many of the books on the below store are written in the last few years and they use much easier language. But keep in mind, virtually all the books on this bookstore have 100% Sanskrit with no translation. So you have to know at least some Sanskrit before being able to use any of them.
I have been teaching Sanskrit for five years. 'Latin' can replaced with 'Sanskrit' in this article and the article would still be spot on (for Sanskrit of course). Latin and Sanskrit both are highly inflected languages and whatever is said about Latin in this article applies to Sanskrit too. I see the same issues in my Sanskrit students as described in this article. People have been studying Sanskrit for years but can't read, write or speak a single sentence. People read a sentence, sort of get the idea and move on. That works for partial comprehension but it doesn't solidify their grammar or composition skills because they never make effort to understand and memorize grammatical forms and their functions in the sentence. So when the time comes to write or speak, they are at a loss. Memorization gets a bad reputation but it is incredibly useful and for learning a language, indespensible. When I am working on learning a song on the guitar, I first memorize the part I am working on. That makes it so much easier not having to look at the music sheet again and again while trying to get the notes right. Once memorize, I can just focus on getting the timing right.
I am not the GP and I mean no disrespect to you. Your below phrasing seems presumptuous to me -
>>..someone who can answer the leet code questions easily (and has been able to for a decade)...
If you are a CTO chances are you have not been practicing LC. Even if you were able to do LC style questions a decade ago, without practice you are very likely to struggle with them. So don't assume just because you are CTO / architect you can do LC style questions. The questions have been becoming progressively harder each year. It is a sad reality, our industry does not decide compensation based on experience, knowledge and actual skill used on the job. If you want to maximize your compensation you have to do LC style questions. Even non FAANG companies ask LC style questions these days.
Add to that - one is still writing CRUD apps that seem to run slower than ever even though the computers have become faster. That's why I feel more drawn to my guitar now than computer but then guitar will never make me any money so need to keep churning out CRUD apps.
Just to be clear - I am strongly in favor of code reviews and do them every day. However, the article advocates spending 20-40% time on doing code reviews. Good luck convincing your manager why your productivity is so low when others are churning out high quality features (because you spent 20-40% of your time reviewing others' code but they didn't spend commensurate time reviewing yours). Net result - other people's code is higher quality, they get more done. Your code is lower quality and you get less done. Good luck getting that promotion or even retaining your job.
The first half of the article resonates with me. I didn't use to have hobbies and I used to feel like a machine just going to work, coming back, sleep, rinse and repeat. I love programming but after writing nth CRUD app in flavor of the month framework / technology, it just isn't that fulfilling anymore. I picked up couple of hobbies - teaching Sanskrit and playing guitar and my life has improved drastically. I no longer derive meaning only from work. Both hobbies are just hobbies and I do it for fun only with no intention of monetizing them. In fact, I couldn't monetize them even if I wanted to. Sanskrit is too esoteric to have any commercial value of any kind. And I truly suck at guitar. Nobody's ever gonna pay me to play guitar. But whatever I can play, gives me pleasure, so I do it. My dad asks me why I waste so much time in useless hobbies when I could be investing that time working towards next promotion and pay raise. I reply to him, they are not useless if they make me happy and content.
There's definitely "good enough" in commercial run of the mill programming. You can always improve a feature, make your tests more robust, automate something more, improve the UI etc. At some point, you absolutely do need to ask yourself "Is this good enough to be acceptable to the customer?" If you don't do that you will be working on the project forever. Also I think you are being dismissive of the professionalism of artists, writers and musicians when implying that they stop working when they think it's good enough. I play guitar and I can't help but compare music with programming. Both are very deep and complex skills. In fact I find music much harder than programming (but that could be because I have done programming lot longer than music.)
For virtually everything in life (not just cars and taxes), there's always "maybe I could have done better". This attitude is a recipe to be always dissatisfied and unhappy. The approach should be "did I do a good job?". For example, if you were able to get $1000 off on the car but most people are able to get only $800 then the answer is "yes" and you should be happy and content even though someone may have gotten $1200 off. Once you start evaluating your actions and decisions like that, life becomes much happier and content.
I find this article jarring. FTA - "it's important to be cautious even if there's not complete certainty these animals are sentient." Uh what? I am no zoologist or marine biologist (or whatever 'ologist) but this is ridiculous. Octopii are known to be very intelligent. Lobsters may not be as intelligent as octopii but they are big and complex creatures. To assume that they are not sentient and will not feel pain if you throw them alive in boiling water is arrogant and pretentious. If you don't know for sure, the assumption should be the opposite unless proven otherwise.
Unless your boss is a total jerk, they wouldn't do that. Also, you are not as important as you think you are. Everybody is replaceable and people leave all the time. Your boss is unlikely to take the trouble to call some random person just to badmouth you. He's got better things to do. Having said all that, I still think you shouldn't tell where you are going. The reason - it serves no purpose to your old employer and they don't need to know. Your employer never gives you any information during your employment that you don't need to do your job and you are not obligated to give them any either (especially when you are leaving).
Not sure where you are from but Americans have mind boggling amount of stuff. There are people in my neighborhood who have 3 car garages attached to their house and yet they park their cars in the driveway because the garages are full of junk.
I always wanted to be a physicist. I even got into a Physics program in a decent college. But my dad forced me to go the engineering route and I switched my major. Two decades later, I often wonder what my life would have been if I hadn't done what he told me. Physics is super hard and regardless of my passion and devotion I don't think I would have been very good at it (I can't even do dynamic programming problems asked in coding interviews - so unlikely I would have done any useful research in physics). I would have been languishing as a professor in some unknown college making significantly less money. But the dream hasn't died out though. I still fantasize about being a physicist working on black holes or cosmology. But I have accepted it will forever remain a dream.
The best leverage you have during negotiation is to negotiate when you don't really need the job. Don't wait to be out of a job before interviewing. If you can do this, most of the advise in this article is immaterial. Have a number in mind that will make you happy and make you switch. Give out the number. If they can do it, you take it else you stay in your current job. That cuts out all the bullshit mind games described in this verbose article.
It is very sad how under-appreciated and underpaid teachers are (especially in US). I know my son's teacher works a lot of hours just by knowing how much responsibility she is expected to take on for her class. And she gets paid a fraction of what I get paid. Sometimes when I am having beer with my team-mates during team happy hour on company time, I realize how lucky I am.
I really don't get this advise about not giving out a number. Seems like you yourself don't know your worth. Most of the times, save for FAANG companies, no other company is willing to pay me what I am asking for. So to go through the whole laborious and lengthy interview process only to find out during negotiation stage that they are not going to even match my current compensation is a lot of wasted time. If I talk to a recruiter, I tell them what I want even before interviewing. Most of the times, recruiters from non FAANG companies tell me that they won't be able to pay that much even if I performed stellar in the interview. I don't give out a number to FAANG recruiter before the interview but I do give out during the negotiation stage and so far my comp has been at at least as good as my peers'. My understanding is that most companies have a salary range and they want all the employees on the same level to be within that range. They won't break those rules regardless of how good you are. You are only one among many good candidates. So you should aim to be at the high end of that range during negotiation. That's how I decide the number to give out.
IANAP but wanted to say this - Same argument could be made for EM force. There is electric field around a charge but only when you place another charge the two charges attract or repel as per electromagnetic force. That way gravity and EM seem to be similar. But gravity does seem to be different as it can be thought of as not a force (in agreement with your physics teacher). It curves space and time and objects just move along the geodesics (straight lines on curved surfaces). So gravity gives rise to space time geometry. Once that happens, you can stop thinking about gravity as a force. Worth emphasizing again - IANAP.
I am in same situation as you. What keeps me going is practicing songs that I enjoy. If I am working on a song that I enjoy, I am excited to pick up the guitar and am more or less able to find time every day. I also see progress because I am learning what I enjoy.
Rarely. All features are gated by feature flags with the capability to dial up the feature gradually and dial down the launch instantly. I can monitor if the feature launch is going as expected by monitoring errors and metrics in the logs.
I don't keep track. All microservices use continuous deployment pipelines. If you check in code and it passes all the tests, it will make it out to prod some time in the next few hours.
I vividly remember writing my first few Java programs. It was the most ridiculous thing to get it to run. JRE can't find the program when both the source and class files are right there in the directory where you are trying to run the program from. You have to set the classpath first else it won't ever find your program. A beginner would be definitely frustrated. I was. I earn my livelihood writing Java code but I have recommended Python to both my brother and son who are just getting into programming.