I don’t have magic to share and certainly have taken on bad jobs I regretted signing on to, but for one, I always look for some degree of humanized speech in the job listings. So what I mean by that is not so much fluff about how great the company is and how big the mission is, and more about “we’re looking to add X people who are good at Y”. But most of all, just simply job descriptions that feel like they weren’t churned out by a machine trained to hunt for “3 years of python”.
Also I like to see that engineering managers are the ones doing recruiting if it’s a company that is not Google sized, or at least a recruiter who specializes in engineering. I don’t trust that the “Head of talent” shares the same motivators that get me out of bed In the morning. An engineering manager might not either, but I feel safer betting in that direction.
I find it nice that you gave an epilepsy warning. We have a long way to go in a11y for the internet as well as really all media consumable by human senses, but I do feel like strides have been made and awareness is much higher now compared to even just 5-10 years ago. Thank you for the considerateness!
Okay, so you shifted the goalpost of context from being about the effect of drugs on the brain to the greater societal effects of X drug needing Y things to happen to exist. Why not throw in animal testing in pharmaceuticals as well? Of course all of that about cocaine is true, but what the hell part of that is germane to this conversation?
I think you just hit bad luck because that hiring manager sounds like an idiot. I work for one of the largest American banks and like any other big company (like Github!) we have very competent people and less competent people as well - in terms of my PERSONAL estimation of competency, anyway.
Silver lining is it's good luck that you won't have to work with that team!
Why is Apple so hard on small developers with incredible scrutiny on releases and sometimes seemingly arbitrary eval criteria, and Tik Tok can run rampant with a keylogger injected with JavaScript? Genuinely asking in good faith here as this is way out of my domain of expertise. I worked as a UI/UX designer for a company that shipped iOS and Android games exclusively and they (Apple App Store reviewers) were always hard on us for every little thing we published. But it seems like the major social apps have some seriously invasive tech bundled in and I have to imagine if JoeBlowApp LLC wanted to ship an app with the level of data collection that Tik Tok has, they'd get reamed by Apple, no?
I don't have any substance to leave here, I just want to say that I appreciate your writing style - "As punishment for your deployment of this canard" had me laugh out loud at something for the first time in days. Beautiful phrasing and great inclusion of a direly underused word.
I agree. I’m not even defending Marc here, which seems to be how my comment is perceived so obviously I didn’t articulate the way I wanted to. I was responding to the GP’s sentiment of density becoming the new desired standard. I’d prefer availability of less dense neighborhoods in at least some capacity.
Not in my experience. If my neighbor now has a house party, I don’t hear it. Not so anytime I lived in an apartment. In an apartment building my dogs would have to be taken to a community dog park (often small and neglected in many apartment complexes). They have their own small yard here to do that in, and I don’t have to deal with people who bring an entire breakfast meal to the dog park and start fights. I like barriers between me and others.
Yes, that is where I have lived most of my life - grew up in a town of about 4000 people. In Massachusetts though, so calling it “rural” feels a bit of a stretch, haha. But definitely feels as you described.
I would prefer we did not do that. Just personally. As an introvert and someone with a general distaste for being around most of the public, I'll keep my not-so-dense living situation. Whether it's mixed income, mixed familial structures, cultures, the last thing I ever want to be - if I can avoid it - is on living on top of people.
Speaking only for myself - and yes, I am keenly aware of the injustices many groups have faced here over the years - at least some of the American dream was to create an environment for both of us to share these mutually exclusive stances in harmony. I am grateful for the ability of some percentage of Americans to have more space between their neighbors than simply one wall, even if that percentage is much smaller than it ought to be. And I grow increasingly resentful of the mechanisms both internal and external that keep that number so small.
A little late to reply but yes I am always happy to talk about this kind of thing. Unfortunately the reality is that my story is not in any way interesting; I didn't start off as a railroad engineer or 2nd grade teacher or anything like that. I started in graphic design in the mid-2000s, got heavily into Web 2.0 and was one of those designers that did skeuomorphic designs delivered in .PSD format with the Lobster font and realistic metal textures and all of that. I've been in UI/UX design sense, and still technically have a role in a design department, but I write code full time. It's an interesting niche to fill and the pool of competent technical designers is growing all the time.
I'd bet the farm you are right. At the same time, I've worked at Google-sized companies (non-FAANG) for about five years now. And in my experience like anything else in corporate politics, the appearance is everything. Many of them will hire developers, PMs, designers, etc as 1099 employees and say "we treat you like everyone else!"
But you are maligned in little ways all the time. You get a desk and a computer like everyone else, but you're not invited to certain meetings. Or maybe you're forced to use only the shitty parking spaces. Worst of all you often don't get health insurance (though sometimes you do, especially if you're in a more white collar role).
I'm off on a tangent here. I've been burned by this system before as I'm sure is obvious now. But the point is, in my experience the same system that hires those people often happily will take advantage of any opportunity to include contractors as "Part of the family!" when it involves no effort beyond appearances for themselves and offers only good optics that may or may not benefit them.
I am guessing that at least partially, it is designed to replicate what is likely a common scenario with police officers in which they are questioning someone who has either just been a victim or is potentially being deceptive/closed off/whatever. I wouldn't be surprised if very often when questioning someone after, say, a mugging, the actual details and faces to names doesn't happen until a few sentences in.
"My brother was standing next to me and the guy came up and stole my backpack."
"Ok, and you were standing over there? Over by the stop sign?"
Amazing. I came into programming from a bit of an unorthodox professional background. When I started learning web app development in a serious way, I got blindsided by some of the encounters with vim. In fact it took a long time before I even realized that it was vim I was interfacing with at first. wish I had this back then.
It's tough for me to square with the JIRA hate. I don't mean to simply be contrarian here, I have limited (<6 months) experience. But the alternative horrors I've been forced to use - like Rally or a couple internal tools that were highly neglected - I can't imagine it's really _that_ bad...
Sure, so let’s just not give feedback on apps ever again, because the same big companies we demonize at every turn for being advantageous capitalists can do whatever they want - courtesy of ToC and other such legalese. Pack it in, folks!
I got blasted by a college-aged girl who was driving ~50 MPH through a red light at 11PM early this year. I credit the Tesla safety systems for my lack of physical injuries.
Mentally though, a whole other story. Apart from the witness who was behind me (who was crying and shaking as she approached my car from the trauma of seeing the impact), it didn’t seem like the police or any bystanders gave a shit beyond getting the accident cleared out. I was expecting them to sobriety test her or be ticketed or something, but she hid in her vehicle until her parents showed up and that was that.
It was three months until insurance paid out, and we amassed a couple grand worth of debt in rentals so my wife could get to work. That one is on me for not getting the rental coverage, I won’t make that mistake again next time.
All this to say, I am certain that driver is back on the road and won’t face any consequences other than a more expensive policy. Just infuriating.
Same exact deal here. I LOVE powerwash simulator mentioned in the article. Also love sweating out hours in payday 2 getting raided by horde after horde of enemies.
I think the way that you put the approach of both parties sums it up pretty well and is the core of a lot of our systems that appear to be so dysfunctional right now.
OT tangent / rant:
COVID is a great example too. GOP? Do nothing. Dems? Take every precaution, or shame on you god damnit. Just six months ago I got a box full of COVID tests I never asked for mailed to my house. They would have been great to receive anytime in, say, 2020. At this point after I’ve been vaccinated and isolated for 2 years it feels like a hollow gesture by someone who felt VERY compelled to spend tax dollars to pad their political “accomplishment” list
Interesting, that would make sense. In the last six months/yr I’ve been told by two different recruiters “all of these positions are hybrid. You may be able to start out full remote for one or two of them, but it’s going to reduce your options significantly.” This is for UX Engineer roles specifically if that matters
Well, that hasn’t been the case any time I’ve talked to a recruiter in the last 6 months regardless. So there’s either misalignment internally or I’m just getting fed into the wrong pipelines.
Good luck and thanks for the resource, Google. But as I’ve told your recruiters over and over in the last year, you won’t even get me into an interview with your anti full time remote work policy.
I made use of a “for fun” type React module called react-rainbow-ascii (paraphrasing) that had figlet integration that worked really nicely just yesterday. If the author stumbles upon this comment, just know I appreciate the ability to leverage all of the figlet fonts!