15+ years in engineering here. 10+ in leadership.
Code formatting hasn’t been an issue since the early '10s. Tabs or spaces? Who cares. Your editor can make it look like whatever you want and it won’t effect the code.
As for other asshole-ish behavior or gatekeeping, I open it up to a vote. Let the team determine best practices. Don’t like what your team decides? Find another team to shitlord over.
If your team is only focused on tabs/spaces or soapboxing during code reviews, you have bigger issues to take care of.
Spreading knowledge and context sharing are exactly why I like code reviews. It should also be something done by more than one person so that information is better disseminated throughout the team.
I find most bad codebases exist because of a culture that isn’t focused on quality, and I’m not talking about bug counts or code coverage. Clean codebases stay clean by being proactive about keeping them clean. This should include meticulous peer reviews, establishing design patterns, enforcing best practices, and taking initiative to leave things better than you found them (we used to call that boy scouting).
If your teams PR comments only contain LGTM, and the average time spent reviewing them is 5 minutes, your team isn’t focused on quality. If a PR contains more files than an average person can keep in their mental context window, it won’t get the attention it needs to be properly reviewed. If there is no accountability to keep a clean codebase, you’ll end up with 2 hours of work taking 5 days to complete.
I am also enjoying this beer. Hang in there. Yours will come.
I have been been actively interviewing for software engineering leadership roles. A few years ago, the process would have involved submitting a resume, maybe a technical round, a chat with the CTO, and a vibe-check with another employee. It has now become a gauntlet of 5+ STAR format behavioral rounds, presentations, take home tests, systems design whiteboard sessions, and the beloved technical review where you share your screen and someone watches you fumble through some stupid leetcode challenge.
I have been finding it difficult to control my anxiety as I progress through each round of interviews. The steaks are higher after each round to make it to the next.
It sucks getting rejected after round 3-4+ rounds. Sometimes I won’t hear back at all, other times I might get the canned rejection email from the ATS. I take feedback and criticism very personally, which makes personalized rejections even more painful.
I wish I didn’t love software engineering so much. I wish I had another skill to fall back to that made as much money.
How do you all deal with the social, executive, and operational rigors of finding jobs and interviewing?
Title. Basic duties. Salary. Upload resume.
My team of engineers and I were laid off on January 2, after spending a year replatforming a medical SaaS product. We were told the company was heading in another direction in order to to go to market faster.
That direction is the Product Designer and Claude Code, rebuilding everything from scratch.
Professional, industry-standard applications running natively on any major distro.
I use Adobe and Ableton products every day. I simply cannot use Linux as my main OS until these products can run in a real Linux environment, no matter how much I want to.
Argue all you want about Linux alternatives being just as good. The point is, they’re simply not what what the majority of professionals use.
Some CalDav servers also do notes. As others have noted, Joplin has a self-hosted option. If you’re willing to go with a service, Obsidian is .md based and multiplatform.
Are cats ever happy? Asking because I’m not a cat person and have never actually experienced a nice and/or happy cat.
I cannot recommend soma enough. They have a channel for everyone.
This is my niche comfort genre. If you’re interested in newer artists who share that BoC aural flavor, you should check out PBS73, Midday Static, Cylan, and Ghostwerk.
That’s a novel idea, I’ll give you that. However, I’m not looking for more of the same, if you know what I mean.
Third Pynchon mention. This dude is my guy.
Great reply and questions.
I’ll look into Sharpe. I am not easily offended, and can understand humor within historical context.
I do have a preference for contemporary and current authors, but only because I’m interested in modern/popular culture.
If I had to narrow down what I’m specifically looking for, it would be works that are less fantasy/sci-fi and more “What the fuck did I just read?” To me that’s the appeal of authors like Ryu and Haruki Murakami and Palahniuk: they’re masters of absurdly crazy and impossible scenarios, that somehow still feel plausible. While the Murakamis are more serious, they are more fantastical. Palahniuk is great about keeping things based in reality, but with copious amounts of gross-out moments and ridiculous characters.
Sounds like you might be smelling what I’m cooking.
Oops, wrong God. I’m adding this one to my list. Thank you.
I have had difficulty focusing and learning since middle school, and was constantly ostracized and bullied throughout my entire childhood. My parents knew that I had ADHD since kindergarten, but refused to take action because my narcissistic mother could never have a child who was different.
I was 38 when I finally decided to get an official ADHD and autism diagnosis. My diagnosis has been bittersweet. Medication has helped me to focus and improve my skills as a software engineer, but I still mourn the life that I could have had if we’re treated earlier.