Time zone: UTC+2/3

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Python (fastapi, django, drf, flask), Postgres/MySQL, Linux, Docker, OpenAI APIs, DSPy, elasticsearch, GraphQL, React, tailwind/shadcn

I'm a generalist hacker and builder with 20+ years of experience. I excel in making MVPs work, and using simple technology to solve complex business problems. I'm not a DevOps engineer, but I can comfortably set up a Linux box from scratch, or use any cloud provider. Frontend work doesn't scare me, and I love obsessing over UI/UX, or tasteful animations.

I'm interested in both B2B contract work and full-time employment. EU legal entity for billing.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/artis-avotins-a97915192/

Email: artis@artiscode.dev

I suggest you try this if you're new to ocaml or interesting in trying out OCaml.

I have grown accustomed to things just working. Run a copy-pasted command from a website "just works" level. Opam is what sent me into half-day of reading about OCaml ecosystem and how things work.

The developer preview successfully abstracts a lot of things into a command you run, refresh your shell environment, and have a working dune project. Just works, like I expect.

TL;DR Wanna try OCaml because it's Rust of functional programming? Check this out.

Edit: spelling. I’m old school and used to typing on my computer. It’s getting repaired and all I’ve got is my phone. /rant

TL;DR Yes, you can live right next to the office if the funds allow it. My budget for rent was 1200 euros per month, which makes renting within the ring almost impossible.

edit: spelling

I feel it's possible to re-discover yourself more than once throughout your life. Right after finishing high school I thought that writing code is the real me. Now more than a decade has passed and I'm trying to find myself again. Our jobs define us, but we're in charge of how far we're willing to take it. There are engineers who are genuinely passionate about writing code and will happily do so outside of working hours, for free, with no intent for recognition or clout. And then there's me and the rest of average Joe's - sure our job has defined us, but it hasn't consumed us. Be careful about your career choices consuming you.

Being forced to do things that absolutely did not make sense(CS wise) was what I found to be most exhausting. Having no other way than writing shitty code or copying functionality into our app led me to an eventual burnout. My whole career felt pointless as I was unable to apply any of my skills and expertise that I learned over all these years, because everything was designed in a complex way. Getting a single property into an internal API is not a trivial task and requires coordination from different teams as there are a plethora of processes in place. However I helped to build a monstrous integration layer and everything wrong with it is partly my doing. Hindsight is 20/20 and I now see there really was no other, better way to do it, which feels nice in a schadenfreude kind of way.

I sympathise with your point about not understanding what is expected of an average engineer nowadays. Should you take initiative and help manage things, are you allowed to simply write code and what should you expect from others were amongst my pain points. I certainly did not feel rewarded for going the extra mile, but somehow felt obliged because of my "senior" title.

I took therapy, worked on side projects and I'm now trying out a manager role. My responsibilities are pretty much the same, but I don't have to write code anymore. It feels empowering to close my laptop after my last Zoom meeting and not think about bugs, code, CI or merging tomorrow morning because it's release day tomorrow.

But hey, grass is always greener on the other side! I think taking therapy was one of my life's best decisions after being put through the ringer. Perhaps it will help you as well!