Hacker News: pcloadletter_

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Be a property owner and not a renter on the internet"

pcloadletter_ — Fri, 03 Jan 2025 03:27:38 +0000

It's also just kind of cool and fun to hack together a personal website

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Wild Ball"

pcloadletter_ — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 02:08:12 +0000

1.40

Ask HN: What's an interesting software development niche?

pcloadletter_ — Tue, 24 Sep 2024 01:35:23 +0000

I am getting tired of web development after a couple decades. Anyone work in an interesting software development area that you'd recommend?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41632325

Points: 21

# Comments: 25

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "How babies and young children learn to understand language"

pcloadletter_ — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 02:26:46 +0000

I gave up trying to read this after closing the 3rd popup

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Ask HN: Could AI be a dot com sized bubble?"

pcloadletter_ — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 15:32:35 +0000

I think it's an apt analogy. The Internet (and the web) was definitely good tech that is still used. Artificial Intelligence (or maybe more broadly, data science or _statistics_) is good tech that will still be used.

But chatbots in all the things? That will definitely collapse. I am interested to see what cream rises to the top out of all this and if we'll see an actual bubble burst like we did then.

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "NPM and NodeJS should do more to make ES Modules easy to use"

pcloadletter_ — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 13:35:45 +0000

How are the deer in Nara?

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Tetris Font (2020)"

pcloadletter_ — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 13:11:47 +0000

LOL, completed PhD at 20

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Nobody knows what's going on"

pcloadletter_ — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 01:27:35 +0000

I've been thinking about this recently with internet comments on here, reddit, etc. There are very few topics on which I'd consider myself an expert, but whenever one comes up, the "top" comment (often something contrarian/snarky) is always significantly incorrect.

Ask HN: Tell me your stories of taking lower paid work to be happier

pcloadletter_ — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 17:25:42 +0000

I'm on the cusp of going back to a job I really enjoyed that paid pretty well, but I was lured away by my current, high-paying job (for the money, prestige, etc.).

I'm getting cold feet because of the money, but I'm fairly sure I'd like the day-to-day much better than my current job.

So tell me -- what are your stories?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40720121

Points: 97

# Comments: 105

Ask HN: What do Engineering Managers do at your company?

pcloadletter_ — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 02:04:27 +0000

I work at a Big Tech company and in my part of the org I can't help but feel like the EM role here adds more of an inefficiency than anything else.

Our EM has 10 backend engineers under him. There are about five other teams, each of which is a fully frontend or fully backend team. We have biweekly sprint planning meetings where EMs assign out tickets to engineers on the team.

The problem is that between the 10 engineers on our team we're working on 5 or so distinct product areas. Each of us knows more about the product area than our EM. The sprint plannings become painful because we have to explain to the EM the status of each project and what work we should really be doing on the sprint.

Furthermore, it feels like splitting the teams up like this has resulted in "over-the-wall" thinking: I finish my work and throw it over the wall to the frontend people. This works really poorly. We have had some decent success by creating "pods" where integrated product, design, frontend, and backend teams for a product area meet at some frequency. But, we're still stuck with EMs doing sprint planning and there is no way he can know what's going on in all the pods.

In all my previous experience, I have never actually had a dedicated EM. Instead, we worked entirely in vertical product teams. That worked great. I did have managers but they were entirely people managers -- nothing about the work itself.

So, does my current situation sound... correct? It doesn't feel correct at all. What in your mind is the correct role of an EM?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40713388

Points: 14

# Comments: 6

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest"

pcloadletter_ — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 17:46:24 +0000

Nothing you mentioned here disagrees with the title or the article

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Simple sabotage for software (2023)"

pcloadletter_ — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 14:11:56 +0000

I left Microsoft a year ago because the group I worked for checked pretty much every one of the items on this list. It was wildly unproductive.

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest"

pcloadletter_ — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 13:45:33 +0000

Some people here are confused. Kindness towards people doesn't preclude you from being assertive. It doesn't preclude you from being a shrewd negotiator. It doesn't preclude you from provide feedback to an employee who needs to improve performance. It doesn't preclude you from laying off an employee.

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest"

pcloadletter_ — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 13:12:37 +0000

Yes. A person's performance on the job does not change how I treat them as a human.

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns"

pcloadletter_ — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 18:25:46 +0000

Or maybe they have to figure out how to actually make it work

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Microsoft to delay release of Recall AI feature on security concerns"

pcloadletter_ — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 18:23:09 +0000

But hey, at least Microsoft got to increase their stock price from the initial, hasty announcement, right?

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Developing an LLM: Building, Training, Finetuning (A 1h Video Explainer)"

pcloadletter_ — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 13:31:59 +0000

I find it can be nice to have an academic understanding of things you work with even if you don't have to develop it directly yourself.

Ask HN: Anyone else riding out a crummy job in this market?

pcloadletter_ — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 00:33:41 +0000

My job is pretty terrible aside from the pay. What that means is, in this market, it's been basically impossible to land any job interviews for positions equal to or greater than my current pay (or honestly even close). Does anyone feel in the same boat and are just waiting it out?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40676391

Points: 11

# Comments: 3

Ask HN: Is it normal for companies to look for FE engineers who can design?

pcloadletter_ — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 14:45:11 +0000

I am noticing a trend, perhaps a "do more with less" thing, where frontend job postings are starting to ask for frontend engineers who can also act as designers and even UX researchers. Is anyone else finding this? Is this a normal or correct expectation?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40670346

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by pcloadletter_ in "Ask HN: What are your personal red flags when you're interviewing at a company?"

pcloadletter_ — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 20:18:59 +0000

A bit of short-term thinking, though. Even if companies _right now_ can treat applicants like crap, they probably shouldn't. I'd rather have an applicant accept an offer because they want to, not because they have to. They'll care more about the work and are less likely to flee.