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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • The number of computer scientists I’ve known that couldn’t set up a VPN, or alter a firewall rule, or change the layout on a web page slightly, or set their out of office replies…

    Basically the experience I’ve had is that those people you imagine are gods of tech are frequently terrible at tech beyond their very narrow niche.

    But boomers, yeah. Even my mom who was a programmer and mostly stayed current on tech. But when Facebook stopped using a chronological news feed, she couldn’t handle it.


  • As a lead software engineer: I engineered an exit with severance and unemployment compensation after the company was acquired by VC and I coasted a bit. Basically stirred the pot enough to be on a couple shit lists without getting fired, so when the workers had to suffer because the CEO couldn’t hit his sales numbers after gutting the sales department twice, I got put on the layoff list.

    After burning through unemployment and some savings, I’ve landed as an IT business analyst at a giant company. I’m still technically freelance, but that’s just how they hire. I make about 20% less, but am still comfortable. It’s also the easiest job I’ve ever had by far. I talk to vendors, I meet with people, and I spend most of my time building the simplest little tools to reduce toil for others. I make up my own timelines. My boss is already asking if I want to be a manager.



  • I like and understand where you’re going, but I can offer some actual experience. I learned my legal first name at 8.

    It didn’t go down well (I cried because the teacher didn’t call my name and sent me to the school office to get it sorted) and I had a weird complex about the real name into high school. There’s no rhyme or reason to the two names, so it is actually sort of surprising to pair the two. To this day I still go by the nickname I thought was my real name. My nieces and nephews still enjoy discovering my real name and calling me by it thinking it’s a big secret they’ve discovered. I still have to explain it a hundred times a year to new coworkers and acquaintances.