zentraal {at} gmail
@siebo on twitter and insta
- > If you know CSS, you also know the style framework. If you understand JavaScript, TypeScript is not a big problem for you. And that makes you a Senior or Principal.
Mastery of the languages/frameworks you're working in does not make some a Senior or Principal.
While deep expertise in a language is important, true senior and principal engineers combine this mastery with many other skills.
They demonstrate strong architectural knowledge, guide and mentor others, and champion best practices.
They communicate effectively with colleagues and partners of various levels and roles.
They take ownership of complex initiatives end to end, balancing near-term needs with long-term goals.
Their value lies in how they combine technical excellence with leadership, problem-solving, and the ability to align technology decisions to broader business objectives.
- "Transformers for Natural Language Processing" by Denis Rothman on Packt is a good one.
Make sure to get the 2nd edition for the coverage of newer models, particularly the ones from Hugging Face.
Everything I've read from Denis is really good. He's great at explaining complex topics in ways that are straightforward and digestible.
- If I remember my high school biology correctly, algae is the old kale.
- I started playing around with GPT-3 and it led me down the rabbit hole of NLP and Transformers. I'm kind of blown away by these tools and what they're capable of, particularly when woven in with the other languages and tools I work with. It brings back the feeling of curiosity and exploration from my very early days of programming.
A couple weeks ago, I started exploring Pu Erh. I ordered a few different teas from white2tea and got a little gong fu set. So far my favorites have been 2018 "Flapjacks" and and the 2022 "Pretty Girls". I just ordered a few others from Yunnan Sourcing which should be arriving any day. This is after years of only drinking matcha. I still start my day with a good sized matcha ~3-4g which seems to smooth out the effects of the Pu Erh nicely.
Somehow a late-night Amazon shopping session led to me buying an Ocarina. It's been a lot of fun leaning a new instrument, particularly one that's melodic and super-portable. The first one I picked up is a "Night by Noble", which is great for the money (~$35) but only hits its higher notes when played pretty loudly. So, I just ordered a Polygon from STL Ocarina which from what I've read has a mellower high-end that can be played more softly. I make up different melodies when I'm out and about, and then record loops and hooks on my Akai Force in my studio at home.
- I suspect you already know the answer here.
The organization, culture, and fit with the role are massively important to your success.
What you're describing in Company B sounds like a failure of hiring process, management competency, or both.
A well-designed hiring process should give both the company and candidate a clear idea of how well they will match with the role. While there are people who interview well and underperform, a good hiring process should really catch most of those. This is one of the things that distinguishes true HR professionals from the amateurs.
As a candidate, you want to ask the right questions to understand what's expected of the role. This can include examples of the kind of projects/tickets you'd work on, as well as the overall pace and vibe of the team.
Provided that the new employee is in the general ballpark of what's expected for the role, their managers should help them succeed, communicate clear expectations, give specific and constructive feedback, and provide the resources for them to adjust to, and succeed in the role.
I think you're also discovering the differences that can exist in leveling between companies. What is expected of a senior engineer at one company could be intermediate at another and so on.
It can be worthwhile to reflect on this experience to look for clues you may have overlooked in the hiring process. Sometimes those clues can be subtle and other times they can be hard to miss. Similarly, it can be beneficial to think of questions you could ask when interviewing in the future to help identify dysfunctional or toxic culture.
- Sorry to hear that you going through that. Not and MS patient personally, but I've been going to a special clinic in Mexico for more than 10 years and MS is one of the conditions they treat. I've met quite a few MS patients there who achieved life-changing results after doctors in the states and EU had failed to help them.
This clinic helped me overcome a toxic mold exposure that was producing autoimmune and neurological issues that various doctors in the states were unable to effectively diagnose or treat. (They were happy to take my money though) A few year later, I was hit by a drunk driver in Nicaragua and doctors in the states told me I was going to need multiple surgeries and need to adjust my expectations for what healing looked like. With help from this clinic, I was able to recover from that with no surgeries and have no residual issues whatsoever.
The important thing here is that you keep a mindset that healing is possible, and keep exploring options until you find what works. Don't get bogged down envisioning worst-case scenarios. Be vigilant of your thoughts and any time you find yourself going into those fear-based scenarios, do a pattern interrupt and replace them with positive thoughts. For me, the visions I used to replace those fears was seeing myself hiking in the mountains with my dog, feeling healthy and strong. A few years into my healing journey, I found myself doing exactly that. Hiking above the treeline on Mt Shasta with my Malinois, feeling strong in my body, with clean mountain air in my lungs. I sat down and wept tears of gratitude.
Keep pressing forward. It gets better.
Sending you an email.
- I primarily use mine for content creation, reading/learning, and as a machine I can take with me when I'm out-and-about for those times when I need jump online and fix an issue.
On the content creation side, I'm using Scrviner for writing, Snapseed and Lightroom for photo editing and LumaFusion for video production.
I watch a lot of online courses on it and use it as my primary kindle reader.
For those times when I'm out in the city, I keep it with me in case I need to jump online and troubleshoot an issue, do code reviews, etc. I'm using Terminus and Shelly for SSH, Github and Jira/Confluence apps, and of course, the AWS management console.
A couple weeks ago I picked up a Surface Go2 and put Debian on it. So far, I'm finding that to be a better machine for taking with me while I'm out in the city. Being able to run VS Code and Linux CLI apps on a portable device is an big advantage over the iPad Pro. Also, as a lower cost machine, I'm less worried about it getting stolen or damaged relative to the iPad. I never would have imagined that one of my all-time favorite Linux devices would be made by M$...
On my MacBook Pro, I have rules in my /etc/hosts that remap Facebook and Insta to a local page that reminds me to get back to work. So, I do all my social media from the iPad and prevent time-wasting and doomscrolling from my workhorse machine.
- For pseudonymous ones I usually farm old Ice-T and Opgezwolle lyrics. (Ice-T in the case of my HN username).
https://www.thisworddoesnotexist.com/ can also be fun for this.
- Indie Hackers has a "partner up" section:
- Wagtail for Web CMS. It's powerful and well thought-out with all the Django goodness.
Plone for CMS that goes beyond web content, and in security-critical environments. About 7 years ago, I lead a team for a Fortune 50 to build a CMS which was a knowledge base for hardware and software products, intranet for their supply chain team, authoring/publishing environment for technical manuals, vendor extranet, and distribution platform for device OS images. That project is still going strong and once or twice a year, I get a call from one of their engineers/devops asking for advice about some new functionality they're adding to it.
- Two decades in, I still enjoy the work itself.
Not every single moment, but on the whole.
The people you're working with, and what you're building have a big influence on this.
- [1] Considering hiring an engineer or two that you respect, starting with small tightly-scoped projects. I did this when I was solo consulting. It helped me learn new things and identify better approaches. It was enjoyable overall. My projects were better off as a result.
I had a couple of duds in the process, and starting with small, compact projects allowed me to cut those losses early.
[2] Another approach is to find someone in a similar situation to talk shop on a regular basis. Meet for coffee or online for an hour once a week, or however the timing works out. Talk about what you're both working on. Walk through some code, and do code reviews for each other.
[3] User groups and meetups can also you find these sorts of conversations.
Personally, I think it's best to have these engagements centered around your own project/product rather than just being technology-adjacent. Even better when you're putting your own money/product on the line. it gives you a gut-check on how valuable these these conversations are, which are worthwhile, and which areas have the most potential.
The people you meet in the second and third approaches can help identify who to work with in the first.
- On the software side, Reason is a really fun program to work/play with. It has about half a dozen virtual instrument synths, and they are all first class. Particularly: Maelstrom, Thor, and Europa. They're now on a subscription model, and give a few months of free trial, so that could be a great place to start.
On the hardware side, it depends a lot on what you're looking for. If you want to take some time to explore the theory, and do so with premium gear, Moog has some great options. Their Subsequent 25 could be a good entry point.
If you see yourself progressing from crafting sounds to arranging them into songs/sketches, the Elektron Digitone is really a blast to work with. Great synth engine, workflow, effects, and build quality. I picked up one earlier this year, and I reach for it now more than any other gear or instrument.
As others have mentioned, Bjørn and Meyer and the Ableton tutorials are excellent.
- My personal favorite is Expert Python Programming by Tarek Ziadé and Michał Jaworski.
Python High Performance by Gabriele Lanaro is also quite good.
- I think you'd be better off transiting between urban areas where there's good 5G/4G service, and save your more off-grid adventures for the weekends.
I've traveled both US coasts as a DN. My gear was essentially:
- Macbook Pro - Verizon Jetpack - iPhone with hotspot enabled - Goal Zero Sherpa 100AC - Goal Zero Nomad 50 Solar Panel - BMW X3 - In-vehivle laptop mount arm (passenger side) - Belgian Malinois - Leetcode and similar sites are a poor proxy for programming ability for most programming jobs. People can be good at the kinds of sites and not be very good programmers in a professional setting. I've also seen capable engineers do poorly on these kinds of tests. A couple years ago, a client asked two of my engineers to take a test on a popular coding challenge site as a precondition for adding them to our team. Both of them were accomplished engineers, working successfully with global brands, and both of them scored poorly on the test.
Personally, I avoid clients that use these tests in their hiring process. I've generally found it to be indicative of companies that don't have an engineering-centric culture. Take-home coding tasks that resemble the daily work for the position are generally a much better sign.
I hope you reconsider quitting programming. Your effort to solve these challenges shows dedication, persistence, and ability to think abstractly and solve problems. Those are all very good attributes for programmers. If you put the same time and effort into a bootcamp, online classes, or building your own projects, and made it a point to avoid companies that use these tools, I think you could be successful in this field.
- Answer emails and Slack messages, review PRs from colleagues, read books/articles, write docs, check the markets, walk my dogs...
- Nope. The same magic from the early days is still alive and well.
A big part of that is that at times when my work or some aspect of my life starts to interfere with that, I figure out what I need to do keep it alive, and prioritize that over any short-term incentives.
- 1) Akai Force (sampler, looper, sequencer). Superb creative tool for making music. I've been recording/looping my djembe and Hang Drum into it. Thinking of picking up a Digitone soon and then I think my setup will be pretty complete for a while. 2) A couple AMD RX GPUs that I picked up second hand. 3) 50mm Nikon Z-series lens.
- Nope. Somehow I got all the mania and none of the depression. Lucky draw.
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Full-stack software engineer. I've designed, built, and supported mission-critical applications for clients including Cisco, Eli Lilly, NIH, Stanford School of Medicine, as well as several startups and federal agencies.
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http://davidsiedband.comLocation: California Remote: Yes (100%) Willing to relocate: No thanks Technologies: Python, Django, React, Flask, AWS, Postgres, SQLAlchemy, Plone, JS, Linux, MongoDB, Cassandra, Spark, Jupyter, R Email: HN2020@davidsiedband.com - ------
SEEKING WORK Full-stack software engineer. I've designed, built, and supported mission-critical applications for clients including Cisco, Eli Lilly, NIH, Stanford School of Medicine, as well as several startups and federal agencies.
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http://davidsiedband.comLocation: California Remote: Yes (100%) Willing to relocate: No thanks Technologies: Python, Javascript, Django, React, Flask, AWS, Postgres, SQLAlchemy, Plone, Linux, MongoDB, Cassandra, Spark, Jupyter, R Email: HN2020@davidsiedband.com - -----
Software engineer focused in the Python/Django ecosystem. I've designed, maintained, and supported mission-critical applications and services for clients including Cisco, Eli Lilly, NIH, Stanford School of Medicine, as well as startups and several federal agencies.
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http://davidsiedband.comLocation: California / Amsterdam (US Citizen) Remote: Yes (100%) Willing to relocate: No thanks Technologies: Python, Django, Flask, AWS, Postgres, SQLAlchemy, Plone, JS, Linux, MongoDB, Cassandra, Spark, Jupyter, R Email: HN2020@davidsiedband.com - ------
SEEKING WORK Software engineer focused in the Python/Django ecosystem. I've designed, maintained, and supported mission-critical applications and services for clients including Cisco, Eli Lilly, NIH, Stanford School of Medicine, as well as several startups and federal agencies.
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http://davidsiedband.comLocation: California / Amsterdam (US Citizen) Remote: Yes (100%) Willing to relocate: No thanks Technologies: Python, Django, Flask, AWS, Postgres, SQLAlchemy, Plone, JS, Linux, MongoDB, Cassandra, Spark, Jupyter, R Email: HN2020@davidsiedband.com - ------
Software engineer focused in the Python/Django ecosystem. I've designed, maintained, and supported mission-critical applications and services for clients including Cisco, Eli Lilly, NIH, Stanford School of Medicine, as well as startups and several federal agencies.
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http://davidsiedband.comLocation: California / Amsterdam (US Citizen) Remote: Yes (100%) Willing to relocate: No thanks Technologies: Python, Django, Flask, AWS, Postgres, SQLAlchemy, Plone, JS, Linux, MongoDB, Cassandra, Spark, Jupyter, R Email: HN2020@davidsiedband.com - ------
SEEKING WORK Software engineer focused in the Python/Django ecosystem. I've designed, maintained, and supported mission-critical applications and services for clients including Cisco, Eli Lilly, NIH, Stanford School of Medicine, as well as several startups and federal agencies.
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http://davidsiedband.comLocation: California / Amsterdam (US Citizen) Remote: Yes (100%) Willing to relocate: No thanks Technologies: Python, Django, Flask, AWS, Postgres, SQLAlchemy, Plone, JS, Linux, MongoDB, Cassandra, Spark, Jupyter, R Email: HN2020@davidsiedband.com - ------
SEEKING WORK Software engineer focused in the Python/Django ecosystem. I've designed, maintained, and supported mission-critical applications and services for clients including Cisco, Eli Lilly, NIH, Stanford School of Medicine, as well as several startups and federal agencies.
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http://davidsiedband.comLocation: California / Amsterdam (US Citizen) Remote: Yes (100%) Willing to relocate: No thanks Technologies: Python, Django, Flask, AWS, Postgres, SQLAlchemy, Plone, JS, Linux, MongoDB, Cassandra, Spark, Jupyter, R Email: HN2020@davidsiedband.com - ------
Software engineer focused in the Python/Django ecosystem. I've designed, maintained, and supported mission-critical applications and services for clients including Cisco, Eli Lilly, NIH, Stanford School of Medicine, as well as startups and several federal agencies.
------
http://davidsiedband.comLocation: California / Amsterdam (US Citizen) Remote: Yes (100%) Willing to relocate: No thanks Technologies: Python, Django, Flask, AWS, Postgres, SQLAlchemy, Plone, JS, Linux, MongoDB, Cassandra, Spark, Jupyter, R Email: HN2020@davidsiedband.com - ------
Software engineer focused in the Python/Django ecosystem. I've designed, maintained, and supported mission-critical applications and services for clients including Cisco, Eli Lilly, NIH, Stanford School of Medicine, as well as several startups and federal agencies.
------
http://davidsiedband.comLocation: California / Amsterdam (US Citizen) Remote: Yes (100%) Willing to relocate: No thanks Technologies: Python, Django, Flask, AWS, Postgres, SQLAlchemy, Plone, JS, Linux, MongoDB, Cassandra, Spark, Jupyter, R Email: HN2020@davidsiedband.com
I'm a US citizen and my girlfriend is Iranian. She's been in the states for 7 years, first on a student visa then applied for her green card 1.5 yrs ago on NIW, currently "pending status change".
She's a jeweler and metal artist and owns a jewelry brand in the US. Never had any legal problems in the US, and nothing in her background of social media that would be a detriment to her review process.
Curious about your thoughts on the outlook for green card processing for Iranian citizens in general, given the administration's recent movements.
In her specific situation, would marriage provide a more robust chance of having her GC application approved? Is it even possible to re-apply for the GC while she's in the current "pending status change" state?