I am sorry, there is a bunch of steps to that conclusion that I took for granted.
We seem to be in a moment that values more terrible engineers in volume than non-terrible engineers.
To me, it sounds very likely that if you're a not-terrible engineer, you won't be rewarded by that effort. Instead, you'll be hired or leveraged for value in the same batch as several other mixed-quality engineers, and rewarded as a maybe-terrible engineer.
Maybe I just want to be non-terrible if there's a viable reward for doing that.
That goes for jobs (you are hired to do something etc) and also for work like free software, open source, even portfolio work (stuff you do to display your skills). Maybe you want to do just enough to show that you can be a non-terrible engineer if the reward for acting that way is guaranteed, which today, it isn't (in my opinion).
Yes, the steps in between made it all clear hahaha
I honestly have mixed feelings about what you said. I can see how that’s happening, but at the same time, I feel like it’s been going on for the last 5-10 years, especially during the dev boom on 2020 when anyone with a bootcamp could land a job. But market conditions aside, being non-terrible is, in my opinion, a personal decision based on what makes you happy, fulfills you, and meets the needs of your job. I’ve had periods and jobs where being non-terrible, but totally average was enough, and as you said, I wasn’t going to do more for free. In others, I wanted to go above and beyond because I was motivated or properly compensated. I guess it depends on the situation.
My main goal with the post, though, is that even if it covers some generic points, it can still help people who are trying to improve but failing. In most cases because they’re investing their effort in the wrong things. Lately, I’ve seen many newcomers and juniors trying to respond to the current job market by becoming “better” developers, but they’re just chasing the latest AI buzz word and stacks, not being great at any and also failing at the basics. I think that’s the key takeaway I wanted to share: if you take care of the basics and avoid overcomplicating your work or your team’s life you’re already above average and a non-terrible engineer.
Since you mentioned AI, I'll also give my perspective on that:
I'm concerned that it will, literally, suck the blood of good engineers to pump into bad ones.
Some 10 years ago, I would tell juniors that donating blood is a good thing to do and something they should aim for. I am not so sure about that anymore. Today I would teach them to sharpen wooden stakes.
I want promising junior developers to survive. That's an important prerequisite for being able to be a good developer. I don't want them to be too naive and die off.
I have a similar view in that sense, I think that at the moment many companies are counting with AI taking over many of the senior level tasks and therefore not investing in that many juniors. If this assumption fails, there will be a lack of qualified seniors to take over when the current batch moves on; there will be juniors but not nearly as prepared or with the amount of experience needed, as they are currently struggling to get into the industry.
Aiming to be a 10x developer by chasing every new tool and content is a recipe for burnout. A more effective strategy is inversion, focus not on being excellent, but on systematically avoiding common failures. For an engineer, this means prioritizing the elimination of bad habits that create poor code.
Communication is your most critical soft skill. Without it, you risk solving the wrong problems or having your hard work go unnoticed and misunderstood. Here I share the key principles I learned to avoid these mistakes, with actionable advice and examples to help you become the person everyone wants on their team.
They seem to be doing a lot of their maintenance themselves so that probably helps too. Still, I am curious about how much in average does the sailing life cost. They give some numbers here and there, so maybe someone more dedicated might be able to come up with a basic estimate.
Offline solutions or not totally internet dependent ones can bring a lot of value to the users. So many things are webapps that could easily work offline. Sure, the web is easier and has more reach, but when sites, apps, or games vanish, I start to miss the 90-00 CD days.
But again, what is best for the user is probably not the best business idea...
Same here, after reading this I looked into multiple sites and articles and I only find that "Support" link in the footer. Maybe they changed things recently?
It has been a while since I found a site this interesting, I have been reading it on and off for the past few days.
As per their site: "Hundred Rabbits is an artist collective that documents low-tech solutions with the hope of building a more resilient future. We live and work aboard a 10 m sailboat named Pino in remote parts of the world to learn more about how technology degrades beyond the shores of the western world"
Thank you, I will look into both of those. I eyed one of the logs, not sure which one, but more to see how it was shared and how extensive it was than for the content. Will give it a 2nd look.
European values, like consumer protection, privacy, and environmental standards, are, in my view, among the best in the world. However, bureaucracy and politics push them in the wrong direction or tie everything up. I had never thought much about this before, but I now plan to look more into supporting European industries. However, only for products of comparable quality. If a product doesn’t measure up, I don’t see many people choosing it just for the sake of buying European.
not an attempt at rebutting or so, just adding my thoughts:
It doesn't matter if the product is great because of those values if there is a lack product (bc politics and bureaucracy make it infeasible to produce). Makes you think if those values might contribute to the bad politics and bureaucracy. And if so, how.
Why is it always attributed to politics and bureaucracy when there's a much more obvious point on why European products take a long while to gain market share even inside the continent: the EU is made of 27 independent countries with their own culture, and language.
A consumer product created in the Netherlands needs to be adapted to be marketed across 27 different countries, sales teams need to know how to approach each of them, manuals, UI, etc. need to be translated into the customers' languages, so on and so forth.
Is there bureaucracy? Of course, some of it is to uphold values, some might be unnecessary but it's not the main obstacle faced by European companies to grow themselves into the whole of the EU.
Imagine for a moment that each US State had its own centuries-old way of living, its own language, and history separated from the US as a nation, there would be much more friction for products to spread around the whole country, there would be much more localised versions of the same market niche, exactly what happens in Europe.
A federalisation of Europe is a slow process, it will take generations to integrate all these different cultures, streamline production pipelines to allow products to be released across many different member-states at once, etc. Ironically the US becoming more insular and adversarial might be a catalyst for European companies to do so, there will be quite a few market gaps opening up in the wake of US's influence retraction.
The B9 would be a good option. I'm not sure about the USB cable charger, but I assume you’ve checked that already. That being said, the main issue is that the second-hand market is very dependent on where you are, so it is difficult to recommend something that is really an option. It would be better if you shared the ones you can actually find or get delivered to you so we can discuss those.
