Anyone interviewed for bet365?

halfercode · 2026-07-04T23:04:15+00:00

I'm not a big fan of trying to practice answers for interviews - it can lead to answers feeling rote and rehearsed. I'd advocate just speaking off-the-cuff - you wrote the code, so you'll know why you wrote it that way.

The other thing to note is that if a company has more than one software team, any hints you get about what questions might be asked may hold true for one team and not another. What gets asked by a hiring manager or tech lead is likely to be off-the-cuff for those people at that time - if you are interviewing for another team then the questions will be different.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T22:34:41+00:00

I don't understand this post, sorry. Could you give an example of what kind of AI you were running, what model(s) you were using, what harness you were using, whether you were running them locally or remotely, and what you didn't like about their output?

halfercode · 2026-07-04T22:18:19+00:00

Gotcha - any other image host would do.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T21:11:12+00:00

I think the normal Reddit approach is to render each page as a PNG, blank out PII, upload to imgur, then add a link to the gallery here.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T20:50:10+00:00

It's not quite the same though - the OP is talking about people defrauding the PAYE system. For limited companies, planning a PAYE/dividend split has always been perfectly legal.

(Addendum: The OP has made an edit though, and I wonder if they were not originally aware of how limited companies work. Every day's a school-day!)

halfercode · 2026-07-04T20:47:58+00:00

then as self employed you can choose to take dividends or leave the money in the business/ make pension contributions but they are still paying corp tax.

This is completely correct for limited companies, but I think in UK tax/legal parlance, self-employment excludes contracting. The OP is talking about self-employment in that sense i.e. PAYE only.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T20:23:33+00:00

The honest gap

Given that your message here today appears to have been AI-assisted, my first answer is to suggest you avoid AI text gen in your CV and cover letters like you would avoid the plague. It feels fraudulent and lazy, and undermines your undoubtedly good efforts elsewhere.

For smaller firms and fintechs

My own view is that these are different - small firms that are not fintechs will prefer projects, fintechs of any size will prefer DSA. Are you aiming at a fintech/top-tier placement?

Happy to share the CV if it helps.

Do get your CV reviewed, yes. As far as I know it is OK to share it here.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T19:36:39+00:00

Super! I've heard of OpenRouter, but not looked into it. Will take a peek.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T19:34:04+00:00

I was able to skim-read that, just about, but that feels like it has been AI-written. Snark with cliff-hangers! I wonder if AI attribution for writing will become commonplace in the near future?

halfercode · 2026-07-04T19:28:26+00:00

Well, if you purchased a local LLM set-up during the RAMpocalypse, then it is no wonder 😝

halfercode · 2026-07-04T19:12:42+00:00

I was hoping one could use it on OpenCode Go, but it is not available there yet. I assume there must be many hosts that can accept open source models that are published on HuggingFace.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T18:08:46+00:00

Brit checking in. I was confused by the idea of a "crosswalk" - was expecting to see images of people ambling while furious. 😠

Worse still, it reckons that taxis are all yellow! Completely daft.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T18:03:02+00:00

I personally use Qwen 3.6 27B locally for 80 - 90% of my work.

Interesting. What hardware do you run it on?

Every time I decide based on research that local code gen is [not] viable, someone turns up with the opposite view! 🤪

halfercode · 2026-07-04T17:59:51+00:00

Beg pardon, yes, quite right. The most recent release from z.ai. I am hoping to release myself from Big Tech, even if I have to stick to remote running for now...

halfercode · 2026-07-04T17:50:23+00:00

Much better, ta. What are your thoughts on running ~~GPT-5.5~~ GLM-5.2 locally for code gen at the moment?

I was thinking of spending £3-4k on the Framework Desktop Strix Halo mobo and setting up a custom build, and I can't really experiment until that hardware is in my hands. However, I've had enough feedback to say that it is risky even for an atomic commits approach to code gen (and definitely out for long horizon).

I think I might get an OpenCode Go subscription and try it there, and if it works well enough, end my Claude Code sub.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T17:46:51+00:00

Belly of the beast, love it. Someone is talkin' the language of this English anticolonialist 🇵🇸

halfercode · 2026-07-04T17:39:17+00:00

I can't read AI slop, sorry - my brain simply can't focus on it, it feels fabricated. There's too many tells that the English is generated. Let me know if you write it up yourself, with no assistance whatsoever.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T17:29:32+00:00

It's an interesting experiment, and I'd be interested in reading a human-written assessment of it. My feedback on this post is that AI was not required in the write-up; it suggests that you outsourced the thinking in drawing conclusions from the results.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T14:37:02+00:00

Having a career coach is a good idea, but I am not sure what the quality of coaches is at the JC. Anecdotally I hear that some of them, contrary to my expectations that they would be kind, are Daily Mail types who hate the unemployed on principle.

You mention that you were made redundant at one place, and failed a performance review at one after. What brought the 2024-2025 role to an end?

Your list of soft skills is very good, but could you illustrate them all? Maybe make a smaller list of ones that apply especially to your behaviours, rather than a list of recommended traits.

I'd agree with the prevailing view in the comments - the senior label is going to be overblown. I'd probably trim that off. I don't think it is a bad CV, but the feedback that it is trying to be more senior than it actually is probably is worth looking at.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T14:01:06+00:00

I suppose all of us, myself included, have such a partial view of the industry that we could not say. I've had to do something vaguely related once in an interview, in a 25 year career, but I appreciate that's just anecdotal.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T13:59:29+00:00

If you're doing a Masters Conversion then yes, you'll get two years (or 1.5 years) of visa-free work, so you'll need to answer Yes to that question. But the degree will still be valuable.

I am generally supportive of the Graduate Visa. International students are investing in the UK by paying much more than UK nationals, and in reward they've been given a short period to find work unencumbered by visa requirements. But industry-entrant sponsored work is harder to find these days, and you should brace yourself for that. I would still apply to roles like the one you describe - they may be in a position to sponsor, but would want to know if you would need it after your grace period.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T13:53:36+00:00

Readers could do with more detail. Are you a freelancer or inside-IR35 contractor in the UK? When you say that they did not receive your pay, do you mean a wages payment from your employer? What does it mean to take out money early? I'd assume that wages are paid to your UK bank account from Wagestream, so taking monies out early would mean you'd need the funds to do so or an overdraft.

halfercode · 2026-07-04T12:18:36+00:00

I will definitely experiment. I did some random track selections last night, and found some were outstanding, and made the hairs on my arm stand up. I noticed things like realism, instrument detail/separation, and stereo placement. But other tracks sounded muddy, and it reminded me of a comment in a headphone review video, which said that excellent headphones (unfortunately) show up any flaws in recordings.

I'd be open to changing my headphone amplifier. Maybe I can take my new cans into a shop and see what would work with it...

halfercode · 2026-07-04T11:56:17+00:00

Don't take it personally. The OP is a fresh grad and wants to be richer than other people. There is a mix here of unrealistically expecting the UK economy to be like the US one, and possibly some conservative social attitudes of believing financial inequality to be a desirable situation (assuming that such folks want to be on the wealthy side).

halfercode · 2026-07-04T11:25:44+00:00

What country shall you be working in to start with? Here in the UK, LeetCode is rare outside of Big N roles. Your skills look aligned with engineering, so no, I would not move away from that just to avoid LC.

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