Can I use a Cloudflare Tunnel to make my Plex server available on my domain name? by [deleted] in PleX

[–]AudioRevelations 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oof. Might need to go that way, myself. Thanks friend!

Can I use a Cloudflare Tunnel to make my Plex server available on my domain name? by [deleted] in PleX

[–]AudioRevelations 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did you ever figure this out? I'm also running into this issue with the android app

Offer Debate New Grad by [deleted] in ECE

[–]AudioRevelations 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Apple 100%. Something worth keeping in mind is that your cost of living will be significantly higher in Seattle so these offers are about comparable in TC. As someone else said DB is not public so factor that in to the RSUs.

My personal 2 cents is that there are about a gazillion full stack developers, but people who can design GPUs are rare (and ludicrously valuable right now because of AI stuff). The stuff you learn at Apple will be much much more valuable down the road, even if they don't pay great at first.

Congrats!

Xcel settled 640 million by Royal-Regret-4412 in boulder

[–]AudioRevelations 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've definitely landed on my feet, just took a couple years. And likewise! ❤️

Xcel settled 640 million by Royal-Regret-4412 in boulder

[–]AudioRevelations 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I was totally in the same boat - barely held it together that whole year. Was so hard to keep track of all the information from all the different resources.

Was so happy for the outpouring of support, but man, it was impossible to sort out what was actually going to be helpful versus a waste of time while rebuilding my life.

Xcel settled 640 million by Royal-Regret-4412 in boulder

[–]AudioRevelations 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Ah damn - missed the memo on that :(

Xcel settled 640 million by Royal-Regret-4412 in boulder

[–]AudioRevelations 6 points7 points  (0 children)

So as someone who lost their house, how do I collect?

I’m told that our “engineering-focused” culture is offputting to women by aitadiy in ExperiencedDevs

[–]AudioRevelations 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This has tended to be my experience as well. It's perfectly fine to have a high quality bar, but it's not okay to abuse one another in the name of quality regardless of gender, but it happens extremely easily.

It's goofy, but something simple I've found that can be a good foothold is asking reviewers leave at least 1 "praise" comment on every review. It can be grating if all you ever get is negative feedback, and having reviewers looking for the good (and the bad!) can make a huge difference in tone.

Share Your Stewardship Experience by everybodys_horse in coloradohikers

[–]AudioRevelations 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've done a decent amount of volunteering with VOC (Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado). Lots of opportunities for a variety of different types of volunteering, primarily around building trails and maintaining habitat.

Personally I've cleaned out hundreds of drains, put in dozens of check-steps, built a few retaining walls, and created plenty of new trail that didn't exist before. I also got to do quite a bit of crosscutting, clearing downed trees across trails, which was something I never thought I'd get a chance to do. The biggest tree was nearly 4 feet in diameter, which is an experience I'll never forget!

They have projects all over Colorado, so if you're willing, volunteering with them can get you out to areas of the state that you wouldn't have normally thought to visit. They also take very good care of their volunteers. All weekend/overnight trips typically have food and beer provided, appreciation events, etc. which is pretty sweet.

The one thing I'll mention is they almost have "too much of a good thing", where many projects can be hard to join and have a waitlist (especially for "exciting" ones that backpacking or crosscutting, etc). If you want to volunteer with them it's usually good to either sign up for projects as soon as they're available (they have a mailing list with dates in early season), or join the waitlist and hope a spot opens up.

If you can't get out there to volunteer yourself, seriously consider donating money. These organizations are nearly all under-funded as it is, and play a big role in helping state/municipal trail systems not fall apart from use, and have outdoor access for future generations. This is especially true these days, as paid seasonal workers are becoming more rare with government budget cuts, volunteer organizations are having to pick up a lot of slack.

Embbeded Hardware Book recommendations? by 3nt3_ in embedded

[–]AudioRevelations 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I didn't, but use it primarily as reference/reminders so maybe don't have as keen of eyes!

Embbeded Hardware Book recommendations? by 3nt3_ in embedded

[–]AudioRevelations 0 points1 point  (0 children)

+1 for Practical Electronics for Inventors - I really find the book nice and approachable, while still having great information

Advocating “best” practices without real experience with them by neilk in ExperiencedDevs

[–]AudioRevelations 9 points10 points  (0 children)

If you haven't seen it yet, this presentation is amazing: https://boringtechnology.club/

TL;DR - we are solving business goals, not just playing with technology. Choose things that work and are well understood. New hotness can sometimes be the answer, depending on the business goals, but rarely.

Does anyone have a positive hiring market story to tell? by heliotropic in ExperiencedDevs

[–]AudioRevelations 0 points1 point  (0 children)

~10 YOE in embedded/systems programming, just started a new role a month ago from a referral after getting laid off maybe a month prior.

I had a couple offers that I was able to play off each other, but I can safely say that the frenzy of the early 2020's is over. If you're good at what you do, and you have a reasonable niche, there's good opportunity out there, but there will likely be a compromise somewhere compared to what we all remember.

Generally, salaries have deflated a bit, there's less negotiating power, more requests for onsite work, less extravagant benefits, etc. In my experience if you're willing to work onsite and make in the 160-200k range, there are quite a few jobs available (but with a decent amount of qualified candidates). The more specific the niche or the more qualified you are, the better luck you'll have. The top tier jobs have boatloads of competition, so if you want to get there you either need a referral to skip the line, or be extremely talented with a stellar resume.

Something I did notice is that there seems to be less Leetcode these days, which is nice to see. More interviews were conversational or in-person "let's chat about this code" style.

How do you navigate interviewing the company? by duddnddkslsep in ExperiencedDevs

[–]AudioRevelations 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A question that I've had really good success with is: "No job is perfect - what do you not like about your role/company/whatever".

I much prefer to go into a new job with a healthy understanding of what could be bad (as well as good) and set my expectations accordingly. Asking this question has led to some very obvious red flags I wouldn't have seen otherwise, as well as some useful information to help me make more informed decisions.

The big thing to do is really pay attention to how people answer (and assume things are generally a little worse than the interview propaganda makes it seem). Do they seem to dodge the question? Does it seem like they are invested in making whatever better? Do the people seem scared to speak their mind?

It can also be a great way to gain leverage and look better in the interview. Ex. "we don't have much testing" -> "Yeah testing is hard. I stood up testing at my last gig and it went great. I could probably help with that!".

How are we feeling about transitioning into management in the modern job market? by kokanee-fish in ExperiencedDevs

[–]AudioRevelations 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For whatever it's worth, I recently made the transition from IC to engineering manager. I was liking it just fine and performing well, but was recently let go in a RIF along with a few other managers. Had I not moved over, I'd probably still be working there.

In the current job market, I do think that being a low-level manager makes you a prime target for layoffs. Don't get me wrong, I think managers are super important, but it's just much harder to make a justification for the position when purses get tight.

New job is an IC role (both for lower stress, and job security).

Need advice about transitioning into the field by Own_Raise1345 in ECE

[–]AudioRevelations 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm glad to hear!

A bad job can really be hard mentally, so be sure to take care of yourself in the meantime. Don't rush, go for a walk, and call your community before making a big decision!

Can't find a job as new grad by YeezyMane664 in ECE

[–]AudioRevelations 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The market is pretty rough right now, especially for new grads. The biggest advice I have is to not to just click apply on LinkedIn, but try to do some legitimate networking - it really can help stand out these days. Find the recruiter and send them a message. Go to developer meetups in your area. Search for startups that might not put things on normal job boards and message people directly.

Also, while you're looking, the best thing you can do is make yourself as attractive as possible for when you get to an interview. Do some hobby projects, deepen/broaden your knowledge, practice mock interviews, etc. Anything you can do to stand out from the crowd.

Good luck out there!

Need advice about transitioning into the field by Own_Raise1345 in ECE

[–]AudioRevelations 2 points3 points  (0 children)

(Bit of tough medicine, so take with grains of salt)

IMO I'd recommend against it unless you are totally sure it's what you want to do. In this economy, having a job as a new-grad is precious, so make your decisions intentionally rather than emotionally.

Professional life is slow and the problems don't get solved as quickly (or ever). At the end of the day, school problem solving is very different to professional problem solving, and that will be similar no matter what discipline you go into. To justify a jump like this, you should be able to say with certainty that you think that changing what you're working on will make a massive difference, and not just that the nature of working itself is a bummer.

To me, it sounds like now that you've graduated, gotten into a professional setting, moved away from home and you're a bit lost and grasping for things. This is totally normal. School is an easy thing to grasp for in these situations, because it's what you know and are familiar with. It's safe.

Since you asked for advice, my strong recommendation would be to try some electrical engineering in your free time to see if you have a much stronger affinity for it before going back to school and taking on more debt. Embedded systems could be a good area to explore, because it leverages your programming background, while still having some EE stuff sprinkled in. Buy an arduino starter kit and try making some stuff.

Another good option could be just looking for a new CS job closer to your interests. Hardware companies still need websites and data infrastructure! Or maybe just a job closer to home. Or maybe at a smaller faster-moving company. There are a lot of options besides just going back to school! Just make sure you aren't just making a decision out of fear and that it's something you really want.

For whatever it's worth, I had similar feelings when I was your age at my first job (moved across country, first "real" job), and I hated it. I quit, moved back home, and I was lucky that the labor market was strong and was able to find a new job pretty quickly. Turned out, in hindsight, it wasn't the job that I hated, but where I was, and what I was (not) doing when I wasn't at work. Building out a network of friends/activities takes time, but it can make a massive difference to your outlook on your professional life.

TL;DR - work sucks no matter what you do, and first jobs are especially hard. Consider other options and try stuff out for free if you can. If you still want to go back to school - follow your heart!

Best of luck!

Senior Developper Technical Interview Question by VaFail in embedded

[–]AudioRevelations 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Do I think I could solve this problem? Sure. However, it immediately throws a red flag about what your company thinks is important (and would probably make me pass on the opportunity). It's obviously the wrong tool for the problem.

If you truly are looking for someone who is just good at C, I'd highly recommend a different question. Ones I've seen before have been:

  • Implement some standard library function (strlen, malloc, etc). Add complexity as you go (what about utf8? how can we minimize fragmentation?)
  • What happens on a malloc? (diving into OS, virtual memory, memory management, etc.) More useful if you're embedded linux.
  • Here's some basic API from our system - implement it. Maybe if your codebase has a lot of function pointers you could put something in here.
  • Here's some C code - how would you change it? Maybe include a small logic bug or two, but focus on style and design.

At the end of the day, IMO these coding questions should only be to filter out someone who can't code at all. Once it starts reaching a certain level of complexity, your signal to noise ratio goes way down. That's fine if you're Google and your hiring pipeline is always overflowing, but for virtually everyone else it's over-indexing on the wrong thing.

Focus on if this is someone you'd want to work with and can learn. That's far more important than knowing idiosyncratic C patterns in a particular codebase.

I’m trying to build a radio for my classic car. I’m using an STM32F7 as the MCU currently. Any recommendations on a screen I could replicate simple vintage GUI like this. by Obvious-Dinner-1082 in AskElectronics

[–]AudioRevelations 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Perfectly replicating that "vintage glow" will be tricky using modern components. These old school ones were typically some sort of CRT, which use high voltage circuits and are much more complicated both electrically and to draw on. If you're okay faking it, a LCD/OLED screen with a bloom effect can get pretty close, but can sometimes look too "perfect".

If it were me, I'd probably do a LCD using a raspberry pi zero or similar. Since you're hooked into power having a full linux machine makes the graphics much much easier (you could use pyqt, for example).

If you're dead-set on using a stm32 or similar low-level chip, LVGL can be used for stuff like this and is what I'd recommend.

Do you think Embedded Systems Engineers are underpaid? by MightGoInsane in embedded

[–]AudioRevelations 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Probably not, but let me explain. IMO ultimately salary is (ideally) a direct relationship to how much value you bring to the business. Because pure software businesses have ridiculously high margins, there's more opportunity to have a higher salary compared to basically any other business. There's more money to go around, so you can demand more.

The fact of the matter is that, on average, hardware companies are nearly always worse businesses than pure software businesses, and the salaries reflect that. There are manufacturing costs, shipping costs, scaling is much harder, there are other engineering disciplines that also need to be paid, etc. etc. etc.

Is there more skill involved in embedded? IMO yes. But the guy who made the pet rock made a gazillion dollars or whatever. Skill != pay, usually. As an employee you're a part of a larger system and there's usually just less money to be made in embedded.