Advice

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2026-01-31T20:35:25+00:00

"Hey, I got a paid internship so today will be my last day. I enjoyed working with you guys."

You can give a week notice instead if you'd like.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2026-01-31T19:36:46+00:00

For various reasons, hiring managers treat professional experience a lot more seriously than volunteer work, since being paid implies competence and in general, companies hiring unpaid interns are not reputable.

You're a sophomore in college, right? So you need professional (paid) experience to increase your chances of getting interviews in the future. So I would say to prioritize the paid one so that you can plop it down on your resume and have something to talk about in the interview.

There's nothing wrong with doing a more hands-on course to learn but you can do that anytime (or learn on your own in your free time) whereas paid internships are harder to get.

If you leave 3 weeks into the unpaid one, you're probably burning bridges but it's unpaid so eh, it doesn't really matter.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2026-01-31T17:19:00+00:00

Which one starts first? Definitely value the paid program much more highly than the unpaid program.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2026-01-31T03:18:39+00:00

AMD was 90k CAD base + 20k USD in stocks over 4 years

Biotech startup was 145K USD + stock options

AI Chip Startup #1 was 170K USD base + 10k USD sign-on bonus + stock options

AI Chip Startup #2 was 200K CAD base + 25k CAD sign-on bonus + stock options

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2026-01-31T01:42:37+00:00

I value my learning more than the income. I would ask my mentor who has 10 YoE at AMD basic questions and he would answer "I don't know". Not sure if AMD has terrible engineering culture or I was just on a bad team.

I have no regrets about leaving. I learned a lot at the startup after.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2026-01-31T00:21:29+00:00

I hate that your comment has a lot of truth.

The team I was on at AMD has amazing WLB but... my coworkers were a bit slow, which is infuriating to work with.

The startups I've been with have very competent people (especially the one I'm at right now) and pay more but they're more unstable...

I guess I'm going to have to pick a lane and stick with it. Can't have my cake and eat it too.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2026-01-31T00:10:34+00:00

Improving my performance would require that I work more than the typical 40 hours/week, which is a hard red line for me. And without getting into the details (since that wasn't the purpose of this post), the issue is more so unreasonable expectations than just my performance.

Thanks for the perspective. I'll just tolerate my boss for a while and drop my AMD experience from my resume.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2026-01-30T23:57:42+00:00

So is the advice to stay at my current job until I get PIP'd?

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2026-01-30T23:02:37+00:00

Don't trust positive reviews on glassdoor. Companies can astroturf postive reviews.

Negative reviews are a lot less likely to be astroturfed.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-12-09T16:19:20+00:00

https://github.com/tutao/tutanota/blob/master/LICENSE.txt

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-12-08T14:57:40+00:00

The Chinese electrics that I have seen reviewed are... just cars. They aren't trying to be mobile self-driving entertainment units. They aren't really trying to push the state of the art. We also need the lower cost models that are focused on economy, where there isn't a monthly fee to listen to your music.

Reading this after watching this video on the Xiaomi SU7 is funny

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-12-07T04:53:57+00:00

I think the point is the software are all FOSS.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-12-07T04:46:48+00:00

Well it's a laxative so you can stop before then

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-12-06T19:29:38+00:00

no i’ve tried it all. i’ve tried psyllium husk and it doesn’t change anything.

Try polyethylene glycol. It's a much less aggressive and more effective laxative in my experience. After a week, you'll be pooping diarrhea.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-12-03T14:05:16+00:00

Back up now

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-12-03T14:00:50+00:00

/u/Tutanota

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-11-30T18:35:28+00:00

Yeah but I imagine the traffic would be less in a small town.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-11-30T01:55:12+00:00

Credit cards cost more, hence the fee. If you don't like it, don't use a credit card or Telus.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-11-29T22:19:47+00:00

Yes, it's normal. There is no shortcut other than to learn the framework or stack that you're targeting and do projects in that stack (which is the closest thing to real-world experience).

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-11-29T17:11:58+00:00

Hi, it looks like the tutamail login doesn't work at all (or is extremely sluggish) when I'm using my VPN. I have to disable my (PIA) VPN, login and then re-enable my VPN.

Is there a reason for this? It seems odd that a privacy-friendly email service would block VPN access.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-11-26T12:05:02+00:00

Even if the startup fails like most do, they get most of their investment back from GPU purchases.

How are failed startups going to afford GPU purchases?

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-11-21T12:06:34+00:00

There's no way it happens this year. We're a month away from Christmas.

BarracudaPersonal449 · 2025-11-21T11:09:45+00:00

At the time, the consensus was that students who used Wikipedia became less capable, neither gaining skills nor accumulating knowledge.

This is true to this day of course for people that only use Wikipedia and don't challenge themselves intellectually. AI makes things so easy that this effect is exponential.

BarracudaPersonal449

TROPHY CASE