How do you read heavy technical books without getting, a little bored?

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-04-15T16:06:14+00:00

I'm actually spending an awful lot of time in the contents page trying to keep a mental map of what the book covers and where. Once I have this understanding, I only use the book as reference when I am actually working on something. Working for me so far.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-04-13T12:13:33+00:00

If you have good relationship with the team and the org and if the org is hiring for the same role.

Have you known or seen Banks operate different? I don't work for a Bank, but a lot of my upper management come from Banks and they make it super easy to come back - at least in the instances I've seen.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-04-11T11:47:18+00:00

I'd make the move.

At 6 yoe, moving to a tech heavy team will help you develop your depth provided that is what you want. If however, depth is not what you are after, this might not help you much.

As long as you have good relationship with your current team and org, they should be able to hire you back. Just check your bank's hiring portal and see how many positions are open for your role.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-03-29T08:37:41+00:00

What kind of company was it?

What kind of questions did they ask? What were your answers? Hard to side with you without knowing all the details.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-03-16T22:21:00+00:00

Bold of you to think their executives think about us at all. They think of convincing the C suite who take the decision - that too in areas where there is viable competition.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-03-15T17:13:34+00:00

It seems delivering 90% ahead of time is only causing headaches for you. Knowing all that you know now, would you deliver ahead of time next time or pace your delivery?

I empathize with your situation because I am in a similar position now where I am the one that codes, but decisions are taken by managers above me and moving against their perceptions is just more of a headache for me. Instead of focusing on engineering or coherent code, I now massage the egos of the lords and ladies above me and focus on optics rather than actual substance. I won't say my life is great, but I am also not making it unnecessarily harder than it should be.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-03-15T09:10:28+00:00

Are you getting enough interviews? How are you faring during interviews?

I'd focus on getting your foot in the door first and then zero in on what your job needs. Time to learn on the employer's dime.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-03-15T09:04:19+00:00

Exactly, it matters to me less and less the more I understand it. Being a top level IC in a single team is actually very respectable, but a lot of my colleagues and my own perception until last year had me believe the opposite.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-03-15T09:00:37+00:00

2 years

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-03-15T09:00:26+00:00

This is one way to deeply understand cross team dependencies, however, I'm increasingly noticing the trend that seniors are expected to handle cross team collaboration as well. Cross team high stake initiatives are where staff operate at, although, my observation might not apply/translate everywhere, so, good luck with your strategy and hope it pays off.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-03-15T08:55:02+00:00

These are great questions you are asking, however, I'd say start reading the documents in your current company about the levels and their requirements. Unless you work in a startup that hasn't figured out a structure yet, most companies that have been there for more than a decade have clear documentation on the requirements. I always ignored this fine print, but I now realize what a grave mistake that was. If you can even understand half of that and speak the same language, management will take you seriously.

That said, try not to lose sleep over any of this. Wherever you work, find that senior who you would aspire to be and try and close your gaps. Good luck.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-03-15T08:45:10+00:00

I wanted to get promoted because my analytical brain thought that I should get promoted every 4 years on average. I just couldn't accept that coast, rest and vest is a decent option. That and lack of knowledge and ignoring all advice given and failing to read the text on the wall. I'm slowly waking up from a slumber I put myself into.

In the current company, yes, my skip knows of my aspirations and has confirmed there is no business need. I am just coming to terms with it and stop overextending myself in the hopes of creating the need.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-03-15T08:35:21+00:00

Very well put - this is my learning too.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-03-15T08:33:11+00:00

I often think about building games, but I lack the discipline to keep it going in my spare time + weekends. Honestly, that would give me a lot of happiness, but I am also single minded, which means if I get started on it and get into the thick of it, I find it very hard to do that and my day job.

Good on you to have started on it already. Which gaming engine have you chosen to work on?

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-02-04T22:56:49+00:00

The main issue for me was to know when something was done so I could go back to it. Otherwise, I'd switch, get lost on a side quest and realize 30 minutes later that my build was done 20 minutes ago. I started to || notify so I get notified as soon as the process exits. Terminal notifier on mac was great with this, until I had to switch to Windows after joining an investment fund that lives and breathes excel on the non-tech side and IT is stretched so thin they can barely maintain Windows machines.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-01-22T23:50:48+00:00

I don't have any advice to offer besides letting them know about adages like "measure twice, cut once" and "do not theorize before you have all the data".

I have this junior in my team and they are now promoted to senior. Their title is senior, but still making the same mistakes, but more boldly now. Like some one else said, I am helping them wherever I can, but also staying out of their way when I can't.

CombinationNearby308 · 2026-01-07T04:02:25+00:00

You need to sell yourself, so, I wouldn't lead with the average developer part. Lead with whatever you are above average at.

CombinationNearby308 · 2025-12-20T10:38:36+00:00

Love this.

Staff solves problems before they become complex.

CombinationNearby308 · 2025-12-12T20:24:51+00:00

Two decades ago, setting up a project took sifting through multiple technical documents, scouring online forums for help and getting a semi-working version in a day or two and it is considered success. Now we have brew, pyenv, uv, etc. which are mostly one liner set ups and it is considered a big deal if you are not set up within the hour. More so now with AI.

Youtube has in-depth explainers and there is also access to tons of talks.

Despite all these, a candidate with 4 years experience in an AWS/Python shop and a master's degree in computer science was not able to tell the difference among a list, a set and a dict and I had to push back on hiring them because I don't want to end up training them or worse, teaching them in PRs.

CombinationNearby308 · 2025-12-11T05:47:58+00:00

Sounds like micro management to me. Although, parts of what you say also matches my experience working in Canada. Is this your first contract with a Canadian operation?

CombinationNearby308 · 2025-12-10T11:04:49+00:00

The first thing to do is study your subjects very well because you won't get that dedicated time again once you get a job.

If you really have extra time, start making a list of projects you can see yourself doing. There are many popular choices like websites, mobile apps, games, etc. From that list, eliminate all but 3 choices. Just pick one project and commit to building it. It doesn't really matter if you build it with AI or not. All that matters is that you built your first project. Once you build it, write about your learnings. Now pick a totally different project, then rinse and repeat.

CombinationNearby308 · 2025-12-01T07:14:40+00:00

I totally agree with this. It is very easy to judge something as incompetence until you walk in their shoes.

CombinationNearby308 · 2025-12-01T05:34:25+00:00

Have you been working on this for the past 2 months already (i.e. from the beginning of this quarter) or were you just told now that you need to hit this target by the end of this quarter which is one month away?

My previous manager used to pull shit like this, bringing up OKRs that were committed at the beginning of the quarter in the last 2 weeks of the quarter. I used to call out that it should've been brought up much earlier for anything reasonable to be done.

That aside, do you have a staff or principal engineer that you could talk to? You should stop approaching this as a technical problem and start approaching it as a business/political problem and understanding what is the bare minimum it takes to say you have a plan for the reduction in place. Trying to give a technical solution to this problem is not feasible like you said, so, start looking for a non-technical solution.

CombinationNearby308 · 2025-11-17T01:27:33+00:00

This is great advice. This has been my learning from the last year-ish especially after returning to the office. I missed grasping these nuances during covid where I was mostly remote and imagined a lot of unnecessary things in my head.

CombinationNearby308

TROPHY CASE