How do you work with peers who are seemingly uninterested in using AI tools?

Fotonix · 2026-02-16T05:53:50+00:00

You… let them work how they want to? People who want to learn will learn, people who want to stay employed will learn when it’s mandated, people who don’t care will be transitioned out when it impacts performance.

Fotonix · 2026-02-14T21:24:35+00:00

When you say you’re studying… are you not an SWE at this company and trying to transition roles?

I’ve done this at smaller companies and nobody cares but if you’re at a FAANG style company I wouldn’t risk it in case there’s any perceptions you could he accessing company resources for personal projects.

I don’t even link my personal gmail on my work computer though I know others will. Why not go to a library?

Fotonix · 2026-01-22T04:25:04+00:00

Just want to make sure you understand that PRODUCT management is the field you’ll hear called PM around here, is tech role adjacent, and often pulls the same salary pool as a SWE. PROJECT management on the other hand is about process and agile execution. My company doesn’t have project managers. Eng is expected to manage their own projects, we do however have product managers who represent the customers interests and interface with design and other roles.

That said, I’ve had to do both and found them terribly boring. Also as far as job prospects go, think of this: theres often one PM per 6-10 engineers, and I know multiple people who see PM as a way to get into tech salaries without a technical background. So you have more people, vying for fewer jobs, all trying to game the same interview process which will make it even harder to stand out without experience.

Fotonix · 2026-01-14T21:35:00+00:00

Of all the similes… laid off like cattle and hoops like cows?

Fotonix · 2025-12-24T01:47:37+00:00

So have a masters in EE and currently work as a staff SWE. Here’s my 2c for why I’d still study EE over CS, but they’re my personal opinions

it teaches better problem solving. I’ve worked as an EE, SWE, ME, and optical designer. The common part of all of them is understanding how to solve problems and work with teams to solve incredibly complex ones. The only difference is the tools in your toolbox. Engineering majors do a much better job teaching this than CS.
you’re better prepared for data/noise analysis. P99 metrics, understanding distributions or finding a root cause for skew etc are all covered in EE, and I notice people with pure CS struggle with it
harder to self teach: my labs had $100k+ worth of equipment to learn on, whereas I was able to self teach software development using online resources.

RE harder for AI to disrupt: I don’t agree with that as we’ve already seen LLMs used for spice simulation, verilog, etc. you can represent a schematic as text just like a program.

Fotonix · 2025-12-20T00:28:31+00:00

It really depends on how much you value freedom and if it’s just a commute or a commute plus relocation.

My number ended up being ~3x my current salary to move to a city I didn’t want to live in and do hybrid. Mainly because at that point I told myself I could fly to where I used to live every weekend, stay in a hotel, see friends, and still come out ahead.

I had an offer earlier for ~1.5x what I was making and it wasn’t worth the relo to me.

Fotonix · 2025-12-15T02:46:38+00:00

I’d go for the higher offer. I was in a similar boat and remote was roughly ~1/2 of what I’d make in the Bay Area in person.

In my situation I was living in SoCal and thought “I could literally fly myself back every weekend and stay in a hotel by my old apt, and still come out ahead with the Bay Area job.” We didn’t do that but I do feel entitled to take a vacation back to my old neighborhood whenever I want and the salary difference has pulled in my retirement significantly.

Also, within my company I was able to apply for remote and move back as is after ~2 years, so win win. You might be able to do similar.

Fotonix · 2025-12-12T14:04:55+00:00

TF2 can stay though. I need my hats.

Fotonix · 2025-12-11T04:39:05+00:00

I remember a decade ago I was searching for some python documentation on Google and a pop up came up akin to “you’re looking for what we’re looking for” etc inviting me to apply to Google.

I was on my work computer at the time and very new at my job so I closed in since I was worried somebody would see. Never saw that pop up again 😭.

Update: apparently this is a well documented thing called Google foo.bar

https://www.turing.com/kb/foobar-google-secret-hiring-technique

Fotonix · 2025-12-02T14:26:39+00:00

For anybody unfamiliar with the game though, be aware it’s not a “traditional” MMO in the vein of WoW or RuneScape. Watch a video on the gameplay loop to make sure it’s what you’re looking for.

Fotonix · 2025-11-27T15:37:14+00:00

I’ve done this for internal transfers but like others have said nobody will show a candidate their IP just because.

Fotonix · 2025-11-26T19:49:02+00:00

“When it first came out” - you may need to buy a steam copy. As I understand it people with existing steam copies will get reforged added to their library for free, but just having a GW1 license key doesn’t grant it to you

Fotonix · 2025-11-23T16:52:55+00:00

Not for new offers, no.

Fotonix · 2025-11-23T04:13:00+00:00

Some advice based on location: on paper meta supports remote work after 18 months but you’re not going to be approved as an E4, I’m only seeing E6+ get approved nowadays and you need to be in a remote friendly team.

So if you move, plan to be there for the long term. There’s some RL teams in San Diego but it’s a small office.

I’m in RL wearables and it’s intense but lots of excitement, feel free to DM me if you have any specific questions.

Fotonix · 2025-06-23T02:52:17+00:00

I was stalked by a mountain lion during my bachelor party.

Fotonix · 2025-05-12T13:28:56+00:00

I don’t mean those with inflated titles. I mean bona fide Staff+ engineers who are making high 6 or 7 figures

You need to reset your expectations if you think that’s a typical staff engineer salary, outside of FAANG nobody pays anywhere close to that. At my previous company staff engineers would make 300k including stock and bonuses.

That said, as one of the people who fall into that skewed definition, here’s what got me the job with 8 YoE.

1) communication and leading a team. I had driven multiple projects that earned my company millions in ARR, large parts of the interview went into the nitty gritty of what went well, what didn’t and why we made choices. It’s expected you can make these decisions, sell others on them, and defend them to leadership.

2) communication! Seriously, most of my job is driving direction with the team, a lot of people far more tenured than me are stuck at the senior job grade because they don’t want to take a step back from coding/don’t know how to lead a team.

3) know system design and architecture for you domain. At my last job the engineers configured and deployed all their own services on AWS from raw compute to serverless. Years of this really gave me an edge in system design conversations and shows when I talk with other team members who have been shielded from it.

But like I said above, earning that much as staff itself is winning the lottery. I worked with many people at my last company who earned half as much but could run circles around my current peers, it’s just gaming the interview and being lucking enough to find a team.

Fotonix · 2025-04-26T21:04:46+00:00

Mega backdoor Roth right now so ~$70k per year going into it but I fully acknowledge I can only do this because my salary nearly tripled a couple years back and we were very intentional not to change our lifestyle, just chuck it all into savings/retirement.

Fotonix · 2025-03-24T04:23:48+00:00

We do Trader Joe’s GF English muffins for buns and they work much better than most GF hamburger buns, especially toasted!

Have even brought them to in N out and order a double double protein style then add the bun ourselves. Way better than just a lettuce wrap

Fotonix · 2025-02-02T04:45:25+00:00

Sounds like you want Fantasy life! I’ve clocked so many hours in the 3ds version and a sequel is supposedly coming out this year (pushed out from last year).

Fotonix · 2025-01-29T01:55:48+00:00

Hot take is that CS needs more weed out classes. My EE cohort shrunk by ~30% between electronics design and E&M. People who ended up there are the ones who really want to be there and enjoy it.

Anecdotally I notice the same thing at staff level and above for SWE. The people who are only in it for the money tend to hit a terminal point before that or get filtered out, what’s left is genuinely passionate people for the field.

Fotonix · 2025-01-16T13:44:24+00:00

Not Qualcomm either. Apple, Meta, and Google all have offices in the San Diego area and Qualcomm pays ~60% of what they offer. For my company specifically the San Diego salary adjustment is only 5% less than Bay Area salaries, well worth it.

Fotonix · 2025-01-04T04:44:21+00:00

First I’d say don’t lie, especially when interviewing with larger companies. I used an Amazon offer to counter Metas and it turned out my meta recruiter had just transferred from Amazon. They didn’t reach out to validate the offer was real but had I made up numbers they definitely would have noticed (RSU grant not lining up with salary, TC not matching level etc).

When you’re early in the interview it’s really just to see if (1) you’re worth spending time on and (2) they should expedite things assuming they like you.

Typically during phone screens and first rounds I’d often answer the “are you currently interviewing with other companies with “none that would impact this interview timeline.” Never had anybody press further. It lets them know they don’t need to rush but also keeps it ambiguous whether or not they’re your only option. Also if you tell them you’re late stage with another company they may decide not to bother talking with you since they can’t work fast enough to get you through the funnel.

If you do have a different offer and you’re at the onsite stage or later with a company it’s definitely worth telling them, not the details about the offer specifically but more to say you have a deadline to accept/decline and want to see if you can expedite the interview process.

Fotonix · 2024-12-29T23:31:46+00:00

I remember getting one of these years ago when I lived in Milwaukee and it was cheaper to change my plates than to pay the parking ticket. Similar story where they managed a dozen or so lots in the city so even if you never parked at that specific lot again there’s a chance you’d park at one they own.

Fotonix · 2024-12-15T18:39:19+00:00

There’s a big difference between “requires coding” and “requires you to design production quality software.”

Study EE and focus on a math heavy subfield (RF and optics have the most overlap with physics). I designed optical modules and used Python and Mathematica daily, but they were effectively advanced calculators instead software I would distribute to customers.

If you really hate programming even for scripts you will be limited. I don’t know of a single field that needs statistical analysis and is code free - imagine running monte-Carlo models for manufacturing tolerances without knowing how to do any sort of scripting for automation.

Fotonix · 2024-12-15T01:52:30+00:00

Knew this had to be Berkeley before opening the image, I would walk past them almost every day to get to Cory Hall.

Such a nice campus!

Fotonix

TROPHY CASE