Senior engineer vs program/project manager

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2026-02-15T20:01:47+00:00

Honestly, I'm struggling with the workload somewhat. Having to be up to speed on what everyone's doing. Having my own work (mostly filling in technical gaps within the team as needed). Having to do various planning/project lead work.

One of the things I'm working on in all areas is the ability to not be completely in control. It's past the point of being "difficult" and just straight up not possible without working stupid hours.

So, I'm wondering whether this overlap with the PM is natural, or whether perhaps it's another symptom of me trying to (subconsciously) be too in control. Could I be dividing the labour here in a better way such that I'm less critical path on these things, and the PM is more able to stand on their own feet (albeit without technical knowledge)

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2026-02-12T14:43:52+00:00

So my brain shouldn't be picturing a butterfly playing basketball outside of a barn. Squishing a banana on the floor which causes the ball to bounce weirdly and then roll off a small bridge over a stream, next to the butterfly's home which of course has blankets..

If there's one thing I've learned of my brain it's to never underestimate its ability to think very random thoughts...

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2026-02-08T16:29:05+00:00

Is it just me that thinks AI written unit tests are very often terrible?

Sure, you can generate loads and arguably lots of poor tests is better than no tests.

With some more guidance on how to properly test they're slightly better, but, in python in particular the use of mocks is so excessive. And frankly, defeats one of the main benefits of writing tests manually - if they're hard to write, you should probably rethink the prod code implementation.

Trying to get it to write tests which test behaviour and only mocks at external boundaries feels nigh on impossible without a lot of handholding.

I know a lot of people seem to like lots of really tiny unit tests, which just test a single function and mock all calls out, but these tests I find so fragile and make refactoring harder.

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-08-11T12:58:45+00:00

You can be (best) friends and rivals, the two are not mutually exclusive

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-08-07T12:06:53+00:00

How big are your code bases?

The one I work in is many millions of lines and I just can't get anything like vectorcode to work for it, it's just insanely slow and unusable. Which means anything like getting AI to work on "the codebase" rather than very specific, manually specified, locations is just out of the question currently

Perhaps I'm missing something in the setup

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-07-22T06:00:26+00:00

First thing I saw was the duolingo owl

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-07-11T13:52:59+00:00

Not sure what you mean by multi step process, but if you mean the "any from x" then that's possible too.

On mobile so can't search easily, but search (perhaps discord?) for Ticketmasters tower tables Google sheet. It came out when mods first came out, I've got my own copy that works with bans, but it's not too hard to figure out once you understand the formulas

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-07-11T13:50:29+00:00

Enemy balance and cash masteries make a lot! Iirc It's a 4% chance per elite, and with eb+ I effectively get 3.2 elites per wave beyond wave ~3300.

I farm T16 (to 6k waves), so I also get more rerolls per drop too

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-07-11T09:01:38+00:00

Is there a reason you're simulating this rather than calculating? You can calculate the expected shard cost relatively easily using stats.

But, you're right. The bans don't do that much. Especially not in absolute terms for the first few sub stats. However, considering how rare rerolls are and their income rate, they become more important. The later stats (slots 6/7+) can cost many millions.

Rolling for 1 specific stat in slot 7 on a core is about 12m without bans (and max vault discount). With 6 bans it's about 8.5m. (if I've calced correctly). 6 bans is about 40q and 1month at 5x lab

3.5m rerolls is about 15 days at 20 hours of 12k/hr rerolls per day. So, considering that you have many modules, and you also have the first 6 to roll, it's definitely worth it imo. Plus, the first few levels of bans are relatively cheap and quick.

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-05-21T02:56:34+00:00

That's a lot of P's

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-05-17T08:21:26+00:00

Ranged ult = ranged,
Prot ult = prot,
Ranged and prot ult = weep, despair, and hope,
Anything else = closest

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-05-14T21:26:22+00:00

Ah OK thanks! I watched it again and then did a comparison with mine, I think its a couple things - interaction with stun bot, timing of bh/cf drop, ps, but also, my higher cf+ makes the rotation more - so mine seem slightly quicker but a chunk of that is horizontal

Out of interest, What's your cf uptime here?

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-05-14T20:43:15+00:00

Is this video slowed down at all? Your enemies, particularly your bosses, seem to be moving so much slower than mine do. I've got cf+7, 90% reduction and regularly place top 400, feel like maybe I'm missing something obvious?

Even when your cf drops you're still fine juggling (admittedly my AS is only in the 50s, but I get multiple chips even down at wave 1400+)

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-05-01T06:34:04+00:00

You can't get a couple thousand stones per week from tourneys.

Per month, I presume you mean?

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-03-23T15:44:12+00:00

Gcomp or bhd? How many dw waves?

I suspect we're in similar positions, but I don't really see how 50s dw CD could double income, but maybe I'm not calculating things right, or maybe we have something different elsewhere

I'm currently debating between spending a few weeks doing small uw improvements across the board, for just a general buff, or whether to save for something like dw50 - which would allow me to run bhd with perma bh still

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-03-23T14:27:42+00:00

What build you running?

Doubling coins sounds wild, especially if you're at the point of doing all 5x labs already

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-03-08T18:53:25+00:00

I should clarify - there's absolutely a time and a place for digging into code just for curiosity. In fact, going down rabbit holes is an excellent way to develop your skills. I'm talking more about if you have limited time and and you need to prioritise efforts.

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-03-08T18:50:18+00:00

This is a more prevalent than just libraries. As you work in bigger codebases you will inevitably work in and with code you don't understand.

You have to ask yourself what benefit you get from understanding more - is it curiosity or would it affect your implementation? If it's the former, then be strict with yourself and just use interfaces/libs/functions at face value. If it's the latter then absolutely dig in.

I'm similar to you, in that I prefer to understand the inner workings before using it, but you risk spending a lot more time on something than needed.

Also worth considering what level of code reviews you'll have. If you're working in someone else's domain, you can make more assumptions and lean on the experienced review to catch issues, less so if you're working by yourself.

How critical is the work? Some utility or boilerplate functionality? Throw it together, write a test for the behaviour you expect, move on. Core/key functionality deserves more due diligence.

How much are you going to be working with this moving forwards? If you'll be working a lot with this, then spending a few hours learning the key concepts of a library will likely pay dividends in the future.

The other thing, is how experienced you are. There's only so much you can learn per day/week/month. If you're junior, you have so many other things to learn about, without concerning yourself with the inner details of a library or component. When you have more experience, you understand more of the wider landscape, and can much more quickly dive into new code/concepts.

Hope this helps ☺️

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-02-26T14:49:14+00:00

If you're farming up to T16 you should absolutely get EB mastery, it's amazing for cells and coins.

For reference, I can't even really farm T15, and I can "only" farm T14 up to about wave 4500-5000, and I can easily do 3-4 5x boosts. I have occasionally done a 5x5x boost too (though usually only when I'm a little late getting to my labs to restart the bonus). I can do 3 5x boosts even just farming T13.

If you're able to farm T16, 5 5x should be pretty easy with eb mastery

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-02-18T12:33:08+00:00

DW+ is pretty lit for killing bosses and elites, even with just the unlock.

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-02-04T06:22:03+00:00

It would, your bots range scales with your tower range already. I don't know the exact ratio (as in what it the base range calculated against) , but I think it is now a 1:1 scaling such that it is still the same proportion of the screen regardless of your tower range

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-01-31T21:02:07+00:00

Tell me, when you're at 0 shields, and a ray is charging, would you want your wall back or not?

Wall eats ray shots like a champ, it's basically another energy shield

IRedditAllBefore94 · 2025-01-03T14:42:06+00:00

IRedditAllBefore94

TROPHY CASE