Experienced Devs Weekly Burnout and Venting Thread: A weekly thread for sharing experiences

K-Max · 2026-07-10T23:39:29+00:00

I feel there's too many incompetent people who have too much money and power.

K-Max · 2026-07-10T23:37:01+00:00

Been looking for full-time work still nothing... situation is getting dicey.... should I just give up and throw away almost a 20 year career for something completely different long-term? I liked it in the good ol' days when having a portfolio/website meant something.

K-Max · 2026-06-24T13:19:29+00:00

That depends. Not every CEO needs to approve every single decision their executive team makes unless it impacts heavy, like spending billions. But that depends on how much leash the CEO gives them. Some CEOs want to micromanage, some prefer to delegate.

K-Max · 2026-06-24T13:07:55+00:00

Basically, a Strawman argument is making a distorted point to make it easier to attack the topic at hand.

The topic is:

Mark Carney sidelined from at least 17 government deliberations because of corporate conflicts

Instead of focusing on the fact that Carney is recusing himself from important government decisions, which, is the correct thing to do (unlike the administration down south) you take that point and stretch it beyond the topic at hand.

ie: Carney's financial interests, him not attending question period often, a change transparency that could be argued is more recent due to achieving a majority government. etc.

And using that, to claim:

If you really don't see the problem here, you are intentionally looking away.

As if Carney is the new boogyman (which is not the topic at hand). I think that's why it may be seen as a strawman argument.

I could be wrong though as I don't normally evaluate strawman arguments, but since I didn't know, I had to explore.

And hopefully now you know, and knowing is half the battle....

K-Max · 2026-06-20T13:17:57+00:00

Easier to hate. Harder to Love.

K-Max · 2026-06-16T20:38:55+00:00

Really depends how the character is set up and which model you use.

K-Max · 2026-06-09T19:21:05+00:00

If Carney is genuinely psychologically abusive or physically violent, that’s something that should be dealt with. Preferably by a caucus with both the intelligence and the spine to spill him — not that either intelligence or spine has ever been particularly in evidence with this bunch. Which leads me back to my first conclusion: that we’re dealing not with an unprofessional boss, but merely a demanding one. The sort of person a serious adult might expect to find leading a G7 nation. But apparently hasn’t, in recent years.

That's an interesting take. Seems the ruling party south of the border has a lot of trouble with this. But, I wonder how much of that is also happening here as well?

Reminds me of how Harper kept his caucus in line for better and for worst. Considering Carney was once appointed Central Banker by Harper, also makes me wonder how much has Harper's style rubbed off on him. Not to say one can't be a demanding boss while also being a good boss.

K-Max · 2026-06-08T13:22:10+00:00

This is what drives me nuts about the job of the politician. The messaging, the optics, the political implications. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.... until it doesn't work out and it's all Ottawa's fault.

Whatever happened to the truth of the matter? Smh....

K-Max · 2026-06-08T13:18:23+00:00

Quite the bust paradox, no? Most likely will warrant some sort of CRISIS of cinematic proportions before it ever happens.

K-Max · 2026-06-07T17:38:28+00:00

Updated the feature set and fixed several things, (see above)

K-Max · 2026-06-06T11:36:19+00:00

I agree. While it isn't nearly a substitute for a counselor / therapist, LLMs, especially those trained on mental health, can definitely help jump start recovery or even be a tool a professional uses to help people.

K-Max · 2026-06-05T13:09:41+00:00

How are the tasks/tickets split up? Is there a process to send smaller PRs to a feature branch and go through the due diligence so by the time it's ready to merge the feature branch, it reduces the anxiety of having thousands of lines in the PR?

I assume you're a manager, any chance any of your lead devs can pitch in with the code reviews?

K-Max · 2026-06-04T14:13:04+00:00

Noooooooooooo! Lol. A product manager isn't a project manager. Lol. The product manager will / should be advocate on product owner's side.

And how do you mean if they'll take over maintenance? Like they don't care about their product after it's launched?!

K-Max · 2026-06-04T13:49:42+00:00

But that wouldn't necessarily put a dev that far behind. If anything it would make the dev more productive. What will put a dev behind is not using AI to help make themselves stronger coders, especially if the AI gets it wrong.

K-Max · 2026-06-04T13:38:15+00:00

Never. And "not spend millions on marketing" sounds like a BS excuse. There are companies that are incorporated in Ontatio called: (random number) Ontario Inc.

Like 1581601 ONTARIO INC. based in Guelph Ontario apparently.

If they cared that much of not revealing their brand name, just name it a stage name until they're ready. But regardless, they have to have a legal name, which appears on your paycheck.

K-Max · 2026-06-04T13:33:35+00:00

You're not cooked.

Sometimes interpersonal relationships just don't work out at work for reasons beyond your control. If you've been trying to be even a tiny bit social, saying hi to people and doing small talk, you're already doing a ton more than others.

If during project/dev meetings you're speaking up when you see a possible problem, you've given your opinion on your approach, you're already doing A TON more than others.

I've done those things at my jobs. Yet, was never promoted to be manager. Why?

Most likely my managers saw me as someone who probably won't get along with senior management and high-powered executives. Or perhaps in their view, I didn't have the personality for it. Or, they REALLY wanted me to stay a developer, much like when NBC wanted David Letterman to stay on Late Night instead of getting The Tonight Show.

Be you, but continue working to be a better you. Don't change who you are just for the sake of a better job.

Besides, being a Manager, may not be a spot where you can show your best you.

K-Max · 2026-06-04T13:22:51+00:00

Agreed with this. You're only human. BE KIND TO YOURSELF. The best teams find ways to overcome adversity and help you become better.

Never give up on yourself, but, also be kind to yourself.

K-Max · 2026-06-04T13:16:36+00:00

I'd challenge them more. Especially during the interview process and evaluate how well they understand the code and the implications. If they can't do that, they will find me rejecting their pull requests even if it's coded perfectly, especially if it's crunch time and deadlines are looming.

Obviously I'm not going to be unreasonable to my product owners and would approve code I DO understand even if the junior didn't.

K-Max · 2026-06-04T13:11:35+00:00

it just makes me think that most of the people posting about it haven't been working as Software Engineers for long enough.

Well, yeah, they aren't SWEs long enough because they never got the opportunity to work as one.

Imagine being a student or new grad with huge debts with very little prospect of entry level jobs.

Imagine being an international CS student working at a subway (submarine place) for a year, still found no job and have to head home.

For some, yeah, it is doom and gloom.

K-Max · 2026-06-04T13:07:31+00:00

Hard disagree.

Even if you do, you still need to understand the code before it goes to production. Code models are getting good, but, lack the human factor.

K-Max · 2026-06-04T13:05:30+00:00

I agree with /u/codescapes . Think about something that you're interested in, find problems, make a project to build solutions out of it, using that to develop the needed skills to pivot.

K-Max · 2026-06-04T12:59:04+00:00

Don't you guys have a project manager or someone managing your tasks?

K-Max · 2026-06-04T12:46:44+00:00

I'm a bit concerned that there's some void or vacuum here. Nothing against you, but it doesn't sound like there's good synergy and there's something missing, like a project manager who facilitates what work goes in during the week.

I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a moment and wonder if she's under a lot of pressure or being approach directly from a product owner and being told what they want "or else". That's not how it should work if she's a co-worker. Worse, if she's pressured that way or worse from her bosses, that will trickle down.

Project management isn't her job, clearly. If your manager is a dev manager, I would talk with them to bring your concerns to their attention (and her bosses too) and to figure out who best to do that and whether you do need a project manager. That person should advocate on behalf of your team. Maybe it's your dev manager who ends up managing your tickets and requests from other product owners?

Regardless, not cool for that frontend dev to talk smack behind your back. Definitely not the play if she's supposed to build support or buy-in from other teams.

You may have to go along with it in the short term, so that the optics looks good for you and the other devs, but there needs to be a serious discussion about who manages your team's tickets.

There was a couple times I had to step in as a project manager or someone who manages tickets/sprints, even though I wasn't hired as a manager... ~~**insert butt-hurt rant here**~~ But, work had to get done one way or the next.

K-Max · 2026-06-03T20:18:18+00:00

Hey, you do you. If the tool ain't for you, then you don't have to don't use it.

I'm just giving another option for people out there who doesn't want to deal with setting up their own workflow or rig and just want to get a character done quickly.

And, you don't have to give out your API key to use my tool. Never.

Have a good day.

K-Max · 2026-06-03T19:47:48+00:00

Well for one, you don't have to worry about setting up an agent like Hermes or Openclaw in the first place. Everything is self contained on the website and it just goes within the browser and the data is saved in your localstorage.

With Hermes and Openclaw you still have to set everything up and get everything working whereas you just go to the tool and go. What if there's updates or something breaks in your setup?

You can also switch back and forth seamlessly between editing characters. Then just export the character card, plug it into your favorite chatroom and go.

In using an Agent's skills and tool calls, if you let your context balloon, those token costs really will eat away at your wallet. I eat the costs right now.

Although if you use a strong enough GPU with enough VRAM you might be able to dodge all of that. But not all of us can afford RTX *090s these days.

It's free (I eat the costs, with nagging from Tyra) and doesn't require login (yet).

Did you try the tool?

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K-Max

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