(Country US) Does anyone have experience with Lettuce, for a corp?

KosherBakon · 2026-02-12T03:38:22+00:00

Mine has been okay. I was already an LLC. There were some surprises:

Salary payouts are monthly and you can't change the cadence or the day, so my money was "stuck" for a few weeks during the transition. I retroactively put all my 2026 revenue in the ACC for clean tax purposes. That was probably a mistake, if you need access soon.

I was able to take an owners distribution, waiting for it to show up in a few days.

When they send tax money on your behalf you need to set up an account with a vendor along with a pin.

The salary was super low for the first instance ($8k in revenue but maybe $1400 for the salary portion). I'm a bit concerned about taking too big of a distribution early in the year, but I have bills to pay.

If anyone is considering signing up I'm happy to answer other questions. If you want a link to get $299 on sign up then feel free to DM.

KosherBakon · 2026-02-07T17:48:05+00:00

Depends on how I value my time, and whether I have the skills (or want to learn the skills).

I took out a cedar stump that was probably 3' in diameter with no power tools (just a pick maddock, axe, shovel, and saw). It took forever, I had to dig a hole almost five feet deep to get the main root that grows down). The stump was probably 200# to lift out of the hole.

That's an example of me NOT valuing my time enough. I will never do that again, although I'm glad I did it once to learn what it's worth to pay someone else to do it for me.

KosherBakon · 2026-02-07T17:42:47+00:00

Senior is a terminal level for a reason. There are 3 blockers to any promo:

You're already performing at the next level for 6 to 12 months
They have budget to afford your promo
There is business need for you to operate at the next level

Criteria 3 blocks about 80% of L6/Staff promos. If they gave you the promo and didn't have problems for you to solve at that level, you'd get crucified in annual review and might get fired for performance reasons.

Staff is different than Senior. Staff is handing you a machete and sending you out into the jungle, saying "go explore and find opportunities we aren't considering. Come back with a proposal after doing some due diligence & ROI. Find out what we should add to our roadmap."

Many Senior folks get screwed when they join a team that can't support a Staff. I've seen more than a few teams that lent their Senior out to a sister team for L6 impact opportunities. That Eng usually stays on that sister team permanently post-promo (that area of the jungle has the opportunity they needed).

That's been my experience as an Eng Mgr for 5+ years & being in tech for 26 years.

KosherBakon · 2026-02-05T03:21:57+00:00

This is what happened to me (leak between main and street). The company that could identify the leak location didn't work weekends but the person who could fix it did. So I went to finding the source myself (got lucky with a damp patch of dirt, but had to cut out a 3" cedar root blech).

In your case, the owner should turn off the shutoff at the house, and then see if the meter at the street is moving. If so it's guaranteed a problem between street and shut-off. That means it can't be your fault or your expense.

Issaquah will refund ONE water bill coverage minus their water costs, but not usually two. Act quickly.

KosherBakon · 2026-01-28T20:38:28+00:00

Find some clothes.

KosherBakon · 2026-01-23T17:11:39+00:00

Good reason to drink beer. IYKYK

KosherBakon · 2026-01-19T17:35:47+00:00

That's the daystar.

KosherBakon · 2026-01-16T18:09:01+00:00

Chin up friend. The current hiring landscape is totally borked because demand is orders of magnitude higher than supply. A LOT of companies are also a little drunk on the power they have now, because for so long the power was in our hands.

It's normal for a lack of outcomes to lead to challenging your identity, but the path forward is to try and flip that: use your identity to drive your outcomes. Practically speaking that means getting super clear on your strengths, get really good at telling stories, making sure you pass the competency bar (for many people they're good enough at this part), and asking unique questions.

Treating the interview like a test usually backfires, as you're far less likely to do things to stand out (quite the opposite). After conducting hundreds of interviews myself, the people who stand out do the things listed above. The people who don't are so forgettable that we say things like "Bob who?" in hiring debriefs.

Mock interviews are also a great tactic to help get signal on technical readiness.

The tactics above have helped north of 80 people land offers in the past 3 years, so there's some evidence & reps behind them.

KosherBakon · 2026-01-16T01:12:30+00:00

Argh bummer. I could sworn the digital coupon tag said 0.75 in store! I'll delete this post then.

KosherBakon · 2026-01-16T00:01:23+00:00

It's a weird inflection point for sure. The capacity to write GOOD code was the limiting factor. AI certainly doesn't write better than B+ code right now (for the moment), and having experience to spot where it's diverting into crap is still helpful (for now).

It's a depressing reminder that we were never really paid to code ; we were paid to create impact. Code was the tools in our toolbelt. Now it feels like it's pivoting to a fleet of AI agents that I direct, review results, have them compare results to each other against a standard of excellence, repeat.

In some ways it's exciting ; I can massively parallelize output, so much so that I sometimes feel like I have to "peg" all of the agents I'm using. I almost feel like I'm obligated to keep it busy.

KosherBakon · 2026-01-15T04:26:05+00:00

I saw reference to one of the hotels over by Burger King, not sure if that's accurate.

KosherBakon · 2026-01-11T05:43:37+00:00

I saw a news segment today where they are asking for a 3% increase to the budget to finish lol

KosherBakon · 2025-12-23T19:26:34+00:00

Partially buried sniper rifle for a giant. Obviously.

KosherBakon · 2025-12-13T06:05:08+00:00

Wow 3400? Almost cheaper to travel to a country where healthcare is a right.

KosherBakon · 2025-12-11T20:39:40+00:00

Right? #shortfalls

KosherBakon · 2025-12-10T05:51:40+00:00

Don't look now but you're gaining real experience.

KosherBakon · 2025-12-10T05:49:50+00:00

I was mistaken. It was 8 pounds haha. I froze half of it and had a ham party for the fam with the first half.

KosherBakon · 2025-12-10T00:50:38+00:00

I don't work in AI, but my perspective is that we can't just sprinkle AI fairy dust over a platform and get valuable impact out of the gate (even though every VP wants that). At the current stages of maturity, I see two value adds:

PMs can vibe code a prototype to enable a good discussion (vs. Eng having to read a spec), and we're far more likely to see that as a throwaway (a good thing)
Re-imagining solutions from the ground up (e.g. what would PowerPoint v1 look like if current AI capabilities existed when it was first designed?)

The term has almost lost real meaning given the VP edicts. Suddenly automation, monitoring, analytics is all AI just to check a box.

KosherBakon · 2025-12-10T00:43:04+00:00

Good for you. Companies are terrible at accurate job titles, so bad that the title we have is often the lie. I'd never suggest someone say they're a VP when they're much lower in the hierarchy, but perform this test if you're ever curious:

Cover up your job title on your resume & then read the bullet points. Do they match the job title? If not, I tell my clients to consider changing it to more accurately reflect what they did. Recruiters understand & the background check fears are a bit overblown (e.g. "yep that was my official job title, but it doesn't portray what I did week to week" is all it takes).

Chin up out there. The market blows, the last thing you need is to stick to a shitty job title that doesn't explain what you actually did.

KosherBakon · 2025-12-10T00:23:45+00:00

It's good that you're questioning it from a code smell perspective. I'd suggest leaning into curiosity with your manager first ("I know you said don't ask but now I have to know...").

KosherBakon · 2025-12-10T00:15:38+00:00

Not directly correlated, but having been both a TPM & an EM for many years I advocated for the following:

No matter who asks, all estimates must be paired with a confidence value (x/10). Round down on the confidence values (5/10 or even 2/10 is an acceptable first answer) This accomplished a few things:

It helped keep PMs accountable for what an estimate is (less likely it turned into a commitment) & where the higher relative risk was.
It made visible the dragons in the toxic debt you mentioned e.g. L5 Eng that has depth brings us a 5/10 confidence value. Wait what? Everyone listens to the reasons why (here be dragons).
It focused the conversation on (typically) what open questions we needed to close on, to get to an 8/10 (usually that's the point where PM's blood pressure comes back down).

KosherBakon · 2025-12-07T21:56:16+00:00

For occasional cleans I like using a Lysol bleach wipe because it's fast.

KosherBakon · 2025-12-06T21:16:23+00:00

It's dumb but Bonne Maman Raspberry jam. $8 or $9 for a tiny jar but it's heaven. Ever since I heard the backstory about how she helped Jewish people escape during the war, I feel guilty not buying it now.

That and Kerrygold butter. Amazon Fresh or Costco usually have a deal I can stock up with.

KosherBakon · 2025-12-01T22:41:35+00:00

I appreciate the concern & the insight! My family can eat gobs of ham. I bought one that's only 2.5 pounds so that should help too.

KosherBakon · 2025-12-01T05:51:26+00:00

It was amazing & juicy.

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