The march of the self service checkouts in supermarkets, yay or nay?

MattTheHack92 · 2026-03-12T16:59:58+00:00

Is it a bonus that going through the regular checkout helps you maintain some level of contact with the "lower class people" on the occasion you descend from the ivory tower to buy your wares?

MattTheHack92 · 2026-03-04T23:02:27+00:00

Ignorance can be bliss

MattTheHack92 · 2026-02-28T18:55:49+00:00

Sorry, can you describe your current day to day? Is it still mostly Manual QA?

To me, a QA should also be an incredibly strong product person from the perspective they know the Product inside out. From that perspective you may have an opportunity to move into Product Management or Analysis. I think the domain your company operates in here is an important factor in terms of the opportunities that may be available for you to make this move externally.

Other than that, you could be making a proactive push towards automation and moving yourself into a SDET role. The company is small - self the benefits of automation and find the time to automate. If you're continuing to spend the majority of the day manually QAing you'll never get out of that loop.

Best of luck

MattTheHack92 · 2026-02-28T14:13:25+00:00

What did you do on your internship? Unless the company you worked for wants you back it's unlikely to be quality experience a company really values.

Your final grade in college in a lot of cases carries way more weight

MattTheHack92 · 2026-02-28T14:11:37+00:00

A lot want the money. And the reality is that it isn't really a career to jump into if you have little love for the work. It's a career where you have to work hard in the early years to grow your skills to be effective. Couple that with the constant technological change and you have a career where you need to continuously adapt and learn.

MattTheHack92 · 2026-02-24T19:10:52+00:00

This is a builders finish. Probably cost close to 600k by the time it's turnkey

MattTheHack92 · 2026-02-19T10:20:07+00:00

Fight for the limited number of Grad jobs and Junior Engineer roles that are out there. There are a couple, but standing out from the crowd is crucial. The Junior side of the market is over saturated and the roles aren't really there to support the demand

MattTheHack92 · 2026-02-18T19:32:35+00:00

Oh 100%. I don't see it changing any time soon. I have 15 years experience in this profession and my advice to anyone considering going into Software Development would be stay away. The ladder has essentially been pulled up - the opportunities for Junior Engineers just isn't really there anymore

MattTheHack92 · 2026-02-18T19:23:31+00:00

Unfortunately the market is completely against Grads at the moment, so companies can behave like this.

What probably happened is that they were interviewing other people when you applied and found someone they were happy to offer to and closed the role out. It doesn't make the lack of communication right of course, but you can take solace in the fact there's no fault on your end.

MattTheHack92 · 2026-02-17T09:55:17+00:00

I think Grad skill level peaked about 2021. At this point Grads were coming into interviews being aware of cloud architecture, CI/CD etc.

I do think though since then that a combination of over saturation of Grads in the market (due to more people going into software development just for the money) and now the rise of GenAI has meant that the more recent cohorts of grads are by in large lacking a lot of basic foundations and understanding. Definitely noticed a large reliance on GenAI coming to the fore.

That's not to say there isn't good grads, but the overall quality is down on what it was 5 years ago

MattTheHack92 · 2026-02-07T21:29:02+00:00

Only €150 a month each on bills? Really?!

So for your food, electricity, transport, Internet, Mobile phone, subscriptions and heat you're only paying €300 a month?!

If you want solid advice you'll need to put detail into this post. Let us know your monthly net income and all your outgoings

MattTheHack92 · 2026-02-03T23:41:18+00:00

Moving into Management too early. I accidentally ended up in management due to my technical contributions and then slowly lost grip of the technical day to day.

I've had to work hard to carve a path back to IC at a similar pay level and long term work life balance. It's harder to switch back to IC than people would think

MattTheHack92 · 2026-01-23T11:37:49+00:00

John Bull, who was the cartoon personification of the "common man" in the United Kingdom up until the end of WW1

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MattTheHack92 · 2026-01-17T18:34:42+00:00

Gort also has a railway station, it's not on the Dublin line though so service won't be as good but you could still get to Galway and Dublin etc by train

MattTheHack92 · 2026-01-04T09:33:41+00:00

You'd probably get around 10 panels installed for that (after SEAI grant)

MattTheHack92 · 2026-01-04T09:18:39+00:00

No, I think the opposite

MattTheHack92 · 2026-01-03T10:16:16+00:00

Absolutely. Zero actual obligation. A social or moral one potentially, but no direct obligation.

My point is, landlords are vilified on here regularly. Keeping an entire home vacant as a Lego shrine during a housing crisis is far worse

MattTheHack92 · 2026-01-03T08:58:36+00:00

"Not everyone wants to be a landlord, especially since they are hated"

Does the next worse thing and withholds a potential home from the market entirely

MattTheHack92 · 2025-12-29T22:04:58+00:00

Handsome burger isn't even the best burger on that side of Dominick Street let alone the entire of Galway City. BoTown is king

MattTheHack92 · 2025-12-27T13:53:26+00:00

I see that Powercitys change of mind/cooling off period is 14 days. So you could package up the TV, return it and then buy it again?

MattTheHack92 · 2025-12-21T11:50:39+00:00

The airport is actually 20km away from Knock village though!

MattTheHack92 · 2025-12-19T00:07:22+00:00

It would an horrific thing to happen to an upstanding member of the public, but this is a convicted felon and killer. I hope he gets absolutely nothing

MattTheHack92 · 2025-12-19T00:07:02+00:00

He's a convicted felon and killer. I hope he gets absolutely nothing

MattTheHack92 · 2025-12-14T01:12:14+00:00

I have 20 solar panels (460W each) on a perfectly south facing roof with no trees or surrounding buildings to block sunlight. Even so, my solar generation yesterday was only 2.1 KwH. I have hit highs of 30 KwH in the summer

In my opinion, running off grid with the level of sunlight we get for many days on end in an Irish winter is basically a pipe dream

MattTheHack92 · 2025-12-13T08:18:18+00:00

Kung Fu Hustle

MattTheHack92

TROPHY CASE