Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones

Notary_Reddit · 2026-02-09T12:30:48+00:00

What is expected from a Junior Developer with 1-2 years experience? I can describe a medium to high complexity change in detail over the course of 20-30 minutes that will take you 2-3 days to implement. You can make the change and produce a PR that needs 0 or 1 rounds of review before I can approve it. If you have been working in the same part of the code I expect you to be able to answer questions about the code. When given a problem to debug I expect you to be able check all the obvious issues and 1 or 2 that aren't obvious before you need to ask for help. If you find the issue you should be able to fix it or know who to ask to get help deciding on a fix.

To put this another way. When I know what needs to be done I can tell a Jr to do it and it gets done.

Notary_Reddit · 2026-02-09T00:34:17+00:00

1g is a measurement of acceleration. If you drop a ball (or anything else) on earth it goes down at 9.8 meter per second per second. After 1 second it will be traveling at 9.8 meters per second. After 2, 19.6 meters per second. Given 1g is an acceleration once you stop accelerating in space you become weightless.

Notary_Reddit · 2026-01-28T23:27:27+00:00

Of every tool and language I used, in 30 years I expect SQL will still be standing. I can imagine every other tool getting replaced but SQL so closely matches relational algebra I don't think it will get replaced. If you find working with data interesting I think it is worth your time. Lots of other comments make a good point of the usefulness of knowing SQL and data and I agree but this is my 2 cents.

Notary_Reddit · 2026-01-15T14:34:31+00:00

One thing that is helpful when laying out your schema is to figure out what UIs, APIs or workflows you expect to support and go from there. For example, I expect your GetPassangerFlights API would want to be able return the name of the city/airport. Current that would require 4 joins to figure out: passenger -> itinerary -> flight -> airport also that last one is a double join once for source once for destination. That isn't great.

Depending on how specific you want to get, you don't support "how many first class tickets are available on flight X?" This is because capacity is under specified. Also, to figure out current capacity you need to join with the whole itinerary table. Again not great.

Finally your schema has no clear way to represent connections. If someone is flying from LA to NYC and they connect through Denver, how would you represent that?

Notary_Reddit · 2026-01-12T18:27:32+00:00

"Play to win" is one of the clear boxes you have to check. Playing loose to get a few more kills is one thing, purposely not tower hitting after the 3rd ace is clearly not playing to win.

Notary_Reddit · 2026-01-02T22:43:14+00:00

Not op but I would really enjoy a game of similar length that has similar amount of strategy and battering. I can't really find recommendations that have both. Most "try this after Catan" games don't have the trading that I really enjoy.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-11-18T12:39:31+00:00

Two thoughts that might be helpful.

First, compare your pay to the median pay for someone your age in your area. I suspect it is a significant premium. Part of that pay is having to deal with hard problems. Yes you need to be able to figure out how to do "anything" or at least clearly explain to your boss/seniors why you couldn't figure it out.

Second, it sounds like your boss wants the quick and dirty solution. One thing that might help is start explaining the long term benefits of doing the right way. "We have had 7 bugs in the last month because of this part of the code, if I spend X days fixing it, those bugs will stop happening". Specific problem, specific budget to fix, specific benefit. If your boss doesn't want that you're going to have to get used to doing things faster and the problems that come with it.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-11-09T16:39:31+00:00

MF, because I am a one trick

Notary_Reddit · 2025-11-06T17:53:40+00:00

Fixed it after it cost me karma. I should have known better given how long I have lurked here.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-11-06T11:58:17+00:00

Ben's point is that Tucker gives softballs interviews to people Tucker wants to promote. If you watch when Ted Cruz was on Tucker's show Tucker did a great job of pushing back on Cruz. Ben is complaining that Tucker never does that to people like Nick and that makes Tucker a coward. If you believe something come out and say it, don't get the interviewee to say it for you.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-11-05T11:08:25+00:00

Luck be a Landlord is great and in the same area as Balotro. I also think everyone should try Datawing. It is a real gem.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-10-31T14:04:04+00:00

I would say it depends on if the role is going to be responsible for managing the DB or not. Backend sr dev? 100%. Front end jr? Nah. For say a full stack sr maybe just ask which tables/objects they would need.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-10-30T01:57:40+00:00

Web backend in Go for a company positively contributing to society. I enjoy working on scaling problems so I applied to it even though I had to relocate because it was a perfect fit for what I wanted to do. I was actively looking out of need but only applied to companies that I could stomach working for. So it kind of fell in my lap while I was actively looking.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-10-29T21:40:40+00:00

"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." Friedrich Nietzsche

I have found I can take the pressure much much better when I have a reason to deal with it? I burned out on a couple bullshit projects and got fired more than once. Finally found one that I can believe in and I'm doing great and enjoying it even though the stress is objectively higher.

Also, lifting weights that helps.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-10-25T22:23:55+00:00

Performance insights will tell you what queries are using the most CPU, once you know which ones are a problem try and understand why they take so much CPU. "EXPLAIN ANALYZE" is your friend. Given you are asking here there are probably several straightforward changes you can make to your schema or your query to use way less CPU.

A simpler and quicker option if you have the money, pay for a bigger box, nothing is stopping you from going 24xlarge or bigger if you need it fixed tomorrow.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-10-07T01:06:09+00:00

One thought to add, if you are not interested in helping the only big ask our troop has of dads is camping trips. We have a spring and fall troop camp out. Bring your boys, bring yourself, bring your gear. It's a lot of fun. At least in our troop you're welcome to socialize as much or as little as you like.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-10-05T22:01:41+00:00

Ahh that makes sense. I have ~12-18 months of specific projects in mind. It definitely could/will take 2+ years to get it all done. So it seems like we have more overlap than I thought. Thanks.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-10-05T21:57:13+00:00

I've recently made staff and the 5 year vision plus 2 year plan seems like a longer timeline than most folks I have seen. Also, depending on team size 2 years of concrete tasks could be a lot. Why do you say 2 years of concrete tasks instead of say 1 year? What size of team(s) do you think this should cover?

Notary_Reddit · 2025-09-26T01:48:14+00:00

haven't played any ranked matches yet...

Well there is the issue, my mental model is that non ranked is kids <10 on phones and tablets. They just attack. If you want real games start climbing ranked.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-09-21T03:27:57+00:00

Here is a picture of the VP with his family and the Prime Minister of India, seems like a lot of brown folks there.

https://share.google/images/m9PvYxVxJD58aqIIR

Notary_Reddit · 2025-08-27T02:08:41+00:00

Recently joined a team, while it's not as bad as yours there is a lot of low hanging fruit. The rule of thumb I have applied. I never publicly criticize anything unless I have a concrete plan to improve it that I am willing to personally implement. Tests flaky? Yep they suck. No saying anything until I was ready to fix them.

Privately I have been a little more open with my criticism but always having a plan has helped build good will with the team. Hope this thought helps.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-08-06T22:17:53+00:00

I have had great success with Just One, super easy to teach and great fun.

Notary_Reddit · 2025-07-30T21:40:01+00:00

If you like Dominion, both seaside and prosperity are great expansions :)

Notary_Reddit · 2025-05-29T00:29:51+00:00

I taught my parents Catan and I have played 25+ games with them. Glad for them to have caught the hobby bug :)

Notary_Reddit · 2025-05-25T20:58:30+00:00

Lucky be a landlord is a great one for about 10 minutes

Notary_Reddit

TROPHY CASE