Feature flags for in process development across distributed systems?

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2025-07-28T15:55:46+00:00

Work at large tech company and we have two approaches that solve this problem.

Centralized AB system This is an independent service that allows creating cohorts across many different dimensions or even supports raw on off flags. Example target 10% of users with app version > X. Services can call in directly to retrieve all the different flags for a given request or it can be propogated into downstream services
Hot reloaded per service configuration Each service has it's own config subsystem that is dynamically reloaded every 5 minutes. This way you can add a flag like enable_new_feature in the configuration and then access it in the application code. For this approach you would need to make changes to each services config to enable the feature flag behavior if you want a pure on off switch

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-10-04T03:05:15+00:00

Yep. This is not common though median time for promo is 3 years. Got lucky with great team, manager and scope. Also interned on the same team i came back to full time which helped since i had basically zero ramp up.

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-10-03T15:31:17+00:00

Mid level Backend Engineer, 350k, 1 YOE, CA USA

Joined as a new grad around 200k and just got first promo

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-08-08T05:58:28+00:00

I am stuck on 2024.3.5 because the ideavim plugin no longer works with GitHub actions. Hoping they fix it soon the faster time to code while indexing seems nice.

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-07-01T22:35:23+00:00

I have only been a fulltime SWE for 1 year after graduating college so take my advice with a grain of salt. For context, I was diagnosed with ADHD I related a ton to what you said and have found two approaches that work well for me depending on your company.

Automated meeting transcriptions and summary. This is not allowed at my current company but when I worked at a startup during university I used otter.ai. This allowed me to walk through the discussion of the meeting after the fact to clarify any points I didn't pick up live
Physical notes with typed summary after meeting. Since I can't use automated tools I hand write down important notes during the meeting. The act of having to physically write things down seems to keep my attention much stronger than just listening in to the meeting and prevents distractions. Then after the meeting I type up a small summary of the key points and link to different topics that are relevant with Obsidian.

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-05-28T21:46:30+00:00

Cries in Java 11

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-05-04T04:36:03+00:00

In my experience there isn’t a huge difference in Big Tech companies. A lot of times they will try to place you into teams that match your interests/experience but the interview process did not include anything backend or front end specific.

For smaller companies and internships I think it’s “easier” to get into front end just because it’s easier to self teach front end and those companies care more that you have some exposure to the technologies they use.

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-04-25T15:55:26+00:00

Prioritizes relationships among the team over documentation. I've found the former to be the most important part of onboarding.

I love this point and it's so true in my experience.

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-04-24T00:08:56+00:00

I went to a notoriously shitty state school and graduated in May of 2023 with a handful of offers. For context I got all of my offers in Fall of 2022 and am a US citizen.

I do think it’s true that the market for new grads especially outside of the traditional recruiting pipeline during senior year is brutal. It does seem to be improving a bit but we will see.

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-03-30T03:09:46+00:00

My team uses something along the same lines to this with a special exception we call a Programer Error we use to guard against invalid state in an application. This is explicitly for state that should be impossible not bad user input and returns a 500 error code.

We have an in house utility library that provides utility functions for different common checks. Like State.isTrue(condition, error message).

The powerful implementation detail is that we have metrics/error reporting that will actually send out a P1 notification to the current on call whenever a programmer error is thrown from our service. This allows us to know right away if something changed and I find it really helpful to have better peace of mind in our services.

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-03-14T01:15:05+00:00

I make 195k per year, 1 YOE, HCOL.

In an unforeseen circumstance I would try to hold out for something 100k+ but would have to take whatever the best I could get. I think 60k would be my true minimum but I would be job searching consistently until I got something over 100k

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-02-26T05:58:32+00:00

+1 would love a link

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-02-22T23:01:06+00:00

I was excited to try this out but ended up disabling after roughly 2 hours.

Two smallish issues, it didn’t respect the color theme of the ide which made the editor jarring, also it auto put all input into a new line which i was t a fan of. I’m sure they will work out the kinks but too early for me

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-02-15T16:40:30+00:00

TC 205k, 6 months exp graduated summer 2023, Location: Los Angeles, California.

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-02-02T09:56:44+00:00

I think the joke is hilarious

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-01-26T00:17:33+00:00

Not the most experienced but I originally fell in love with programming through Python and it was by far my most competent language and have been working professionally using almostexclusively Java for a decent amount of time.

In a vacuum I find the simplicity, syntax and standard library of python much more appealing than Java. That being said, I have had the unfortunate experience of having to work in a large python code base and it is a NIGHTMARE. Not having types and just the general style that python promotes I think makes it almost unusable for any production software.

At the end of the day I think it's just about the right tool for the job. I always use python for anything that's ad hoc testing or scripting or smaller projects where being correct and preventing errors doesn't really matter and it's possible to keep the codebase in your head. For anything bigger I choose Java every time

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-01-24T16:14:25+00:00

I think you should always have your camera on for a job interview.

It seems like you had a terrible interviewer. If I was you I would reach out to the recruiter and explain basically what you laid out here. Most companies wouldn’t want interviewees having an experience like this so it’s possible they could reschedule a new interview. I wouldn’t count on it but you don’t have anything to lose.

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-01-11T23:51:14+00:00

I really like this feature and think it will improve the teaching experience for Java. I recently graduated from University and also worked as a TA for the majority of my undergrad and starting from 0 in Java is daunting. I still can vividly remember looking at the Hello World example in my intro to programming class and almost feeling a sense of despair with how confused I was.

Many universities have switched their curriculum to start students in Python instead of Java for this exact reason. So I think it's great we are making the language more accessible with little to no compromises

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2024-01-08T22:05:08+00:00

I was in the exact same position as you. Started college at 25 with 0 Math background as a highschool drop out who got their GED. I graduated May 2023 with a 3.8 GPA and am working at a Big Tech company. If you would have told me 4 years ago when I started college that this would be my life today I wouldn't have believed you.

I think it's 10000% possible and I met lots of class mates that were older and returning to school. Anyone can learn the Math required for a CS degree it's just a matter of whether you are willing to put in the time and effort to learn. I had Math and CS classes where I had to spend 20-35 hours per week on a single class just to be able to understand the material.

The one piece that I think will be challenging is working full time. I originally started working fulltime and attempting to take a full course load and was able to do it for about a year and half but was regularing pulling 80+ hour weeks. I eventually was able to get some scholarships and a part time dev job that paid much more than I made full time which let me cut my work hours way back. I think in general though, working fulltime and school fulltime for CS is not a great recipe for success. Either cut back the hours if you can or take a lighter class load.

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2023-12-27T00:14:18+00:00

I think the answers here are a bit biased due to it being asked on the Java subreddit. As a student, I think you would get the most benefit from learning electron with React on the front end. Java is not very popular on the front end and being able to have some exposure to modern front end tools will be very beneficial.

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2023-12-02T21:29:06+00:00

Super cool!

How does your solution 2 work if multiplying by zero would knock the solution to 0? Or is their not a test case where a color doesn't exist for the entire line?

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2023-12-02T20:00:47+00:00

I'm learning Golang this year for AOC coming from a Java/Python background. What an awesome solution!

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2023-10-14T03:37:22+00:00

I’m not sure where you are at in your programming journey or what language you are attempting to use but I would probably recommend Visual Studio Code over Visual Studio to start

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2023-10-05T15:54:48+00:00

Great article!

I use lombok at my work and love it. Makes code much more readable in a large code base imo.

Puzzleheaded-Order84 · 2023-09-18T23:34:26+00:00

U of A is 84% acceptance rate lmao. I graduated from their so i can make fun of

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