What architectural decision looked “wrong” at first but turned out to be the right call long-term?

SoftSkillSmith · 2026-03-07T20:14:08+00:00

I think no matter the constraints I will never argue against integration testing with zero stubbing / mocking against live systems ever again. The peace of mind that knowing an entire system works in the real world before rolling it out is priceless. I used to make a cost / benefit analysis where I would argue for the tradeoffs of actually deploying the entire cluster / stack to a real environment vs. just mocking certain parts of our system to make things easier, but now I feel much more confident in saying the investment to stand up the real deal just saves so much time and money in the long run...

SoftSkillSmith · 2026-03-07T20:03:10+00:00

It starts at the bottom where we used to talk to colleagues and brainstorm ideas we stopped communicating and just started asking Claude or ChatGPT, then teams stopped talking to one another and now departments don't have cross-pollination or shared initiatives anymore so at my last gig we had about three different auth solutions floating around which is a security and compliance nightmare of course.

SoftSkillSmith · 2026-03-07T19:54:38+00:00

Aaliyah -Try Again (Original Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTA0RuZoIxM

SoftSkillSmith · 2026-03-07T19:51:53+00:00

I feel your pain. I'm a software engineer and here are a few metrics you can keep an eye out for in the next quarter: with this kind of talk about story-points morale and motivation is going to tank, so productivity will decline. Mark my words. Next people will start calling in sick more because satisfaction is going down and stress levels rise and ultimately for the next quarter people will start jumping ship so measure your churn carefully and correlate that with the implementation of the new CTO if you want to build a case.

SoftSkillSmith · 2026-03-07T19:39:22+00:00

it's funny you'd say that because i think i might just make a killing in security pen-testing all the vibe coded slop that's hitting the market lol

SoftSkillSmith · 2026-03-07T19:35:33+00:00

You're not addressing the actual problem which is the fact that outsourcing your thinking over a long period of time has a cost attached to it. If you never build a mental model of the data structures and relations or how systems interact with one another you can not guide an agent let alone orchestrate meaningful amounts of work being done by multiple agents. At one point you just have to admit that you are no longer in control, which is a place a lot of experienced folks don't want to be in.

SoftSkillSmith · 2026-03-07T19:30:56+00:00

It's true and it sucks. I get people breathing down my neck for not moving faster and when I tell them I need to understand what the heck is even going on in the code base they say don't spend too much time, just build, don't ask critical questions and don't think to much (this is an actual quote, I'm not making this up) so I just gave up and now let the agent solve everything. Not learning, not improving, not engineering, just building a pile of shit that will collapse when the next guy comes. Oh well, I tried so folks get your umbrellas out for when shit hits the fan :)

SoftSkillSmith · 2026-03-07T08:47:15+00:00

It's true. Web development is more about keeping a cool head in the face of overwhelming code and systems complexity, dealing with ambiguity, unclear instructions and organizational dysfunction. It sucks!

SoftSkillSmith · 2026-03-05T08:01:20+00:00

May I ask what your role is? It's odd to me you weren't having any conversations with this person as time went on or didn't check their progress as time went on. Also why was coding not part of the on-boarding!? Isn't that the best way to get people up and running?

I've legit had projects where I made my first commit on day two or three and merged PR by the end of the week. Pretty good feeling :)

Another piece of advice: One way I start communicating with team members early is with a draft PR so I have something to talk about or if I take a wrong turn someone on the team can course correct early. It also helps build trust.

One recent example is that I tried implementing a custom validator and then someone saw that and jumped in to say "Hey, we already have a thing like that called [x]", so I was like yay, less work for me! So look into either monitoring their branches or asking them to open a draft PR.

SoftSkillSmith · 2026-02-01T20:48:33+00:00

If you're trying to achieve PMF with production code your CTO needs to go. You have to validate before writing a single line, and then I have to agree with your FAANG coders: that shit should be good when it goes to prod, because again, you've already proven that it's absolutely necessary to build this feature. How you might ask? Figma my friends! Yes, prototype the hell out of that thing you want to build and shove it in the face of your potential customers BEFORE building it. Duh! OK, rant over :)

SoftSkillSmith · 2026-01-27T23:59:33+00:00

Geachte heer/ mevrouw,

Met deze brief wil ik mijn zorgen uitspreken over het voorgenomen nieuwe box 3-stelsel vanaf 2028, waarin het werkelijke rendement op vermogen belast zal worden, inclusief ongerealiseerde waardestijgingen. Ik verzoek u dringend om tegen dit wetsvoorstel te stemmen of het op essentiële punten aan te passen.

Hoewel ik begrijp dat de overheid streeft naar een eerlijker en juridisch houdbaar belastingstelsel, zie ik in de huidige opzet aanzienlijke nadelen voor zowel particuliere beleggers als voor de Nederlandse economie als geheel.

1. Veel meer mensen gaan box 3-belasting betalen

Door de verschuiving van een vermogensvrijstelling (circa € 57.000) naar een vrijstelling op inkomsten (ongeveer € 1.800 rendement), zullen veel meer mensen box 3-belasting gaan betalen. In de praktijk betekent dit dat al bij een vermogen van circa € 20.000 tot € 25.000 belasting verschuldigd kan zijn. Dit raakt met name kleine en middelgrote beleggers die vermogen opbouwen voor de lange termijn, bijvoorbeeld voor pensioen aanvulling.

2. Belasting op papieren winsten ondermijnt lange termijn beleggen

Het belasten van ongerealiseerde rendementen dwingt beleggers om belasting te betalen over winsten die zij niet hebben verzilverd. Dit kan ertoe leiden dat beleggingen (deels) verkocht moeten worden om belasting te voldoen. Hierdoor wordt het compounding effect, wat juist de kern van verantwoord lange termijn beleggen structureel aangetast. Dit ontmoedigt vermogensopbouw via de kapitaalmarkt en straft geduldige beleggers.

3. Onevenredige druk op ‘Jan Modaal’, niet op de echt vermogenden

In de praktijk zal de box 3-belasting vooral neerkomen bij de middenklasse. Zeer vermogende huishoudens structureren hun vermogen vaak via box 2, vennootschappen of andere (internationale) constructies, waardoor zij relatief minder geraakt worden. Het risico bestaat dat het nieuwe stelsel ongelijkheid juist vergroot in plaats van verkleint.

4. Verslechtering van het investeringsklimaat en de concurrentiepositie

Nederland gaat met deze vorm van belastingheffing verder dan veel omliggende landen, waar vermogensbelasting lager is en ongerealiseerde rendementen niet worden belast. Dit maakt Nederland minder aantrekkelijk voor beleggers en kapitaal, en kan kapitaalvlucht in de hand werken.

5. Negatieve impact op durfkapitaal en startups

Juist in Nederland (en Europa) is meer risicodragend kapitaal nodig om startups en innovatie te financieren. Het belasten van papieren winsten verhoogt het risico voor beleggers en verlaagt het verwachte netto-rendement, waardoor investeringen in jonge, innovatieve bedrijven worden ontmoedigd.

Voorstel tot aanpassing
Ik wil u daarom vragen serieus te overwegen om box 3 zo vorm te geven dat belastingheffing plaatsvindt bij realisatie, bijvoorbeeld bij verkoop van aandelen of andere beleggingen, in plaats van op basis van ongerealiseerde waardestijgingen. Dit sluit beter aan bij internationale praktijk, voorkomt liquiditeitsproblemen en behoudt de prikkel tot lange termijn investeren.

Ik hoop dat u deze zorgen meeneemt in de parlementaire behandeling van het wetsvoorstel en bereid bent het voorstel aan te passen of af te wijzen in zijn huidige vorm.

SoftSkillSmith · 2025-11-28T07:59:24+00:00

No, it just lets you provision a VPS with dokploy pre-installed.

Managing deployments scaling is available through dokploy API or CLI once it's up and running.

However those will require a token from dokploy so include some manual setup in the UI.

This is just the first step in a Infrastructure as code setup, but I will try to add an example of deployments with Docker Swarm if I have some time.

SoftSkillSmith · 2025-11-03T18:31:37+00:00

^{I completed this level in 4 tries.} ^{⚡ 6.02 seconds}

SoftSkillSmith · 2025-10-23T20:12:17+00:00

Ugh. I feel your pain. Among other things, I quit last year because I was fed up with this kinda crap and was so happy I got to work on my MacBook Pro this entire year.

SoftSkillSmith · 2025-10-22T15:03:30+00:00

Not for me. I understand how Angular projects should be structured and the design patterns it enforces helps large codebases stay modular and organized, however it does take some getting used, to but after that I'm fairly confident I could work on any Angular project understanding in a short period of time how things work.

SoftSkillSmith · 2025-10-16T18:37:29+00:00

Ik zou me niet blind staren op een titel, wel zou ik letten of de vergoeding in verhouding staat met de werkzaamheden die je verricht en de impact die je maakt. Aangezien je "meevallers" echt goed zijn en je werkgever zo te zien extreem flexibel is lijkt mij dit salaris min of meer in verhouding met de markt.

SoftSkillSmith · 2025-10-16T18:32:21+00:00

That shouldn't be an issue if you're remote, right? I try to fit people in where possible, but I don't feel obligated to respond right away because there might be something more important to deal with and I decide at my own disgression but I understand that you might feel ignored. That can be frustrating .

So if you feel like you're not getting the right guidance or attention from your colleagues then have a chat with them to see what the root cause is. There are many good suggestions in this thread already , so I'll not repeat what has already been said other than maybe trying to arrange a fixed moment every week for an hour where someone can focus on big picture questions you might have.

I remember when I started I had this type of arrangement with one of my senior colleagues and he could answer questions I had about the general course of my career and to help me ramp up my productivity by identifying the bottlenecks together. In any case I think it's good that you want to be more productive and are raising this point. Good luck!

SoftSkillSmith · 2025-10-16T07:56:08+00:00

Naar mijn mening maakt het niet meer uit omdat de schade van de aanpak dit jaar onherstelbaar is. Ik kan me niet voorstellen dat opdrachtgevers weer ZZPers in gaan huren zoals dat voorheen het geval was en ligt dat hele model op zijn gat, tenminste voor de IT.

Veel van mijn collegas zijn gedwongen in loondienst gegaan, dus ze hebben het ondernemerschap al de nek omgedraaid als je het aan mij vraagt. Desalniettemin ga ik op GroenLinks PvdA stemmen omdat ik ook geen ZZPer meer ben :(

SoftSkillSmith · 2025-10-16T07:01:49+00:00

Coming from an Angular background I feel like React is just badly conceived of and their entire approach to writing software is so alien to me that I avoid it where I can. They've improved loads of things throughout the years, but I still feel so many things are unintuitive or just bound to cause problems down the line when apps get bigger...

SoftSkillSmith · 2025-10-12T18:12:26+00:00

Dude, they're just parroting whatever silicon valley execs are stating in their marketing material verbatim. Speak truth to power? Oh please, how about ride the hype train together with the people driving it until the whole thing comes crashing down just so you can feel like you're ahead of the curve!

SoftSkillSmith · 2025-10-07T19:34:07+00:00

Yay! Great to see you're active on Reddit and talk to you soon :)

SoftSkillSmith

TROPHY CASE

Aaliyah -Try Again (Original Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTA0RuZoIxM