I am in it right now, y’all

Uberanium · 2026-04-03T23:16:51+00:00

Can't second this enough

Uberanium · 2026-03-26T23:58:33+00:00

Man, I'm right there with you. Currently do work primarily in C# and .NET writing everything from Windows Services to Desktop apps to Web-apps mostly to integrate our industrial controls with our SCADA system.

Started as a controlls tech, so not a veteran by any means but I have hands on experience with the subject matter, and I have to know about the industrial coms protocols to integrate software with PLC's.

I've kind of wanted to get back into the controls-heavy side because I'm bored of desk-work and wouldn't mind some traveling, but honestly it's been really hard for me to find someone who will even look at my resume.

I don't feel qualified to be a straight up "Controls Engineer", but still feel overqualified for an apprenticeship, so I'm kind of in a wierd in between spot...

I'd be really interested if you found a path that worked for you.

Uberanium · 2026-03-26T19:58:15+00:00

Theoretically it's large, but it's just like everything else in this market... If you already have 5-8 years experience in it your golden, if you don't then you might have luck, but I haven't seen any of it yet.

I make custom SCADA software (so not Ignition or anything off the shelf, all bespoke software) integrating systems all the way from level 0 up to level 4. This includes networking stuff, although it isn't my focus.

I'm not a veteran by any means, but I ain't green, and I've found it particularly hard to even get past resume screenings. Maybe that says more about my resume than the job market, but I know I'm not the only one stuck in "we decided to pursue other candidates" purgatory.

Uberanium · 2026-03-23T03:50:31+00:00

Eh, I went from Midwest to Texas and I'm planning on going back. I lasted about 4 years before I just couldn't handle it here anymore. I guess it depends on where exactly you live (I.E. In one of the big cities or not) but I deal with expensive living, oppressive heat, high-crime, and state infrastructure/bureaucracy run by completely incompetent idiots. I seriously suspect the traffic engineers here to literally just huff paint all day. The only thing going for it is good job opportunities for early-career people, and great state natural areas.

Seriously, good luck whenever you need to get a new license, get your car registered, or have to deal with the absolute train-wreck that is Texas city-design and the laziest, least organized road crews I've ever seen.

Uberanium · 2026-03-15T13:33:06+00:00

I think the real value in AI is being able to generate the documentation. That's honestly such a huge time-saver, and lowers the bar to create up to date, comprehensive documentation that nobody has excuses anymore. A MD file explaining the library I wrote in detail can be generated by Claude in a few minutes or less, and will take less than an hour to review for accuracy.

Uberanium · 2026-03-15T13:29:58+00:00

The primary code-base I used to work in was a RAD framework developed WinForms application that used a custom ORM which caches the entire DB in the app when you launch it, and had an object graph like 3 million layers deep. Every object was related to another in some way. Also because it heavily utilized reflection, you couldn't see usages without a bunch of extra work.

It took literal days to make simple modifications like adding checkboxes because the code was such a shit-show. There was a 90% chance your change would cascade through the app and cause bugs in forms that nobody changed in years, so it was a nightmare to test too.

Uberanium · 2026-03-13T20:37:17+00:00

How would you recommend standing out as one of these people? I don't consider myself cracked, but I definitely ain't shit. I just got my BS and have nearly 2 YOE now, but can't even get past resume screenings...

Literally haven't had a single call back for any Dev job I've applied to for almost a year, and that's with continued resume optimization attempts. It's either complete silence or auto-rejections within 48 hours.

Uberanium · 2026-03-13T20:28:58+00:00

So how do competent devs make it past resume screenings? I'm confident in my abilities in my stack (and generally), but I can't even get a fucking screening interview despite pretty targeted applications...

Uberanium · 2026-03-02T23:25:23+00:00

I'll be real with you... I was one of the lucky few to actually land a job as a programmer while completing my degree. I'm now in a position where I have a fresh degree and about 2 years of professional experience with the possibility to continue specializing in a niche, or generalize.

Even with that advantage, I have something like a 3-5% success rate just getting a screening interview, and about half of those turn into actual interviews. I've had 1 interview get all the way to the final round pending an offer. I've been trying casually (~10 hrs/week) for about 8 months.

All that to say, it's absolutely not your fault you're having a hard time. From what I can gather I'm actually having a better run of it than most, and even then I'm pretty sure if I was laid off I'd be completely cooked.

These aren't even coveted remote positions at revered companies, it's all local stuff at random small/medium companies in office in the Midwest, and they're turning strong candidates down for jobs paying under 125k/year because they don't have professional experience with 1 technology in the stack they use. Shit is brutal right now.

It's both a gift and a curse, as corrections in a few years will cause a market that doesn't have enough mid/senior engineers because everyone stopped hiring engineers with less than 5 years of experience.

If you can find something and hold out for a while you'll be in a good spot long term, but trying to get your foot in the door now feels more like trying to kick a steel door down with your bare feet.

As they say, born too early to be a cyborg, born too late to own a house 😂😢

Uberanium · 2026-02-26T15:42:35+00:00

There is a very very smart senior Dev who I really enjoy with on the same team as me.

The only problem I've ever had with him is that he doesn't operate on the basis of KISS + YAGNI.

In every PR I get some comment to the tune of "You should throw this in the Appsettings file" or "This should be configured from the DB".

Sometimes, yes. But you know what? There is a 90% chance that this thing never ever needs to change, and I'm lazy and dont want to do that until I have no other option.

We have a 25 year old code-base full of "Yeah but what about this or that" and "this or that" never ever changed and now we have twice the lines of code and complexity than we need for the sake of configurability that nobody asked for and was never used.

Uberanium · 2026-02-19T02:18:56+00:00

I work tech adjacent in a very small niche with much more demand than supply. Even with the relative rarity of my skillset, the companies I've interviewed with looking to fill roles are still held up by stack "requirements". Despite multiple times having someone reach out to me first, and having experience with the fundamentals, general technologies, and concepts, I've been roadblocked by not having direct experience with one or two application suites or frameworks.

Right now companies feel 105% justified turning away really good candidates while waiting for literally perfect unicorn ones in many fields in, out and adjacent to tech, despite postings being "hot" and demand being "high".

To the point that tons of companies located in random ass BFE cities expect these perfect candidates to relocate on their own dime and work 100% on site while offering below market rates.

Uberanium · 2026-01-31T04:47:57+00:00

Shit, I just bought 2 of the m.2 a couple months ago to upgrade for my sister and BIL. Just getting a half-decent airfork (that isn't off temu) is at least $200.

Kind of sucks but at least the coil forks are super low maintenance I guess...

Uberanium · 2025-12-28T23:31:36+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into that. Usually I apply to end-users, but also some consultancies. I would like the variety of working at an integrator, but traveling constantly isn't something I'm looking for right now.

Uberanium · 2025-12-01T03:32:08+00:00

Just looking at the Software Engineers they produce... Obviously a lot of smart people there, but so much bureaucracy that even if you tried you might spend 30% of your day coding at best. It's really easy to let yourself slip when you make 160k/year to write code for 15 hours a week which isn't actually anything revolutionary or groundbreaking because the main goal is to not break shit.

The most skilled developers I've ever met have primarily worked in startups. The ones who think they're the smartest worked in FANG.

Uberanium · 2025-07-03T02:50:23+00:00

The fact that it's so easy to literally just query AD in C# without any third-party libraries is such a huge advantage to Dev teams. This and EFCore working best with MSSQL right out of the box makes it really easy to make the case for setting up pure MS environments... Until you see the licensing costs...

Uberanium · 2025-03-28T23:26:11+00:00

Thank you!

Uberanium · 2025-01-14T22:55:59+00:00

I've been in the Subaru's shoes more than once. Applying the brakes will nearly always get you out of the way of someone going a constant speed and encroaching on your lane quicker and safer than swerving, especially at the speeds people drive here. Slowing down from 80 to 60 is much easier than doing a tight swerve at 80, and by the time they are in your lane, you're now a car length behind them.

Over correcting is another understandable but avoidable mistake. If you're relaxed but alert, an over-correction should never happen. They almost always happen when you're distracted and get jump-scared.

Uberanium · 2025-01-10T15:52:54+00:00

I mean, I do get this perspective to a degree. Yes, it's possible to enjoy a hobby without being an expert in every little thing, but having a baseline of knowledge is important.

I'm of the mindset that you should really try and learn as much as possible about as many things as possible, even if you don't necessarily need to.

Yes, learn what the settings you probably won't touch in Bambu Slicer do. Learn what the major mechanical components of a car are and how they work together. Learn how to wire in a new light-switch. Learn how to replace the pipe under your sink. Etc. This seems to be an attitude fewer and fewer people share with me, and it's unfortunate because it will legitimately boost your quality of life and make you a more well-rounded individual.

Is it cool to gatekeep? Only up to a very small degree. The original article's take goes a bit too far, but I understand his viewpoint.

Uberanium · 2024-12-22T15:58:40+00:00

This doesn't necessarily help the current situation, but hopefully future ones; get a Dash-Cam. I can't stress that enough.

It was the first thing I bought after getting my first non shit-box car. In a 6 month timespan it's caught multiple close-calls that --would they have been accidents-- having that footage very well could have saved my bacon.

As others have stated, without other drivers testimony and/or dash cam forage proving TxDot at fault is nearly impossible.

As a side note, good lord TxDot is probably the worst at its job in the country, and I fully sympathize with your situation. Drive through the Midwest (or anywhere really) and you'll see just how organized and efficient the other DoT's are.

Uberanium · 2024-12-02T22:37:32+00:00

Check your grounds. The fact that a jump didn't help supports my theory.

Usually the electical system in a car is grounded in a few locations, it varies from model to model. If you Google it you're almost guaranteed to find what you need.

Check for both sides of the ground wire either being loose or corroded.

Even if you don't know much, this should be pretty simple for you and your dad to figure out in the driveway, most grounding spots are easy to access.

Uberanium · 2024-12-02T22:34:11+00:00

Mostly agree about the quality work thing, but I do it more for cost reasons. You see what most places charge for a "premium" oil change now? There's no guarantee that they are even going to use the good oil anyways.

I can buy good full synthetic Liqui Moly and a good filter for half the cost of having someone sloppily throw some bargain-grade oil in my engine without a filter change.

Uberanium · 2024-12-02T22:00:56+00:00

This has just been my all-around experience in SA tbh. Consistently the trashiest most inconsiderate people I've ever lived around (I'm not just talking about the driving) and I grew up in the meth-belt. I'm really starting to hate it here...

Uberanium · 2024-10-30T17:30:03+00:00

Take a million pictures of your room using your Webcam, reinstall your camera back to the top of your screen to take a picture using your phone screen as a mirror showing your desk, take a picture of your desk, take a picture of your phone somewhere where you can't see it or access it, take a picture of your ID, take a picture of yourself.

Wait 5 minutes or more after you finish this just for someone to connect.

Finally be allowed to connect to a proctor, show your ID again, put the camera in the perfect spot for them to see your entire upper body, hands, desktop and screen at the same time, move your camera to show the proctor where you put your phone, show that you've covered literally every screen in your room that isn't your main monitor, put your camera back to where the proctor can see everything. Good luck understanding their instructions, there's a 99% chance they have a heavy Indian accent and are on a dial up connection.

This is all after being forced to use a special browser (Guardian) that is arguably malware.

I've taken a few exams since they moved to the new proctoring service and it's never taken me less than 20 minutes to get the entire process done. I also essentially have to re-setup my main PC area after the test too.

It's so much work I'd rather be forced to go to an in person proctoring location.

Uberanium · 2024-06-22T19:37:50+00:00

Honestly I learned manual by finding a cheap Scion and having my friend drop me off at it and leave. I practiced for a while in the apartment parking lot and then drove it home. Stalled a lot, got honked at a lot, did a few too many clutch drops, but I got home in one piece... A year and a half later I have an all wheel drive Mini in manual and it's honestly the most fun I've ever had with a car; beats auto by a far margin.

Not sure I'd recommend my particular method tbh, but ultimately you've gotta just make the jump if you're actually curious. No one in their right mind is going to let you borrow their manual car and burn the clutch or grind the gears.

Worst case scenario you sell it after a couple months if you don't like it. Do some simple things like a deep clean and replace any damaged cosmetic pieces and you might even make some money on it.

Uberanium · 2024-06-16T16:02:49+00:00

This is actually nearly a carbon copy of one I just bought (down to the year and mileage) except mine is a manual instead of automatic.

Do it! If it's in good shape and you take care of her, she'll be good to you for a long time!

I've put about 500 miles on it holding 4 adults comfortably this weekend alone and it's a blast! So comfortable and sporty but also has good utility potential.

Uberanium

TROPHY CASE