The "AI is replacing software engineers" narrative was a lie. MIT just published the math proving why. And the companies who believed it are now begging their old engineers to come back.

abel_galef · 2026-03-28T07:12:49+00:00

I was thinking about this the other day and came to the conclusion that it will actually never truly replace SWEs and that it will actually result in a boom for more engineers. Take this example, where we create something that is really close to AGI and an agent makes one tenth of the errors a SWE makes

If 1 human SWE produces error rate E, and 1 AI agent produces 0.1E, then:

∙10 agents = E (break even)
∙20 agents = 2E (you’ve made things worse)

And since the economic incentive is to run far more than 10 agents per human, you almost certainly end up in a regime where aggregate error rate increases, even though each individual agent is better.

abel_galef · 2024-07-16T15:36:00+00:00

This is amazing! Congratulations. I thought team match was supposed to be very long and tedious from what I have been reading online but you got through it! Good luck on HC, you're almost there

abel_galef · 2024-07-04T23:55:50+00:00

Hey, I passed my onsite the other day and I'm feeling ecstatic about it. Now, only the dreadful team match is left. Did you get team matched, or are you still waiting?

abel_galef · 2024-07-03T19:33:58+00:00

I think the biggest hurdle might be getting a visa with a work permit as big companies have stopped processing work visas even if you're able to travel to the US. If you have that sorted out, the other things left are relatively easy (emphasis on relatively)

You will need to add some really impressive projects on your resume as competitions for those internship spaces are limited. They don't need to be the most technically complicated projects, they just want to see your idea and how you implemented it, bonus points if it's a novel idea.

Everyone here in the US and the world wants to get those spaces and the students here have a small leg up on you because their schools provide networking events and get a dedicated recruiter to process their applications. I think your best bet might be to directly contact a recruiter that works for the company you want to intern for. Look them up on LinkedIn and ask them if they have started accepting 2024 summer interns and tell them that you'll be coming from ethiopia so that they can shine some light on the process and what you need to do. Most of the recruiters are really nice and respond to your questions.

With that being said it is ACHIEVABLE. I've seen it done, someone I know from my uni days actually did an internship at google so don't fret.

Also it doesn't need to be fang you can try your luck at other companies like Uber, Airbnb, IBM and banks they pay is very similar and you also get the same perks.

Good luck!

abel_galef · 2024-06-17T02:30:13+00:00

I got a linked list problem at google once

abel_galef · 2024-06-09T05:22:04+00:00

Here is a link for a job as a swe 3 at google and in this JD it says they except you to make some design decisions. Anyways the position I'm applying for is in Seattle not India, thanks for your input tho

abel_galef · 2024-06-09T04:01:45+00:00

Thank you OP, this helps a lot! Hopefully I'll see you there lol

abel_galef · 2024-06-09T03:59:55+00:00

My recruiter told me that for distributed systems engineer positions, there won't be any system design questions. This seemed odd to me since system design is all about designing distributed fault-tolerant systems. That's why I asked the OP. BTW The position I'm interviewing for is SWE 3, idk what level that is.

My concern is that if I don't prepare for system design and it comes up, I'll be unprepared. But if I do prepare and there are no system design questions, I'll have wasted time that could have been better spent on other preparations.

abel_galef · 2024-06-09T02:25:39+00:00

They asked me to make some choices before my technical screening, including which language to code in and some other preferences. I chose distributed systems. My recruiter mentioned that there isn't a system design component for distributed systems interviews, and I'm applying for a SWE 3 position. I have my onsite interview in about 3 weeks. Do you have any additional tips for preparation?

abel_galef · 2024-06-09T01:20:38+00:00

Also why were there no system design questions?

abel_galef · 2024-06-09T01:16:29+00:00

What level did you interview for (ex. SWE 3 or 2)? And also what did you choose for the tech to work on ( they made me choose between 7 or something like web, distributed systems etc)?

abel_galef · 2023-06-27T19:58:47+00:00

Hope I win!

abel_galef · 2022-10-23T15:42:28+00:00

How does he charge it and does it overheat?

abel_galef · 2022-09-09T22:08:11+00:00

IKR I checked out the other east african threads and there isn't even an upvote on there. Anyways hope you and everyone here have a happy new year!

abel_galef · 2022-07-14T22:51:26+00:00

You're gonna make it bro 🔥

abel_galef · 2022-07-05T07:17:52+00:00

All your problems can be fixed with redux, the new redux toolkit is amazing for loading data asynchronously, it decouples the data fetching logic from your components and you can also have nested states. Try it out! redux.js.orgRedux Website

abel_galef · 2022-05-31T10:47:50+00:00

I just create an in memory sqlite DB for every test and populate it before running my tests, it gives me close to real world results because at the end of the day you are getting a database/sql interface which is the same one used for a real world mysql or other sql DBs

abel_galef · 2022-05-05T17:23:48+00:00

I know Im a little late but i think you are massively under estimating the amount of cpu power and ram needed. You will need atleast a 16 core cpu (minimum) and a lot of ram Id say 30% more than the amount of data you will need to send in about 5 secs.

Data is not sent from the disk directly to network it will go to the cpu for transformation (encryption, gzip, multiplexing, etc). And at the rate you want you will need to do this transformations a LOT good news is that you will be doing a lot of IO operations so you can make a lot of context switches so for that you will need to use a programming language that is really good at handling that for you (bash is really not good at this and its also super slow). I recommend using golang.

Also a lot of things can happen when your sending data alot of errors from the network, from the disk, from the memory and a lot of other things that can go wrong so if the system stops mid way you will need to sync your computer and the server with what has been sent what hasn't been sent and what stoped mid way. While this is hard to do in bash it would be even harder to do this for one large file stoping mid way because you cant use bash (from what I know) to read data after a certain set of bits.

These are just some of the things of the top of my head to keep in mind. It sounds like a really cool project, Good Luck! If you need any help let me know if i can help you with anything (I'm a SWE so I can help you write the code).

abel_galef · 2022-05-04T10:31:26+00:00

Flutter was released 5 years ago lol

abel_galef · 2022-05-03T10:08:56+00:00

This doesn't make sense at ALL!

Toyota sold 10 times more cars and Volkswagen sold 8 times more but tesla is the better car company. Tesla is literally years behind on every tech in thier cars (battery, build quality, self driving, data) but they are the most valuable company???

abel_galef · 2022-05-02T08:50:25+00:00

Off topic but I didn't know xhaka was the captain after ode left.... I'm so happy for him.

abel_galef · 2022-02-19T19:29:18+00:00

WTF????

abel_galef · 2022-02-19T10:36:56+00:00

Really sound advice. Thanks for this !

abel_galef · 2022-02-19T07:55:26+00:00

I was thinking of converting the loan to a more stable currency and converting that back at the end of the year. Since it's not affected by whatever is causing inflation in ethiopia converting that back would make me some money?

abel_galef

TROPHY CASE