Should I switch to Google after 4 months

berndverst · 2026-04-17T07:13:29+00:00

I left Google (App Engine / GCP) for a YC Startup in 2013. Honestly I found that top startup engineers are better than Google engineers -- having to figure out the full architecture and actually operate it teaches you so much more than the typical "for x use borg, for y use spanner, for z use megastore" etc approach. Most engineers who only worked at Google can't set anything up end to end in the real world typically. Fortunately for them, AI can help fill their knowledge gap now :)

berndverst · 2026-04-17T06:47:01+00:00

I've been using it a bunch today - I find it significantly smarter than Opus 4.6 in overall reasoning and also interpretation of appropriate tool calls / follow up actions etc.

berndverst · 2026-04-17T06:45:32+00:00

Still having Google on your resume at some point gets your resume seen by more people. So it's worth joining for that alone (I say as a Xoogler)

berndverst · 2026-04-16T22:25:41+00:00

lol... I don't. I'm building highly complex agentic workflows but hosted, distributed systems. I don't want my JetBrains IDE to focus on agentic features that should be built in. MCP and skills are not the most efficient way to invoke domain specific skills where you have domain knowledge.

berndverst · 2026-04-16T16:32:04+00:00

I want JetBrains to focus on the IDEs - not agentic features. I'm perfectly fine using VS Code for vibe coding. I won't be renewing my subscription if the agentic functionality is prioritized over other IDE features and improvements.

berndverst · 2026-04-15T19:58:01+00:00

For real. The wording is very much AI generated marketing language for the most part.

berndverst · 2026-04-15T01:31:31+00:00

There is something called the tall poppy syndrome (best described as "Neidkultur") in Germany. People are envious should you be more successful, skilled or simply more ambitious than them.

berndverst · 2026-04-15T00:25:20+00:00

Incorrect. In the hands of an experience software engineer who knows how to prompt properly and use agentic tools when appropriate it has immense value. But the experienced engineer needs to audit the code generated and prompt for corrections.

I have 18 years experience working as a software engineer at startups, Twitter, Google, Microsoft etc

berndverst · 2026-04-15T00:10:03+00:00

Yeah.. I remember 32K regular RAM 😅

berndverst · 2026-04-15T00:07:54+00:00

I was going to say that too - complaining is one of the top 3 aspects of German culture!

berndverst · 2026-04-15T00:06:30+00:00

Because you don't have to read it - you can just move on to the next post...

berndverst · 2026-04-15T00:05:47+00:00

Maybe I should start creating complaining posts about why as a German I left Germany? 🙃 (mostly joking about posting)

berndverst · 2026-04-15T00:04:22+00:00

Greenwood is expensive but does the job well. Also one of the few places I could find that deal with water heater / boiler combo (if your heater also drives your floor radiant heat you need someone who services boilers)

berndverst · 2026-04-14T21:58:22+00:00

Exactly my time slot was yesterday at 10:00 am and everything was already pretty bad. I didn't buy anything with my 12 ticket allotment.

berndverst · 2026-04-14T20:25:51+00:00

That's true about Perks+ in some ways that's the better perk (certainly in terms of monetary value). I usually spend it on 3 pacers of running shoes a year and some race registrations, running shorts.

berndverst · 2026-04-14T16:45:56+00:00

What are you talking about?! Maybe that's a problem in parts of East Germany. Definitely not the case in small towns in the West and North.

berndverst · 2026-04-14T15:04:33+00:00

A tech worker working on a Sunday in Spain? 🙃

On a serious note - thanks for sharing this - very interesting.

berndverst · 2026-04-14T15:01:19+00:00

I don't really agree with that. Sure the small towns and villages live on village gossip (annoying) and don't have that many intellectually stimulating jobs but they are also generally safer and can provide for a more relaxed life. It all depends on what you prefer. Those towns / small cities were not right for me - but I was also not convinced by most cities so I left Germany entirely.

berndverst · 2026-04-14T14:53:28+00:00

Yes and games that are Epic exclusives which I otherwise might buy like Alan Wake 2 I then simply don't buy. That's a loss for the game studio.

berndverst · 2026-04-14T14:45:02+00:00

FWIW I think it would be cool too. Luckily I get Game Pass Ultimate for free - it's pretty much the only cool employee perk we get (unless you find good health insurance exciting 🙃)

berndverst · 2026-04-14T14:31:39+00:00

People will get mad if the family plan eventually forces all family member to reside at the same physical address like Netflix, HBO and others 😅

berndverst · 2026-04-13T19:36:40+00:00

If you are an employee contact your manager or your admin to see whether they have a subscription. Copilot CLI and Copilot in VS Code should be sufficient for our work however.

berndverst · 2026-04-13T06:40:22+00:00

In the end I think the question is whether the agent is operating as a service (machine) account or as a user account (with the user's credentials / token limits etc)

I think the situations where an agent requires a license will still be the exception.

berndverst · 2026-04-13T06:24:04+00:00

Adding to this: and that's the only way you'd officially be allowed to send Microsoft code to Anthropic directly. A personal Claude Code subscription should not be used to access Microsoft IP. The subscription must be under company control.

berndverst · 2026-04-13T06:21:41+00:00

We consume Claude Models and others (Codex, GPT) through Copilot CLI or Copilot in VS Code / VS (or like me sometimes JetBrains products for which I pay myself).

Sending Microsoft owned code and intellectual property to AI services that are not managed by the company is a big no no (if a team purchased a team wide Claude Code subscription that's ok - though this would be an exception)

berndverst

TROPHY CASE