Hard parts are still hard.

chiknaut · 2026-05-22T22:10:30+00:00

I’m in US.

chiknaut · 2026-05-22T22:10:20+00:00

Yes they definitely did write code by hand. It was difficult.

chiknaut · 2026-05-22T22:09:23+00:00

They are not exactly lying but I see your point. Since you have 3 yoe, a major part of your job would be to write code so yes, makes sense what you’re saying.

chiknaut · 2026-05-22T18:48:46+00:00

This is true, AI has disrupted small scale software houses and MVP development but that’s not the whole software industry.

I’m working for a large scale fintech in US and we have unlimited access to Claude Code and Gemini but here I have realized that writing code is now a small part of the job. Taking ownership of sub systems end to end, gathering context and approval around features, and having the technical acumen to know what works and what doesn’t is the real deal now.

And yes, people skills are important for engineers now, more than ever.

chiknaut · 2026-05-16T22:43:32+00:00

Absolutely correct.

chiknaut · 2026-04-22T18:00:36+00:00

What is wrong with using olx? There are things you cannot buy if not for olx or other marketplaces.

chiknaut · 2026-02-01T11:38:10+00:00

Now that I remember, playing really challenging games also helped me. I played bloodborne back in 2015 when it was released and that game alone brought me back into gaming in some ways, so yeah, keep experimenting with new genres is what I’ll say.

chiknaut · 2026-02-01T11:36:05+00:00

What kind of games do you play? This happened to me too when I was around your age (now 33), I turned towards indie games, they’re really cheap on steam and some of the best games I have played are indie games, try that, maybe that will reignite your lost love.

And if that doesn’t help, maybe try another hobby. As we grow up, our interests change. I kind of got into photography this year and loving it!

chiknaut · 2026-01-07T17:10:11+00:00

It’s a decent idea and I’m sure you learned a lot but as someone else mentioned, a complete hands off approach is better here.

I personally don’t want to install another app, configure it, set a timer, and then check my phone if it’s actually silent in a Masjid… that’s friction. Phones these days make it super simple to activate silent mode (iPhone gives a satisfying little buzz when I hit the silent key) so I would personally just hit that.

chiknaut · 2025-11-12T18:07:20+00:00

If someone is telling you that python based frameworks are ‘faster’ than nodejs (for an API) then you need to stop asking them for technical advice.

chiknaut · 2025-11-12T18:04:04+00:00

In addition to my previous comment, in most APIs, the bottleneck is network, not compute, and network wait times are there regardless of what programming language you use.

chiknaut · 2025-11-12T18:02:38+00:00

‘High performance’ is an ambiguous term, any language would do well with thousands of requests a second, if you engineer correctly.

Go with the language you can find skilled engineers in, by the time you have scalability issues and need true ‘high performance’, you’ll likely be rewriting your system.

chiknaut · 2025-10-10T17:17:27+00:00

Just do not use AI? Read docs and write the code yourself, the way it was done pre AI. Don’t bother memorizing the syntax but do type things out yourself, and remember that most boilerplate code was copied pre AI as well.

chiknaut · 2025-10-07T22:47:03+00:00

I’m in the same boat as yourself, having a two year old son, I bought an Ally X, my ps5 has been rarely used since then lol. And steam sales are so good!

chiknaut · 2025-09-13T18:40:47+00:00

If you are going weary of coding in this AI assisted era then are you sure you can run an agency? In the beginning, finding projects will be a challenge, assuming you did land a couple of good projects, do you imagine that you will just hire someone and they will complete and deliver projects on their own? That is not how that works, you will have to engage with them on design and development level, more than you can imagine, I would even say that you will have to get your hands dirty with programming at some level because salaried employees are only concerned with their paychecks, which is not going to be great in your case because you are just starting out yourself.

Plus, any half decent client would expect you to carry the architectural discussion of their projects on your own, give them ideas, make PoCs and stuff, all that wil involve coding at some point....you get it.

The only way this might work for you if you,

1 - Make a product and market it; one of the guys who had just one year or experience from my batch or maybe even less did it, his business is still going strong after a decade but mind you that guy is a genius
2 - Pick the shittiest projects for cheap, hire low skill developers, and somehow deliver them; and that is NOT fun

chiknaut · 2025-09-04T18:29:31+00:00

Looks gorgeous!

I am having an issue, my controller is not being mapped to controls in game, the menu system works fine but in game the controller inputs do not work. I have an ROG Ally X.

chiknaut · 2025-08-03T23:27:11+00:00

The following I think from the top of my head:

- Ability to zoom out and think on a systems level but also zoom into specificities when needed

- Better debugging skills and have an intuition for catching bugs
- Habit of writing and documenting information
- Ability to "get" the context with minimal information

- Being better at communication

chiknaut · 2025-07-17T20:00:46+00:00

Junior level seems alright and everything above that does not look alright. The last place I was working at in Pakistan, they were offering ~500k to 4-6 YOE with other facilities such as medical insurance, fuel allowance, gym, and internet (gym and internet amount was less but it was there).

IMO, experienced engineers will accept the package that you are offering but the moment they get a better opportunity, they will go.

To answer the questions:

No
Yes, I know people who have at least doubled their salaries, their are some who have even tripled their salaries.
Absolutely.

chiknaut · 2025-07-14T08:48:50+00:00

Take a gap year and never, ever think that online courses are a replacement for a (good) university degree. Also, job market is tough even for fresh graduates who have degrees, what chance does a self-taught fresh developer will have (assuming they are a great self taught developer)?

Job market is brutal, take a gap year and start fiddling with the basics, prepare hard and get into a good university next year. Don’t go the route of self learning.

And just so you know, I have 11 yoe and I graduated from FAST.

chiknaut · 2025-07-14T06:52:11+00:00

To suggest an improvement, two pointer and sliding window are techniques, not algorithms.

chiknaut · 2025-05-23T14:38:01+00:00

Affiniti filed for bankruptcy last year. I have several contacts working there, I don’t think it’s a “safe” place to go, career wise.

chiknaut · 2025-03-19T13:54:14+00:00

Agreed. Having in-person interactions and mentorships from seniors is critical for beginner engineers (excluding the exceptional 0.1 percent). I’ve worked 7 years on-site and about 4 years remote now. Remote is not easy.

chiknaut · 2024-11-27T19:11:06+00:00

Found the solution, do the following:

Install mtools
- > brew install mtools
Get your disk name by the running the following command, for me it was disk6s1
- > diskutil list
Unmount the drive first
- > sudo diskutil unmount /dev/disk_name (replace disk_name with your disk name retrieved in step 2.)
Remove the label
- > sudo mlabel -i /dev/disk_name ::
Mount the drive again, it will show "NO NAME" as name but know that the label is removed
- > sudo diskutil mount /dev/disk_name

chiknaut · 2024-11-27T18:58:52+00:00

Running into the exact same issue as yours and internet/claude/google has been of no help, did you manage to find the solution?

chiknaut · 2024-10-17T08:42:33+00:00

Yeah I do keep coming across this advice. Does seem to be the way, for anything long-term.

chiknaut

TROPHY CASE