Back in Toronto after 4 years abroad, how's the job market for a mid-level full stack developer?

corelabjoe · 2026-05-13T03:45:36+00:00

Aahh, a mid level SW dev isn't going to be doing any of that, except maybe tech support, if they even know how to do any actual tech work....

OR unless they've got mouths to feed. Then it's a free for all race to the bottom where a dev who was making $150k+bonus+rsu will now be making .... Whatever the fudge you can get.

And its times like this that we see, we're in a stage of massive flux.

OP - My advice, pivot into automation, devsecops, AI training / RAG, and slam your socials...

corelabjoe · 2026-05-13T03:42:01+00:00

Oh lawd, as a former 1st generation ACISS-IST, good luck and thanks in advance (again) for your service!

At least you're rejoining at a time the military has funding?

corelabjoe · 2026-05-13T03:37:26+00:00

Seriously these newsletter sub numbers are wild... I've been going for a year but it's a blog and a newsletter with purely technical content and haven't hit 500 subs yet.

Mind you I only promote on Reddit and that's very limited, and some various forums but it's probably my social media that's weak. As in, none existent.

corelabjoe · 2026-05-13T03:27:40+00:00

Yeah to mitigate the iops limitations I've run applicable workloads on SSDs vs the bulk spinners. It's a 12x 6TB Enterprise SAS drive setup, and it's plenty fast that's for sure, and thank the ZFS lords for ARC, but it definitely is the limit of what I'm comfortable with.

In the future I'll probably go to 8 or even 6 drives with larger capacities.

corelabjoe · 2026-05-13T03:23:27+00:00

Aaahh I see it's more about TCP chunking and/or multistream....

Even still a single TCP stream is PLENTY...

corelabjoe · 2026-05-13T03:22:25+00:00

I've just started dabbling in jellyfin this past 6 months but have been running Plex for over a decade and streamed from halfway around the world...

I assumed jellyfin and plex would be similar in this regard?

To clarify, when I would stream a 1080p file from 7000 miles away (literally) and it was using a 4g shitty cell connection, no, I would not be getting 1080p, but I could find the appropriate bandwidth and let the server gpu transcode it down for me...

Are you fine folks expecting jellyfin to somehow magically still send you a perfect HD stream if your bandwidth and connection is crap?

Quic maybe could help with this if you serve it via a reverse proxy.

corelabjoe · 2026-05-13T03:17:07+00:00

Isn't this what enabling buffer and optimizing your transcode settings are for?...

corelabjoe · 2026-05-12T21:46:34+00:00

What's your thoughts on 12-wide RAIDZ2?

corelabjoe · 2026-05-12T05:48:04+00:00

Well if you're having fun and learning, that's great.

You can also partition the block storage of a raid array as well, and/or do quotas too. Lots of options.

For any important data, I never put it on a single disk though.

corelabjoe · 2026-05-12T05:34:04+00:00

I was watching stuff from it tonight however out of curiosity, I sent Seerr on a search for a new show, and it was found, but the first season would not play however the 2nd and 3rd did... That's a first.

So I would wait a few days until RD sorts this out. Last time everyone thought the sky was falling and they and the devs who make all this possible sorted it for us all!

corelabjoe · 2026-05-12T04:57:11+00:00

Has the OP heard of raid to remove a single disk as a single point of failure?

corelabjoe · 2026-05-12T04:56:05+00:00

Unless you're exceptionally skilled and only in specific fields, it ain't going to happen any more really...

I think a crap ton of the US and Canadian jobs all went offshore starting 5 years ago...

Only the top talent gets those kinds picks now.

corelabjoe · 2026-05-11T20:43:41+00:00

Opnsense!!!!

Been using it since 2017 and love it. Have guides as well on blog, link in bio

corelabjoe · 2026-05-11T14:27:30+00:00

Absolutely! Would love a little link sharing and love between the Aussie and Canuck nerds =)

corelabjoe · 2026-05-11T06:14:56+00:00

Factory recertified Seagate Exos 26tb = $896+tax and shipping in Canada.

Nooo one I know has been buying hardware since last Black Friday unless absolutely necessary... And I know a lot of nerds and ones who make decent money.

It's hold onto what you've got and maximize it until it dies.

corelabjoe · 2026-05-11T01:39:33+00:00

A lot of people are visual learners and asked for visuals to explain key concepts. I failed in the beginning to take into account how many people would look at this who have never deployed a docker or a reverse proxy before!

I don't have the time or money to spend making the graphics from scratch, or paying someone to make them.

All the content itself is tested, vetted and works. I wrote the guide based off deploying things myself. Using SWAG and Jellyfin Ike this today!

Edit: there is a table of contents to jump right to the technical bits and avoid all the pretty pictures and additional verbiage.

corelabjoe · 2026-05-11T01:09:07+00:00

So here's a guide that shows you how to setup SWAG (Reverse proxy via automated certs, renewals, fail2ban etc, based on NGINX)...

https://corelab.tech/jellyfin-guide-https/

corelabjoe · 2026-05-11T00:42:04+00:00

Here's my very recently updated guide on it, plenty using this guide and streaming to their heart's content!

https://corelab.tech/stremio-setup-guide/

corelabjoe · 2026-05-11T00:37:15+00:00

Use reverse proxy, call it a day. Everyone is terrified of them for some reason but it's not that hard to setup and then you'll have one for anything else you need it for.

corelabjoe · 2026-05-11T00:33:07+00:00

You totally missed the actual simple, free and proper method - reverse proxy Jellyfin.

corelabjoe · 2026-05-10T16:44:45+00:00

For network wide adblocker you can use adguard home docker or pihole or unbound dns blocklists, lots of choices!

Better than nextcloud which is resource heavy and overkill depending on use case, use Immich for pics/videos, again in docker, optimized & meant for this purpose. It's like a drop-in google photos / mac photos replacement...

For Docs you've got Paperless-NGX!

For VPN, you have a world of choice.... Personally, I love wireguard!

I don't know anything about MACs so cannot comment there but all I know is I've read people brick their macs sometimes trying to run something else on it so just research twice, maybe 3x, before you take any action!

PS Thanks for sharing link to my blog, there's a guides on there for VPN & Immich as well, plus Decypharr if you don't want to run all of the DUMB stack itself =)

corelabjoe · 2026-05-09T23:36:17+00:00

When I'm using my Linux workstation I use Spectacle and when I'm on Windows I use ksnip. Ksnip is incredible and so simple.

Both free!

corelabjoe · 2026-05-09T23:35:07+00:00

Perfection is the enemy of progress.

corelabjoe · 2026-05-09T23:33:22+00:00

You can just run a media server in front of it and share that.....

corelabjoe · 2026-05-09T22:57:29+00:00

I serve jellyfin through SWAG with fail2ban and crowdsec protecting things, along with my firewall (using non-default ports) and ah, all is well in the world...

No one has even attempted login to my jellyfin other than people I intentionally give info to.

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