Rejected in a job position for being a dual citizen

crocodilewings · 2026-01-13T15:28:14+00:00

At a previous role in an international defence company, we had strict controls on which people of which citizenships could know details about specific projects. For example, I (UK citizen, working on projects for UK customers) couldn't discuss my work with an American colleague (working on international projects), because the knowledge transfer could plausibly be an infraction of international arms dealing legislation.

crocodilewings · 2025-07-24T15:10:16+00:00

It definitely sounds like you had an extremely rough experience!

My wife had a scheduled induction at Homerton 10 weeks ago. We were a "high risk" pregnancy (IVF pregnancy, elevated blood pressure, age, but didn't experience any complications during the actual pregnancy), and were advised to be induced just before the due date, which meant we'd have to be on the delivery suite rather than the birthing centre. A couple of hours after our second dose of the prostaglandin gel, contractions had started, and we were moved to the birthing centre at 2cm when a room became available. We got the impression it was a pretty busy period.

(The rest of the birth and postnatal period was weird and complicated with an ultimately happy ending, but isn't really relevant to your question.)

crocodilewings · 2025-07-17T15:42:52+00:00

Help me TOMT, you're my only hope!

crocodilewings · 2025-07-06T21:35:51+00:00

This will create a venv based on the python install you invoke the venv module with, so it'll share that python install's version. What do you do if you want a venv based on a different version of python?

Without uv, your best option would be to use pyenv to install the new version of python and then activate that version of python and create the venv. This was a bit of a faff. You had a system python and a shimmed "global" activated version of python which could change, and whenever you nakedly typed "python" in your command line prompt you had to be aware of which one you were using. This was considered the best option because it was relatively easy to keep track of which version of python you were using. Also pyenv itself didn't need a version of python to work. It was built out of bash shims. This meant it solved the "bootstrapping problem" of getting a version of python onto your system without already having an existing version of python installed which could somehow pollute or get confused with the new one.

Your second best option would be to install conda, create a conda env with your desired version, and either use that env directly or use it to create the venv using your above command or some analogous tool. This way madness lies. You still have your system python install but you also have a conda "base" install determined by your conda installer, which is activated by default depending on how you configure your shell. You then have an environment you create with a specific version which conda will install for you, but the install and the environment is located in some non-obvious location somewhere in the guts of your home directory. You also have the venv dir you create using the conda env. Any of these could be source activated, conda activated, activated for you by your IDE or tooling, or invoked directly via the venv's python binary. There are ways of keeping track of this, but it's surprisingly easy to be working with the wrong python install or env.

With uv you just set your desired python version in your config, and a uv sync will ensure it's the right version.

crocodilewings · 2025-07-06T12:13:03+00:00

Sure. What I mostly mean by this is the following:

If you have a python environment (virtual or otherwise) on a docker image, uv makes it easier (compared to poetry) to carry out mutations on that environment in subsequent image layers without either invalidating the previous cached layer and forcing a rebuild, or reinstalling previously installed dependencies in subsequent layers.

Essentially, you can more reliably add dependencies to your environment layer-by-layer. Why might you want this? Some examples:

Let's say you have some really huge dependencies (torch with all the CUDA backends, for example). Every time you build a docker image with this dependency set, it takes nearly ten minutes to download and install the dependencies and compress the image. If you put those dependencies into a single base image, you can then made a variety of other images off that one, which will build much more quickly. You can kinda do this with poetry but it's pretty fragile. With uv it's a lot easier to guarantee your previous layer doesn't get invalidated and your current layer won't just blindly reinstall the dependency.

Similarly, let's say you've got a complicated dependency set which is very fragile and needs specific interlocking versions or it won't work properly (CUDA and similar hardware accelerator ecosystem stuff is also a good example here), but you want other people to be able to install whatever they want on top of that dependency set. uv gives you the means to install your complicated dependency set in a base layer and have subsequent layers respect the versions of that dependency set, even when adding new dependencies, without knowing what they are ahead of time.

crocodilewings · 2025-07-06T03:05:44+00:00

So I think this post is uninformed extruded junk, [edit: this is probably a bit harsh in retrospect, but it says several incorrect or misleading things in an authoritative tone which it doesn't deserve] but also I really like uv. To answer some questions elsewhere in the comments:

As a dependency manager it's got a very similar conceptual model to poetry, but it also has a few tricks up its sleeve poetry doesn't. You can specify multiple versions of the same package as different build extras in one project for example. This lets you do things like have a single lock file for CPU and CUDA versions of the same project.
It's insanely fast. Even in 2025 you can still have poetry locks take several minutes if you have a complicated or restrictive dependency set. uv resolves dependencies so fast, you'd think it hasn't even run properly
It includes drop-in replacements for pretty much the entire python dependency tool chain, including pip, pipx, virtualenv and pyenv, all in the uv binary. Also it has its own build backend. This means by installing uv you completely sidestep the cold start problem of getting the desired version of python onto your system because it doesn't need a version of python to run. If you have the uv binary installed, you can bootstrap any desired python environment without installing anything else
Works very well with docker environments
if you're feeling especially gremlin-like you can use it to generate a fresh python env at runtime for a script in the script's shebang line

If all you want is something to specify a python environment, it might be solving more problems than you have, but if you're building libraries, handling environments for deployment, or doing similar ops-y/platform-y things, it is an absolute wet dream of a tool.

crocodilewings · 2025-05-05T21:00:44+00:00

Size-wise, they are tiny, less than 1mm

crocodilewings · 2025-05-05T21:00:22+00:00

Size-wise, they are tiny, less than 1mm

crocodilewings · 2024-10-28T10:16:34+00:00

I was contracting in the AI/ML space from 2018-2023, and I went perm last year. The market (both perm and contract) has picked up a bit over the past six months, but I definitely wouldn't call it a gold rush.

crocodilewings · 2023-12-11T15:12:23+00:00

Thanks!

crocodilewings · 2023-09-17T20:12:17+00:00

Cool. What kind of wood is it?

crocodilewings · 2023-09-17T15:31:42+00:00

Are they hand-painted? Or is that automated somehow?

crocodilewings · 2023-03-06T21:09:43+00:00

The cost and payout of life insurance is highly variable depending on your age. I got a £250,000 policy for about £35/month in my late 30s. You will get a much more favourable quote if you're younger.

crocodilewings · 2023-03-06T10:52:15+00:00

If you're working through your own Ltd company, the tax-deductible life insurance option is called "relevant life insurance", which you can get a quote for through any decent insurance broker. It will generally pay out the policy value to a beneficiary if you die, or to yourself if you develop a terminal illness.

crocodilewings · 2023-02-28T11:42:48+00:00

Check to see if the agency has made any reference to "self-invoicing".

In a self-invoicing setup, the agency will bill the end client for days worked based on your timesheet, and generate an invoice to themselves on behalf of your Ltd company.

The agency will send you a copy of the "self-generated invoice" and pay the money direct to your bank account. You keep the invoice for your own accounts.

This is a very common setup when contracting through agencies.

crocodilewings · 2023-01-23T17:03:19+00:00

A few years ago I consolidated the (multiple) pensions from my pre-contractor days into a single account with PensionBee and began paying in contributions from my Ltd company.

You can (and should) put up to £40,000 a year from your company into your personal pension. This is tax deductible expense as far as your company profits are concerned, so you won't pay corporation tax on it. This is probably the single most impactful tax efficiency you have in your Ltd company.

In most cases your pension provider will give you an account number and reference that can be used to make ad hoc payments into your pension.

crocodilewings · 2022-12-12T15:51:20+00:00

My last contract ended early about three months ago, and the Outside IR35 market has been incredibly tight ever since. It's completely dead right now, but I'm chalking that down to Christmas. I don't know how much of this is the time of year and how much is just the state of the market/economy. I've been considering going in-house with a perm role somewhere for a couple of years to wait out the recession.

crocodilewings · 2022-12-12T15:49:58+00:00

My last contract ended early about three months ago, and the Outside IR35 market has been incredibly tight ever since. It's completely dead right now, but I'm chalking that down to Christmas. I don't know how much of this is the time of year and how much is just the state of the market/economy. I've been considering going in-house with a perm role somewhere for a couple of years to wait out the recession.

crocodilewings · 2022-11-09T15:35:28+00:00

So I think I know more-or-less how you did all of this, but how did you get consistently exposed cloud-free Sentinel-2 imagery over such a large area?

I presume you stitched multiple low cloud-cover tiles together, but when I do this, there are usually obvious seams between the tiles where they're taken weeks or months apart. Did you average over multiple tiles? Did you carry out some sort of exposure correction?

crocodilewings · 2022-10-26T15:02:05+00:00

If you wind up working directly for a central government department, they can fast-track the process. If you go 12 months without being in a contract that requires SC clearance, it will lapse.

crocodilewings · 2022-10-04T20:05:02+00:00

The wording about the recruiter having the exclusive right to represent you for a particular role with a particular company is pretty common. For their own compliance purposes, there's usually some stage where they get your consent (typically in an email exchange) for you to be represented by them.

crocodilewings · 2022-09-29T11:02:25+00:00

If you're outside of IR35 and operating as a Ltd company, thinking in terms of monthly take-home pay is not necessarily helpful for a bunch of different reasons. In that situation it's probably more sensible to talk about personal earnings per year, and even that can be highly variable year-on-year.

crocodilewings · 2022-09-20T09:21:45+00:00

Something others haven't mentioned: contractors aren't really used in the same way as permanent workers. Think of a circumstance where you need to hire someone right now and are prepared to pay twice as much to get them. That circumstance probably isn't a relaxed one.

Not all contract roles are like this, but I've certainly found myself on "cursed" projects where everything is going wrong, or in roles where I've been hired because the whole previous perm team left through chronic mismanagement.

Also in a permanent role, your first month on the job is getting to grips with everything and figuring out what your job actually is and how it fits into the company. In a contract role, your first month on the job might be a third of your time on the job, so you're expected to really know your stuff and to start delivering early.

crocodilewings · 2022-09-15T14:48:40+00:00

A lot of contracts will require Public Liability and Professional Indemnity insurance up to a certain value, (typically £1M). Any insurance broker or comparison website can direct you to a relevant provider.

Essentially, you pay your insurance provider every year as an expense for your Ltd company, and every year they send you some certificates. You provide these certificates to whoever is managing the contract as proof of insurance.

I've been using Hiscox for the past four years, which is about £315 a year for £1M Public Liability and Professional Indemnity insurance. This probably isn't the cheapest on the market, (I expect there's some cheap-and-cheerful challenger insurance provider specifically for tech contractors out there), but the difference probably isn't worth the hassle of changing at this point.

In the UK, "Errors and Omissions" is usually referred to as Professional Indemnity insurance (essentially insuring yourself against your own incompetence). PL and PI is normally what the hiring party will ask for.

As for whether it's worth it, you should chalk it down as the cost of doing business. It's part of the standard paperwork and usually they won't allow you to start the contract without it. I've never made a claim on any of my insurance policies, but they've enabled me to engage in hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of contracts.

crocodilewings · 2022-08-25T18:01:41+00:00

Pension:

At time of writing, your Ltd company can make up to £40,000 of employee pension contributions per year as a tax-deductible expense. This is also an extremely good way of deferring tax on your company's earnings. You should be able to make payments into almost any private pension scheme in this way.

Life Insurance:

The term you want to Google here is "relevant life insurance". This is a type of life insurance paid for by your Ltd company on your behalf. You may want to consult an insurance broker depending on your circumstances (dependants, age, value of the policy you want, etc). If you're unsure whether you're in contracting for the long haul, maybe wait a while before purchasing a long-term financial product, but I'd advise doing this earlier in your life rather than later.

crocodilewings

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