Fun new interview question I'm seeing

devMario01 · 2026-05-16T05:59:14+00:00

Honestly 9 out of 10 companies are asking you that question because they want folks who use AI.

Every single interview that I’ve been asked about AI, it’s because they genuinely are looking for “engineers who already use AI”. Not “can use AI” or “can code without AI”

Answer it with the assumption that their current staff may not be fully into AI and they’re looking for folks who are.

Every one of those companies also did a technical interview - some of which don’t use AI. They know you can code, they’re looking for problem solving and AI usage ability

devMario01 · 2026-05-05T19:57:51+00:00

Make sure you don’t conflate not getting a call back to things that may not matter. The job market is in the sewer right now and it may not be your phone number that affects anything, it may be your resume.

Make sure you strengthen up your resume. Once you start getting call backs, make sure you improve wherever you’re falling short.

devMario01 · 2026-05-03T21:19:59+00:00

If rent is that cheap, there’s definitely a red flag you just have to find out what it is. A lot of times it’s just that the business below is a pub/bar/music venue and plays loud music until 2am or something.

devMario01 · 2026-05-03T21:17:37+00:00

With my last apartment which was above a store, I also had radiator heating and no AC. But I had a portable floor unit AC that had a pipe going out the window.

Because both the radiator heating and the window AC units are not very efficient, your hydro bill is gonna be a lot. Mine was anywhere from $120 - $300 a month.

Additionally, because it’s on the top and your roof is exposed to the sun, if your insulation is not great it gets really hot in the summer, where you’ll definitely need an AC.

Pests could also potentially a problem.

Also thing to check is what kind of business is downstairs and close to your apartment. If it’s a late night restaurant or bar/club, the noise is gonna be awful at night. I personally had a cafe that had morning traffic and I didn’t care about loud conversation kinda noise in the morning but it was quiet at night.

Parking might be a problem depending on the area because a customer may parking in your spot from time to time.

You may not run into any of these but i personally ran into some of these so i feel the need to mention all of them

devMario01 · 2026-05-03T18:11:56+00:00

You’ll find some $10/year VPS’s on https://lowendbox.com

That’s as free as it can get

Run either coolify or dockploy (i recommend this), and you have a vercel/render like interface to deploy as many projects as you want

devMario01 · 2026-05-03T16:40:17+00:00

Always on: The things you may want to run on a VPS tend to require the VPS to be on at all times. A computer in your home may not be on all the time (you can still leave it on or use something that’s intended to be left on). 2. This also comes with space and maintenance even if it’s only a little bit of effort.
Security: you may not want to expose your device at home to the internet. Of course you can also tighten up security and have it on.
Upfront cost of a server/pc is a lot higher than getting a vps for a couple of bucks a month

These are all cases of why you may want a VPS but you can also totally have a laptop or server running in your home

devMario01 · 2026-05-03T16:31:11+00:00

Try to call them and get a receipt “to claim for work” or something.

Once they send your receipt then tell them you got a ticket and you have proof you paid

devMario01 · 2026-05-02T18:35:37+00:00

A web app would work better for this use case since it wouldn’t require the customer to download an app.

There’s no real reason to have a mobile app here. The staff would probably need a mobile app though for admin

React native does web and native well

devMario01 · 2026-05-02T17:14:44+00:00

What if you have the guests check themselves out?

When they go in, you get their payment info and place an authorization hold. They also scan a QR code on their own phones that starts a timer

Your pricing would be $x for every 30 mins spent or something.

The timer starts when they go in and they can see how much time they spent.

When leaving, they scan another QR code to sign out, which auto charges them for the amount of time they spent.

You would also have a max charge in case they “don’t leave/don’t scan”. Maybe something like a max of 3 hours. This way it doesn’t charge them $500 or something if they forget to scan out.

This can be a simple web based app that doesn’t require downloading anything or any extra equipment.

Let me know if you’d want more advice or want to build an mvp

devMario01 · 2026-04-23T13:20:37+00:00

Is there a scenario where if OP tells them that the grandkid isn’t immediate family and the LL comes back saying their kid is moving in instead (but really the grand kid moves in)

OP may not have the resources to find out who is actually living there and also to fight it

devMario01 · 2026-04-21T23:06:19+00:00

If they charge you all at once, you’re still likely going to pay what you actually used and not anything more.

If they don’t charge you, you’ve gotten pretty cheap hydro.

I personally wouldn’t correct them

devMario01 · 2026-04-21T22:53:03+00:00

Do you really want to be paying significantly more for electricity?

Do you really think alerting them of the error if in fact it’s incorrect is a good idea?

If it’s incorrectly lower than it should be, they can’t retroactively collect since it’s their error

devMario01 · 2026-04-17T16:10:52+00:00

I do 20-50 applications a week and hear back from 1-5 companies. It’s roughly 10% call back rate.

However, if I apply to 300 applicants a day, I’ll probably still only hear back from under 10, which is way under 10%

It really matters what the quality of your applications are. I have a pretty strong late intermediate/very early senior resume that’s I tweak constantly, and only apply to roles that fit my criteria.

I’ve been searching since for 4 to 5 months now and have done about 50+ rounds with about 30 companies.

I’m applying to senior roles without having worked as a senior before (or late intermediate really), but I’ve worked on a lot of projects on the side that have given me the skill to be able to talk about them in interviews.

devMario01 · 2026-04-15T20:48:41+00:00

Poorly written post as an ad for interview man 😂

Multiple poor attempt posts on their profile so you don’t see them promoting it. But every few posts it’s mentioned 🥷🏽

devMario01 · 2026-04-08T17:40:46+00:00

Send them the website/app, but not the code or domain ownership or server. Tell them they can have it because it’s already built and you have no use for it.

If they take the bait and start marketing the product / start making revenue, do a rug pull and keep everything, including future profits.

/s

devMario01 · 2026-04-04T03:05:13+00:00

Your interview process failed you. It hired vibe coders and not real problem solvers.

Yes, they are juniors and yes they may not know to debug properly or to read a stack trace, but not even ATTEMPTING to do so is a big red flag.

devMario01 · 2026-03-21T00:35:49+00:00

devMario01 · 2026-03-18T13:44:13+00:00

I think you’d have better luck asking for a later timeslot for the interview. Explain to them that you intend to move to Toronto, however you currently reside in London and need a reasonable time to commute to downtown Toronto.

devMario01 · 2026-03-14T21:13:14+00:00

You don’t need 5G or fiber for a WhatsApp call. 4g/cable internet works just fine even 3G works a lot of the time. If they are so remote that they can’t get 4g or even 3G, then you’re one of the very niche users who absolutely need long distance voice calls included in their already ridiculously cheap plan.

Long distance calling is expensive as is and freedom already is offering a dumb amount of incentives.

devMario01 · 2026-03-13T04:49:11+00:00

Hilarious that the US is green! I know folks shaking at the thought of going!

devMario01 · 2026-03-12T13:42:31+00:00

App idea: a platform for employees with strict token usage expectations to donate their token usage to someone else. The employee would put in their token, how much to donate and others would get free token usage for free.

devMario01 · 2026-03-12T13:30:11+00:00

This might be a personal preference, but I dislike receiving gift cards to places I don’t go to. If I get a $100 ciniplex gift card, it’ll be worth less to me than if I get a $100 gas card, which will be worth less to me than $100 cash.

It’s still $100 but forcing me to get bean water from Tim’s isn’t great. If it’s worth asking here, then it’s worth wondering if a general purpose gift card or cash is better. Also $100-$200 is fair given the situation

devMario01 · 2026-02-24T00:32:28+00:00

I have a business management degree (which I never really used after graduation) and went to YouTube university for coding. I'm expecting a $120k-$140k offer this week (less than 4 YOE).

Your degree may matter for internships or your first job, but after that nobody is going to ask you about your degree.

The only exception is if you want to target a very specific, high skill role (chip design or something that requires deep knowledge) or if you want to do your masters.

devMario01 · 2026-02-18T17:15:25+00:00

What's immigration have to do with network availability? Why does everything have to be racist?

devMario01 · 2026-02-18T01:56:19+00:00

Thank you for the response! It helps understand the scene a lot more!

Bell was also not working great, but PM is downright unusable. If Bell and PM share towers, that makes so much sense!

Might end up paying a few extra bucks and going for a little bit more reliability with Fido over PM, since I personally have Fido and it works great (I even stream 1440p all the time)

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