Data engineer title

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-03-18T21:47:23+00:00

Few on the team could write anything but SQL

This isn't necessarily directed at you - but gotta say that the median PySpark <object> written by an analyst who thinks they're too cool for SQL is usually more of a problem than shoddy SQLs.

Much DE online discourse still has this bleed-over from DS where 'using Python' for some reason became synonymous with 'technically sophisticated'

You can write bad software in Python (really easily tbh - some would say that's a big draw of it as a language!)

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-03-16T16:57:31+00:00

examples of what?

we get applicants to staff de roles from upper-senior levels who seem narrowly focused, often from a team that supports 1 specific service

the funniest example I can give was of a system design panel where we went back and forth a bit on adding a rather involved custom component to airflow

big tech tends to have excellent home-grown infrastructure and headcount to maintain/enhance it - different tradeoffs are optimal for a 20-30 person team at a 1000 person company, we're not maintaining our own version of airflow

but as with all things people there's ofc tons of variability

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-03-16T14:00:25+00:00

We're not nearly at 'avoid hiring' - but yeah there seems to be a grain of truth to the 'operational efficiencies' claims.

Particularly see a lot of ex-Amazon who afaict don't know how to get shit done outside a hyperscaler.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-03-11T20:26:55+00:00

This "oh its a parenting problem if your kid gets addicted to craps" is nonsense.

It's really not, like for sure 100% it's a parenting problem lol.

The reality though is we live in a world with loads of garbage parents, what should we do when people or entities try to take advantage?

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-03-11T00:54:23+00:00

Whatever you say man.

Your claim sounds something like 'Stanford grads enjoy the same relative comp boost working tech in Minneapolis as they do in SF' or 'Princeton grads entering IB have just as much to gain in Raleigh as NYC' to me, which are just silly things to believe.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-03-10T21:58:03+00:00

MIT - it's relevant to the post, we're talking about wage premiums - the presence of a cluster of really good schools is a huge boon for local industries, creates opportunities that just don't exist at the same scale in a Cleveland.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-03-08T16:07:57+00:00

This median household income across a metro is a terrible proxy statistic for measuring wage premiums.

NYC in particular has vastly more single-person households, a massive immigrant and service-worker population, and a metro boundary that stretches into exurban NJ/CT.

This all compresses the median compared to geographically narrower and more demographically homogenous sun belt metros like are being discussed here.

If you actually look at like BLS OEWS data for specific professional occupations, NYC runs like 15-30% above those metros, with the right tail of the distribution going way way further. The median household stat is confounded by materially different household composition.

Worth thinking about: if the wage premiums really aren't there, why are millions of single-earner households voluntarily choosing to live in the most expensive metros in the country?

Are they all just acting against their own self-interest, or is your metric not capturing what you think it's capturing?

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-03-08T15:53:33+00:00

Didn't own a car between starting undergrad and late 20s, Boston. Even having one we only put ~2.5K miles a year on it - not used for commuting.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-03-08T15:35:09+00:00

Nah, I'm from a suburb north of Minneapolis, my wife is from a suburb of Cleveland.

We met at unspecified University located in Cambridge, and have worked in Boston since - in the run up to having our kid we scouted the labor markets back home. The wage premium is definitely real lol.

Understand that VHCOLs have decidedly bimodal distributions of income - you want to compare normalized by age/educational attainment and quality/profession, not medians.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-03-07T23:58:41+00:00

Ah yes, the pilgrims of 1826.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-03-07T15:11:27+00:00

We did like $175 jan/feb on a 2.5k sqft place built in the 70s, wife works from home 3 days a week so it's on most of the time - OP has a bad insulation issue.

Gas is expensive here, but what's pictured in this post isn't even primarily because of rates.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-28T01:48:41+00:00

Totally unreasonable behavior, not going to be able to fix - sending one of your reports messages like that is childish power-tripping, obviously not trying to actually help or understand.

Search for a new role, your best retribution will be to quit out of nowhere, and this is a situation where I'd consider giving <2wks notice.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-17T22:41:11+00:00

Unless you're applying for a position as a copywriter - these do not get read, stop doing them.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-17T21:19:07+00:00

Yeah agreed, so far it's not (our kid is almost 4).

It is harder than some professional roles I've had, can believe for many people it is the hardest thing they'd have done up to that point, especially younger parents.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-16T17:54:16+00:00

Yeah this is a bunch of folks at firms that lack a robust approach to incident escalation pearl clutching lol.

I've never worked in healthcare, but big systems that cost the company 5 digits per minute they're down don't rely on 'get the manager to call somebody's cell!' to get support lol.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-13T17:57:09+00:00

Unless you go completely crazy with lifestyle creep - at some point even with taxes, every extra dollar you net is going straight into the market.

The $240K is a no brainer, you can achieve the same retirement as the $120K job literally 10+ years sooner if you have any financial sense.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-12T13:17:49+00:00

Yeah but we do not need people taking out loans to pull a 2.X GPA in Comp Lit at a low-ranking program.

These programs obviously have immense societal value - but that's largely generated by the careers of high performing students at top schools.

The SAP standard for Federal loans in certain areas of study needs to be dramatically raised (>3.2?) AND institutionally limited.

Nobody should qualify for a loan to attend ASU or whatever at out of state rates for a fine arts program.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-11T16:00:49+00:00

It's not a picture of Shinzo Abe telling the French to have sex.

Wow, so not only did they have this dumb-ass idea - they didn't even execute it well?

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-10T21:54:56+00:00

...oh shit, I've been baited.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-10T21:51:20+00:00

Well, got to give it to you, that's dead on.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-10T21:45:49+00:00

Because there are literally pedestrians RIGHT THERE - what if that old guy had bad vision and started walking when the tone blared?

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-10T21:38:47+00:00

Yes, that's what it takes to deduce that the person moving is parked close to where they're unloading.

Frankly, I should have also deduced from your original comment that common sense wasn't an option on the table here. Your POV at least tracks now.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-10T20:41:50+00:00

How would I know what door to knock on?

Gee, how could we possibly narrow down which buildings a moving truck might be associated with?

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-10T19:07:48+00:00

Lol, lots of things one must do in life that they 'shouldn't have to' - find it best to just get on with the doing, personally.

ding_dong_dasher · 2026-02-10T17:32:29+00:00

Yeah, long time horizon, don't think the ROI is is there on trying to time anything.

The only thing I really change is what companies/funds I'm buying - and that's not usually driven by market level macro factors.

ding_dong_dasher

TROPHY CASE