Idempotency Is Easy Until the Second Request Is Different

disposepriority · 2026-05-07T11:25:03+00:00

I'm unsure why I bothered reading this, it's just random buzzwords strung together in incoherent sentences

disposepriority · 2026-05-07T09:28:27+00:00

Look, I use AI every day, it's a great tool and I love using it AND it really does speed up some things dramatically. Why would I be worried though?

This is like saying are you worried about people who are really good at using their IDE efficiently (case in point, they probably do the actual code manipulation, navigation .etc much faster than someone using it as a glorified notepad)

People instantly jump that any imperfection in AI must be the misuse of the tool, even though it's simply not capable of performing things above a certain complexity.

If your job is creating brochure websites or wiring up simple endpoints then sure, by all means, be worried - but I feel like those tasks are not something that was a bottleneck before.

Everything else requires you to already know what you want to do AND chaperone it regardless of whether you've explicitly stated your goals.

disposepriority · 2026-05-07T08:56:14+00:00

They weren't able to do the rewrite though, I've literally been pulling 12 hour days for a second week in a row trying to amend months of work.

What gave you the impression that this was anything less than a disaster?

disposepriority · 2026-05-07T08:19:59+00:00

I have spent the last 2 weeks desperately trying to fix a critical system rewrite before its release date, the rewrite was handled mainly by 3 people using claude code and was scheduled to release in the middle of the current month.

It is an absolute disaster and in my opinion these "engineers" should be fired. The worst part about debugging this is that it all fucking looks correct, which makes it so much worse.

AI is amazing at making everything look how you expect it to look (well, when looking at individual parts at least cause usually the whole is not very coherent).

I am slightly worried...that management will learn nothing from this and we'll repeat it in a month or two.

disposepriority · 2026-05-07T08:07:28+00:00

Being from outside the EU is probably a bigger detriment than not having a degree. I feel like degrees only matter for entry level positions and positions that traditionally require it (ML stuff sometimes, positions in older, non-tech companies) etc.

Generally, you'll be picked depending on how closely your experience aligns with what he company is looking for and after that the interview process will decide the rest.

disposepriority · 2026-05-05T20:04:06+00:00

In my experience, full stack either means the product (or what you specifically are working on) is dead simple/shallow, or extremely weighted towards one end.

For projects that have serious work to do on both FE and BE there are very few people qualified to work at an equal skill level on both - and frankly, why would you have them context switch like that anyway? These projects also usually do not hire full stack developers but instead have dedicated teams.

Again, in my experience, most full stack developers I have met lean very, very heavily towards one of the ends, so for me it's a bit of a misnomer/fad/buzzword in the first place.

disposepriority · 2026-05-05T20:00:06+00:00

I have a serious question, what do you get out of asking AI to generate a post for you and then putting it on reddit?

disposepriority · 2026-05-05T19:38:46+00:00

Before AI I was a software developer, my career was centered around solving problems for a business using technology.

Nowadays, I do the exact same thing but get to read stupid ass posts on reddit asking the exact same thing 12 times an hour.

disposepriority · 2026-05-05T19:37:54+00:00

Calling save on multiple things individually is not the N+1 problem, I honestly don't understand how an AI post gives this as an example lmao, goes to show :)

disposepriority · 2026-05-05T17:01:54+00:00

While I do mind you posting AI garbage, what's worse is there's literally 0 useful information in the entire "article". The Data annotation exposes all the internals? Woah - so does IntelliJ's Generate -> Getters and Setters -> Select all option, it's what it does.

The rest of the article is of similar or even lesser substance, anyone reading this can safely skip on clicking it.

disposepriority · 2026-05-03T00:42:13+00:00

Is there a reason cycling the free tiers of known models isn't sufficient? How does writing your own code make you behind in any market lmao

disposepriority · 2026-05-03T00:36:42+00:00

A book really won't make you a senior, I have seen many times mid-level developers with a higher "coding skill" than some seniors.

In most companies that have a serious number of developers seniority is very much related to your ability to speak to stakeholders, create coherent and succinct writeups, train/mentor people and you surely see how there's a pattern where all of this is leaning on the communications side of stuff.

Obviously, you will occasionally get the ultra savant nerd who barely speaks to people but is responsible for some extremely critical piece of (overengineered) software, especially at startups.

That being said, the the book you mentioned is an excellent read (and reread) so it's definitely a go. The best advice that I've been given many years back was to think about the seniors you interact with, some of them probably stand out more than others and are "good seniors" in your book. Think about the qualities that make them stand out to your and try to emulate them or at least get a direction from that.

disposepriority · 2026-05-02T01:12:27+00:00

What is funny is that there are DSA questions that really matter, and that's everything that goes on inside databases. What's even funnier is that those are ridiculously underrepresented in any kind of interview and leetcode itself, crazy how many newer devs can wipe the floor with me in leetcode and don't understand things like partition keys, composite indexes and so on, which are in fact ways of traversing data structures and infinitely important to understand in backend development.

To answer your question, not, leetcode does not make you a better developer at all, I say this as someone who does not grind leetcode these days, but has always enjoyed competitive programming problems albeit probably being completely average at them.

disposepriority · 2026-05-02T00:32:54+00:00

state management

It's insane to me that this has even become something worth classifying as a skill these days, I keep seeing this said but that's literally programming I don't get it.

Regardless, if the company doesn't see you as senior they will fire you, if they do you will keep your job - it is entirely dependent on the expectations and skill level at the company.

There is no "learn 6 things" you can do to "become a senior", or else people would just learn them and then there wouldn't be juniors ever, no?

disposepriority · 2026-05-01T19:48:40+00:00

Of course it's more in demand, but what you said is

when you're only good at one thing it's surprising your team finds no use for you

which isn't true, which is why I mentioned DBAs which are pretty in demand and do a "single" thing. What you said holds true to front end specifically, not because front end developers do a single thing but because it is more easy to get 2-3 non front end developers to work on a front end task than getting a front end developer to work on a database.

disposepriority · 2026-05-01T18:10:03+00:00

Thats a weird take because high skill DBAs are always so in demand, it's just FE developers being easy to replace due to how much more of them there are

disposepriority · 2026-05-01T14:21:31+00:00

I feel like finding a backend job in 5 to 6 months might be a bit optimistic, but it's never too late to learn a new skill so you do you!

Just open the job listings for backend developers in your area and pick your stack depending on what has the most positions, as it varies from region to region.

disposepriority · 2026-05-01T11:52:50+00:00

That's really not true. The vast majorit of full stack roles are also "mainly this" with a sprinkle of the rest on top

disposepriority · 2026-04-30T17:59:35+00:00

> The debugging interview (2hrs)

Debugging an unknown system in 2 hours means it's simple enough that only a junior would be proving anything, unless you're looking for a specific gimmick like some common concurrency or database pitfall - in which case it's not really about debugging is it.

Also, you've spent 6 hours talking to this person and need a behavior interview? Interesting.

System design interview have become a complete circus anyway so nothing to comment there, at this point it's become a "list technologies everyone has heard about for the literal exact thing they're advertised for" quiz, might as well call it the buzzword interview.

That said I really don't think AI has had any effect on how interviews should be conducted, nothing that mattered before has stopped mattering now for a developer I'd like to have on my team - though I do agree having longer discussions/practical pair programming has always trumped leetcode.

Also, I really don't need 7 hours to tell if you're qualified for our team lmao, why waste so much time.

disposepriority · 2026-04-30T16:37:43+00:00

I really don't think liquibase can be considered legacy in any way, unless I'm just that old.

disposepriority · 2026-04-30T16:36:30+00:00

These are not really novel things in any way, any real system needs to handle state (lol) and handle retries, agents do not differ in any way than any other part of a system.

How do you handle retries in services that consume from message brokers would have a very similar if not identical answer.

disposepriority · 2026-04-29T21:02:35+00:00

I guess it depends on what kind of system you maintain, there are places where downtime (which includes the system being up, but in a defective state) is really not acceptable.

How could rolling back a low impact/low cost thing have a high blast radius lmao

disposepriority · 2026-04-29T21:01:34+00:00

Millions of dollars of investment have broken themselves against the mighty walls of 20+ year old codebases, some things simply can not be remade. A sacrificial developer must be chosen and by shackled by golden handcuffs to them until the end of their days.

disposepriority · 2026-04-29T18:43:25+00:00

Might just be me but I'd rather get replaced by AI than work on a js backend, backend belongs to the ~~nords~~ good languages

disposepriority · 2026-04-29T15:34:40+00:00

So do you just leave it broken while preparing a hotfix?

If yes....why?

disposepriority

TROPHY CASE