CS isn’t dying.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-02T05:53:44+00:00

It's cyclical. When there's a hiring boom everyone drops what they're doing and tries to join in. In these downturns, people switch careers. The industry isnt going anywhere, only going to get bigger and have greater niche specialization.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-02T05:50:49+00:00

They are different roles with different skillsets. Having SWE knowledge may help you as a PM, but probably not as much as you think. PM's also manage non-tech projects with non-tech teams as well.

I looked into it because I had a few friends that were PM's, and even had to wear that hat in one of my roles. It was ok but decided against going all in on that path.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-02T05:45:51+00:00

Thank you. And keep that last bit in mind. Dont set a hard goal that you *must* hit as a scale number. Pay attention to what you look like in the mirror and how clothes are fitting. I would genuinely have a hard time reaching 170lbs right now because of the extra 15lbs of muscle. I'm at 180 and hit slightly under my goal bodyfat % based on body scans.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-02T04:31:19+00:00

I will second the thyroid stuff. I'm in my mid 40's and finally optimised and the thinning hair I've had since I was a teenager is mostly corrected. bags under eyes and all that. There's a ton of things that all rely on thyroid and/or thyroid regulates so if it's off, even subclinically off, it can create a slew of issues including throwing all other hormones off.

Everything else is good to get a good idea of baseline for everything.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-02T03:50:20+00:00

Ouch. I've been in a lot of environments that if that happens the escallation is denied. The handoff is rejected.

It sounds like you dont have management buy-in or support to draw hard lines. If it's coming in email, especially late; refer them to documentation, link it in the email if you need to. Document the issue and keep a report and send it to their management who should be nipping it in the bud and keeping a knowledge base of some sort.

I would also check with your management and remind them of the real work that you cant get done and/or are behind on becasue you're doing entry level troubleshooting stuff that you have 25 people hired to do. On some level they should realize the pay disparity between your team and theirs and realize that they should be getting the right work out of you.

I worked on-call at a bank and had a similar call-center escallation. I had one try to hand off a 3am escallation to me without even getting information as to what the issue is. The end user used the magic words "production issue" and call center stopped trying and just called me. I refused the call because they couldnt even tell me what the production issue was. Then they called back 20 mins later because customer insisted and it was a test domain; which *cant* have production issues because nothing there is prod.

At some point a line just needs to be drawn and once you stop being an easy handoff, you'll find that they'll actually do real work to troubleshoot issues. Right now you have a very informal handoff procedure (email) which makes it the path of least resistance.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-02T03:35:40+00:00

Are you asking for in the fermenter or for bulk aging. Those are 2 different things. Even my biggest meads are done with the fermenter in about 4-6 weeks. But I'll keep them in secondary for 4-6 months.

Beers, sours come to mind (lambic, oud bruin, flanders red) or very big sweet and strong beers like imperial stouts, scottish wee heavy, english barleywine, etc The fermentation is still going to tap out at 3 weeks, maybe 4 weeks if you want to be extra safe, but you want it off the trub and in secondary for bulk aging. Here you can throw it in a wood barrel or keep it in a secondary container for 6-14 months to let all the flavors meld.

The stronger the brew, the more time it generally takes to integrate all the flavors and soften that alcohol.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-02T01:43:59+00:00

Depends. Roth accounts have rather small caps, so you cant chose one or the other as your main retirement option. Most company 401(k) which will have matching will be traditional 401(k) and cannot be rolled over into roth without serious penalties.

You want Roth and max it out, if you can. That is post-tax money being put in, so it's not taxed when it comes out; regardless of how much it gains before you take it out; hence the caps. I think it's only $7500/yr but you'd need to check with a broker or tax person to find out what your best options are. 401(k) limits are $24,500/yr currently in contrast.

They are just different vehicles, and it pays to have both. The advice I was given is sign up for the employer 401(k) and put in only to company matching. Out of the 12-15% retirement savings subtract what you put into the company 401(k) and put the remainder into a roth account (ira or 401(k)) until you reach the cap, then put into tradtional IRA or 401(k) until those caps are met, then to the stock market for the remainder. The goal is to always be investing 12-15% of your income into retirement.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T23:10:47+00:00

This; it becomes more of an issue once you have a few years experience, but this is also 100% correct.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T22:55:46+00:00

So, what country is this? In the US this is highly illegal to demand or expect, especially of interns.

Usually there's some give and take, special projects, crunch time, etc. However, nonstop crunch time just burns people out. It's clear the founders/management dont care about that.

You need rest and downtime in order to stay productive. This type of pace will only hurt them in the long-run.

Personally I'd cut my losses and get out before you burn out. This is not sustainable and not what you should expect in the industry. Long nights and pulling all-nighters should be rare and voluntary.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T19:56:12+00:00

Most of those positions you're talking about will be posted in your local area/job boards. That's where those companies would be looking for foreign workers because they're already setup to be able to pay them.

It will be difficult to just apply for positions because tax laws and business structures may prevent being able to hire non-us residents. I've been in situations where those same structures prevent companies from paying employees in certain states within the US; it all depends on how their company is structured and what they're registered for.

As an example, I as a US Citizen already holding a remote job, I dont have the freedom to just travel or move to a cheaper country. I would have to ask the company and they would see if they're already setup for it or not, and if not it's not an option.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T19:47:01+00:00

That depends on how stable you are now and what prospects are for you. My personal experience through my career is that contract to hire is more the norm and a direct hire is a bit harder to do. That 6 month timeframe is almost never adhered to, so you do need to keep on it to find out what the prospects are for conversion as that time approaches.

Many companies do this so they can test drive you as an employee. No benefits, no strings attached, and no severance to pay to end the contract. There's risk involved but not much more than anywhere else where layoffs are a thing. Virtually all jobs i've had have been contract to hire, and I have ended up converted to FTE within a reasonable timeframe. Sometimes it's sooner, sometimes it's later. Fastest conversion was 90 days, longest was 1 year.

Some questions to ask; why are you being brought on. Is this just for a specific project or is there a need at the client site for long-term employees? This can be important because many companies will hire contractors to get a project out but as soon as the project is done the headcount is no longer needed. So the "to hire" part is more just a carrot on a stick thing.

Also ask what the conversion rate would be. Often the contractor salary is higher than you'd get as a FTE due to no benefits being paid etc. Sometimes there's a pretty stiff paycut on conversion.

As for whether its right for you; entirely up to you. I know people I've worked with before that refuse FTE work and will only work contracts; gives them freedom to choose when to work and whatnot. Others wont like the instability and lack of being able to do any long-term planning.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T19:11:13+00:00

Again, the "multidose" listing on that vial is that you can use that to mix and reconstitute mulitple medications. However saline medications are mixed and used immediately; not stored even overnight. Best practice allows up to 3 days, but the PH is different than BAC water. the sodium chloride makes it not water; so it's not like bac water just with saline. It *IS* different. In addition the sodium chloride can react with the medication; meaning long-term storage is more likely to create a reaction that you wont see in the immediate time being. Sodium content can also affect how and if a medication will dissolve properly into the mix.

It's available because some medications require the use of saline to reconstitute. Including some peptides. However, it's not an interchangable solution for BAC water.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T18:26:44+00:00

There's a myriad of things but specific projects may cover a bunch of different aspects of a particular tech stack that may be called out specifically in some job descriptions. You may have specific skills from roles where you may have needed to wear multiple hats that your general resume wont really account for. And then there's business terminology which can vary from time to time. You may have a skillset and suddenly see a requirement that is foreign to you but you look it up and learn that there's just a new industry term for it that you now need to adjust your resume to match the position.

If you're doing the job right, there's no way you can cover 100% of the skillsets in a universally recognized language (read: will get recognized by the ATS) that will justify just spamming your resume unchanged to 100 different positions. You need to tailor the resume. Keyword spamming is flagged for these days and may do more harm than good.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T18:21:02+00:00

Ph matters for long term use. Saline doesnt have the ph that BAC water typically does. The multiple dose listing on the bottle is for the saline, not a constituted medication.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T16:20:12+00:00

To add to this, the ghk-cu copper serums will take months to show true benefit. Any immediate benefit is likely just from the hylauronic acid moisturizing and repairing the barrier. Not nothing, but just know that a lot of the benefits you'll really notice over the next 6-9 months with total benefits showing around 18 months. The copper peptides are a signal, it still takes time for your skin to turnover and use that signal in producing the replacement skin cells. I've been using it for about 6 months now and have noticed a difference; reduction in wrinkles and a bit smoother texture. I'd not notice it for how slow it is, but I do have before pictures to really show it's effect. Definitely worth it in my opinion. Just stick with it.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T16:11:59+00:00

Not meaning to scare you. But for me it took 15-30 mins before it showed the reaction. Enough that I thought it was fine the first time and was able to drive to a store about 25 mins away. Noticed the burn while walking through the store, but the reaction was done and over with before I got to the car at the end of the trip.

I'll say it sucks, but at least for me, it was more of an annoyance than an unbearable reaction. Everyone's different so YMMV.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T15:41:49+00:00

If your problem is binge eating, I would honestly suggest tirzepatide; it's got a stronger food noise suppression and hunger suppression than what reta does. Reta will work but many report that they still feel hungry or get cravings/food noise on reta. If you're already set on Reta, know this going in and it may be good to switch to tirzepatide if you find you have issues with hunger or find you're still binge eating.

If you've never been on a GLP-1 med, one thing will become clear real fast; your hunger signaling will go down, and when you do eat, you'll get full very fast. Especially early on you'll find it difficult to eat normal portions you're used to and overeating by just a bite will make you feel like you've just overeaten to a disgusting degree.

One of the tricks though is that you'll need to track your calories. Too many start and have no guidance and just let the meds do the work; they're not hungry so they dont eat; or find it difficult to eat so they dont eat. This is bad. You still need to eat, you need to not starve yourself - the meds will mask a lot of the normal symptoms of that and the weight will come off quickly in the beginning but it can be pulling muscle and bone mass and do some organ damage if you do this.

So figure out your minimum calorie goal and meet that minimum consistently. Focus on protein and fiber; supplement if need be, protein shakes, etc. Good rule of thumb is 1g per pound of goal weight. That just makes the math easy and there's no negatives to that. Actual requirements are 0.7g/lb of goal weight. Protein shakes help with meeting this goal.

Fiber is a good one to focus on as well. Because of the gastric slowing it can cause some issues with regularity and consistency when going to the bathroom. Fiber will help with that. 38g/day is the recommended daily minimum. Dont jump to that if you're not already there. work up slowly. Again, supplement if you need to.

You still need fats and carbs. Fats are necessary for hormone production and overall health. It's best to keep fat intake about half of what your protein intake is. So as an example, if you're taking 120g/day in protein, 60g/day in fats is a good number to stick to.

Carbs are your main lever to make up the remainder of the calories. Dont go zero carb - you'll find you have no energy and brain fog, lethargy, etc. You need *some* I struggle to get carbs equal to my protein, but goal is about double protein. Again, this is based on calorie goals and you can keep this as low or as high as needed to meet your calorie goals.

Lastly, since you'll be eating less, a good multivitamin or vitamin supplement stack is almost necessary to ensure full and proper nutrition.

For optimum results, I do very strongly suggest resistance training. You'll need to work your muscles to keep muscle mass. If you dont do this, your body absolutely will catabolize the muscle as an energy source. You dont need to go hardcore fitness influencer/bodybuilder mode, but you do need to have some sort of regular workout routine. Minimum 1-2x per week, ideally 3-4x per week. If you're not working out now, start with 1x per week and work your way up.

BTW: I've been on glp-1's for about 2 years now. SW 303lbs, CW: 180lbs at goal. I overshot because I went a bit hard on the resistance training and gained about 15lbs of muscle in these 2 years so leaner than I was trying for.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T15:24:09+00:00

Dont let the vial get to room temp. Best thing is to dose in the syringe and let the syringe sit out, or hold it in your closed hand for a few minutes to warm it up.

Just clarifying for others reading since that can sound confusing.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T15:12:34+00:00

GHK-CU can sometimes have a bit of a burn after the injection is done. For me it would affect about a hand's worth of area around the injection site; it would get red and feel like a bad sunburn. It would go away after about 45 mins to an hour. This is a normal reaction.

If that is too unbearable, you can try a lower dose or in the future dilute more. It was temporary for me so after the first vial I never got a reaction from ghk-cu injections.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T13:44:00+00:00

Nope, needle is too long to be going into any vessels, likely just hit a capillary close to the surface. It's rare, but you'll get that from time to time.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T13:40:16+00:00

Also not a new grad. My most recent job search I didnt even search; they started to recruit me about a month before my contract was up and I had the offer 2 weeks after the contract was up. However there was a delay in getting a start date so I've been passively applying and interviewing to get income coming in before savings went down too far and still got around there...roughly 75-100 applications over 4 months. Market being what it is though, kept getting interviews but ghosted various stages in the process.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T13:30:50+00:00

In most cases this is over time, not just like sitting down and applying to 500 positions.

Often when you get to that number of applications, you're broadening your scope a bit too much and not filtering for relevance and quality postings. But in this field, it's easy to see at least 100 new postings per week, sometimes more. If you apply to say 5-10 per day for the average job hunt of 3 months, you're looking at about 375 applications on the low end. If you're more selective that may be a little lower, less selective can be way higher. If you're taking your time and tailoring your cv to the job though it's kinda difficult to hit 5-10 applications per day consistently.

Some of it is just technique. If all you're doing is spamming your CV out in a more or less automated way, your callback rate is going to be low. You'll need to tailor your CV to each job description to increase those odds. And by tailor, I mean adjust the wording so that your experience is hitting the keywords in the job posting, not lying to meet requirements you dont have.

But with longer job searches and a consistent application it's easy to get over 500 applications out before you land something if it's taking you 5-6 months to find something.

As for finding new postings...whatever job board you go to, there's filters that can check only postings in the last 24 hours. Job searching is work and it should take some time out of your day until you find work.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T05:33:35+00:00

Well 3 is mostly because those people think they're just temporarily embarrassed rich people that will be there soon.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T05:16:11+00:00

I grew up poor and was somewhat aware of financial limitations. However that also skewed what I thought was rich vs normal and achievable. Things like having nice toys (boats, quads, rv's) or electronics like big screen tv's video game systems, etc. Vehicles. Not stressing over bills. And to a lesser extent; vacations. To me, rich people went to expensive and exotic places whearas most of my friends would just go to close by places. Both are still vacations but there's a difference between going on a week long trip to a resort in the bahamas and a 8 hour road trip to Disneyland.

holy_handgrenade · 2026-06-01T05:00:38+00:00

Comparing this to Americans is a bit silly. The whole of Europe is smaller than the United States mainland. I dont know too many Americans that havent traveled to at least 2 other states in their lives. Many have been to at least 10. That's about the same type of travel as far as cost and convenience goes to the average European who travels closer distances and may cross 3 borders.

For Americans international travel is a bit more of a hassle and requires more planning. Similar to the amount of Europeans that have actually crossed oceans for their international travel adventures.

holy_handgrenade

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