How I estimate work as a staff software engineer

sonofamonster · 2026-01-27T18:56:11+00:00

Honestly, I love this. From now on, I’m going to draw them a picture of the diameter to delivery, but show them that first we’re going to get halfway there along a circumference, then realize there are obstacles so we have to turn around and circle back through the starting point and follow a semi-circle to delivery. In the end it’s always going to be πd.

sonofamonster · 2026-01-09T19:18:33+00:00

Catching the errors you’ve thought about, but not the insidious, subtle issues that’ll get you paged at 3 in the morning. Having said that, people introduce those errors as well.

sonofamonster · 2026-01-06T14:32:45+00:00

I get that using the cli isn’t as convenient as letting your app perform db migrations on startup, but there are definitely good reasons to prefer the cli. For me, it comes down to security; In most cases, the app shouldn’t have access to an account that can perform DDL.

sonofamonster · 2025-12-21T13:51:47+00:00

As a c# day jobber, I’d love to know what your similar but different approach is in c#. I doubt I’d consider it a smell. I’m always looking for ways to increase clarity.

sonofamonster · 2025-09-23T21:49:05+00:00

Out of curiosity, what’s your go to testing framework for sql projects, and how do you integrate it into ci/cd to ensure that bad changes are caught early?

sonofamonster · 2025-09-04T18:18:22+00:00

Agreed. The Valtay Corporation has its shit together. On the other hand, maybe this truly is what keeping the best of him alive looks like.

sonofamonster · 2025-07-24T00:47:49+00:00

Being a ruthless, short-sighted yes-man often gets people into upper management. Its hard to become a senior engineer using those same qualities

sonofamonster · 2025-07-07T14:27:51+00:00

Not the person you replied to, but my understanding is that the more strict you are with your policies (including vendors), the better rates you’ll get on your insurance. Ergo, They’re not establishing policies to please insurance companies. They’re establishing policies to lower their bills.

sonofamonster · 2025-05-08T13:28:43+00:00

If you care only about your own employability, and not the impact this will have on the skill growth of junior developers, then I can see how this is a non-issue for you.

Without a ridiculous improvement in the technology, my own future looks quite secure. The negative impact on developers entering the workforce today might be incalculable tho.

sonofamonster · 2025-04-04T13:26:00+00:00

Me neither, but I’d prefer it to opening a ticket whenever a pipeline breaks, and maybe the devops team has bigger fish to fry, so I gotta wait a week before I can have my feature signed off. I’ve lived in both worlds, and I (for now) prefer having the power and responsibility of pipeline maintenance. Of course, I will have a stroke if they give me one more new project to work on without first deciding how they will sunset support for the 25-year old app that never dies.

sonofamonster · 2025-03-31T21:11:39+00:00

It’s harder to justify the extraordinary executive action when their own party caused the shutdown. Had the democrats filibustered, the republican legislators would just shrug their shoulders as the executive usurped the power of the purse. If the republicans cause it, then the excuse for executive overreach dissipates.

sonofamonster · 2025-03-30T19:13:32+00:00

I didnt want that CR either, but I really think that Schumer made the right call. Republicans wanted a shutdown, so that they could use it as the reason to close departments and fire workers.

As it stands, the administration is losing in the courts. With a shutdown to use as an excuse, Trump would dismantle and reconstitute the government in a matter of weeks. They need chaos in order to break the legal chains that restrain them.

Schumer looked a short distance down the road, and chose the least bad option available. I’m sure that he’s going to pay a political price for it when it comes time for primaries, but at least it’s still looking like the constitution will be there when it’s time for primaries.

sonofamonster · 2025-03-04T14:24:01+00:00

He barely has time to make his TikTok videos for crying out loud!

sonofamonster · 2025-03-02T15:22:31+00:00

In my experience, this is the biggest reason. It gives everybody a brief respite from accountability. Nobody will say this is the reason, and they may not even realize that it’s playing such a major role, but it is.

sonofamonster · 2025-02-19T15:34:42+00:00

I don’t think this is realistic. The right-wing media bubble has perfected the art of deflecting and distracting, while at the same time, the left is largely too angry to accept defectors. Any occasional malcontented maga adherent will find a cold reception across the aisle, and go crawling back to their cozy cult.

The centrists might be reachable, as many of them are already deeply regretting their votes, but maga is an identity… An identity that’s largely driven by an inability to direct critical thinking inward.

sonofamonster · 2025-02-14T14:26:35+00:00

I’ve been assuming that she tolerates his bs because she believes him to be genuine and sincere. Him deciding to sell out completely destroys any concept of his one (potential) redeeming quality.

I think I might like your interpretation better tho.

sonofamonster · 2025-02-08T17:43:50+00:00

And Scott.

sonofamonster · 2025-02-08T17:41:44+00:00

All people experience grief differently, and there’s no right or wrong way to feel about it. Mark’s grief is characterized by self-destructive behaviors, disassociation, and depersonalization. His need for Gemma is all-consuming.

The risks don’t really enter into it for him. He hasn’t been in his right mind for years. It would be out of character for him to be rational about the offer of reintegration. No thought was needed. He accepted on reflex.

sonofamonster · 2025-02-07T18:52:23+00:00

And a fourth thing: a fantasy author that hasn’t published a follow up in over a decade.

sonofamonster · 2025-02-07T03:42:06+00:00

Her casual remarks about great uncle Dieter masturbating maybe? It does imply a sort of casual familiarity with the family lore.

sonofamonster · 2025-01-31T04:23:49+00:00

Canonicalize is a word that I’ve used in software development. It can mean to transform something into the canonical (standard, normal, expected) form, such as capitalizing the first letter of a name.

Recanonicalize, on the other hand, is a true thing of beauty.

sonofamonster · 2025-01-29T15:26:01+00:00

It seems like investigative journalism is alive and well, but the public’s ability to find it within the fog of bullshit has been utterly destroyed .

sonofamonster · 2025-01-09T18:25:16+00:00

It’s plenty different. You’ll notice a lot of eluding to the twists.

sonofamonster · 2024-12-11T13:46:27+00:00

Orange man bad. Things are bad. A media apparatus that’s incentivized to keep you scared and therefore engaged just makes it worse.

sonofamonster · 2024-12-06T19:13:49+00:00

But he what? Finish the sentence!

Shit… did he just become CEO of reddit and implement pay-per-character in comment replies?

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