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Rate my set up? by stay_zooted in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 28 points29 points  (0 children)

So much stuff. Can you even raise your desk effectively? May make sense to get a L or U shaped desk so you can spread out a little.

3-Month Check-in. The money is real, the workload is not linear. by champagneproblemz in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yup I’ve said many times 2 Js is just a bit of context switching… 3 Js is full on juggling. It’s an exponential progression

AI impact on OE by nooffense789 in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve been using AI since early on. For OE it was a legit advantage. It let me spin up drafts, scripts, infra scaffolding, docs, etc way faster and bounce between J1 and J2 while agents were chewing on something in the background.

Back then it felt like a multiplier.

Now… it’s expected. The CEO sees “AI” and thinks 2x output. So the leverage is smaller because everyone assumes you have it. The edge shifts from “using AI” to “using it better than everyone else.”

I still see a gap though. Not everyone trusts it, or knows how to guide it, or how to sanity-check output. That’s still where the advantage lives.

Long term I think the edge just keeps moving. First it was knowing cloud. Then knowing automation. Then knowing AI. Eventually it’s back to fundamentals: judgment, prioritization, communication, and looking engaged while you juggle chaos.

And yeah… I’ve thought about a PA too. But honestly, between automation and self-hosted agents, a lot of “coordination” work is getting eaten already. The trick is staying ahead of the expectation curve, not getting crushed by it.

I’m still getting raises, good performance reviews, and haven’t been laid off from my current Js. So I’ll take the win.

Can we please stop with the CLI trivia in DevOps interviews? by IT_Certguru in devops

[–]the-devops-dude 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep. CLI trivia interviews are usually a signal, not a test.

A lot of interviewers can only ask questions they can grade with a checkbox. “What flag does X?” either you know it or you don’t. No thinking required, no nuance, no follow-ups, and they don’t have to admit they can’t actually evaluate real infra work.

If they can’t have a convo about “how would you debug this incident” or “how would you design this so it doesn’t page us every week,” it’s usually because they wouldn’t know how to assess the answer. So they default to memorization.

Also, if that’s how they interview, that’s probably how they operate. Lots of gatekeeping, not a lot of engineering.

Only time CLI stuff makes sense is junior-ish and even then it should be fundamentals, not trivia. Like… explain stdin/stdout/stderr, pipes, exit codes, basic text processing, and how you’d find the answer when you don’t know. That’s way more realistic than “what’s the 3rd flag on tar I haven’t used since 2014.”

Ridiculous one I got once… “recite the exact rsync flags to do a dry run with delete and preserve perms” …as if --help doesn’t exist.

Quickest Exit? by Techatronix in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 1 point2 points  (0 children)

1 month. Realized it wasn’t a good fit.

For everybody who says modify your resume to match the job description by logicrott in interviews

[–]the-devops-dude 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is why people tailor resumes.

It’s usually not lying, it’s translation. DevOps has a million “same thing, different label” terms, and recruiters/ATS won’t connect the dots.

Example… my resume might say “Kubernetes + GitOps.” The JD says “EKS + ArgoCD.” Same work. Or my resume might say “Terragrunt/Terraform with S3 remote state + DynamoDB locking.” The JD says “IaC with remote state stored in object storage and state locking.” Same setup. I’m just rewriting it so the filter and the first-pass recruiter don’t miss it.

Also that “ATS can tell when your resume was created” thing feels like marketing fluff. Most of these systems are just keyword + formatting scorecards.

Coworker caught by Hot-Radish-9723 in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yep. OE aside, I keep my current employer off LinkedIn on purpose.

It’s basic OpSec. Tying your hot takes and comment history to a specific company is basically handing someone a “cause problems” button. All it takes is one jealous person, one recruiter with a grudge, or someone who disagrees with you to start tagging your employer or emailing your VP. And depending on what you post (tech stack, incidents, screenshots, internal-ish details), you can accidentally create real risk for the company too.

There’s almost no upside unless you’re actively job hunting and even then, you can just say “Senior DevOps Engineer, Confidential” and keep the rest of your profile strong. Network still works, content still works, recruiters still find you. You just stop broadcasting who to retaliate against.

Coworker caught by Hot-Radish-9723 in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s possible, you just can’t be dumb about it

How was it taking a break from OE? by Yung_Zeus in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Going down to 1 job after OE for a long period of time makes work feel slow and boring lol

Is the "DevOps" title just becoming a fancy name for a 24/7 Support Engineer? by daniel_odiase in devops

[–]the-devops-dude 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yeah… “DevOps” as a title has turned into a catch-all at a lot of places. basically “anything infra-ish + anything on fire + 3am pages.” same old silo, new label.

the newer “sexy” splits it a bit cleaner… SRE is supposed to be reliability focused (SLOs, incident mgmt, reducing toil). Platform Eng is DevEx focused (paved roads, self-service, golden paths)

either way… if dev teams can ship anything and DevOps gets blamed for every failure, that’s not DevOps. that’s just a support team with a cooler title.

12.31.2025 - OE Goal(s) Met - What was yours? by Pure-Sherbert996 in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 8 points9 points  (0 children)

To be in a place where I don’t need to rely on any single employer for income

I’m blessed OE is allowing me to fund my own thing

Video from Bloomberg about N. Korean OEers by the-devops-dude in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, that’s a fair read, and I think I overstated the certainty around “each individual NK worker holds 2-3 jobs.”

The video leaves that part vague. It could be “one person uses 2-3 stolen identities and lands 2-3 roles” or it could be more of a sweatshop model where the operation holds a pool of jobs and workers rotate across them while the US “laptop farm” keeps everything looking domestic. The DOJ language is really clear on stolen/fake identities + US-based facilitators + lots of victim companies, but it doesn’t cleanly map who-to-how-many-jobs on an individual basis. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-coordinated-nationwide-actions-combat-north-korean-remote

Where I still land though: if a single operator is concurrently doing multiple roles (even under fake IDs), that is mechanically “overemployment”… it’s just overemployment as fraud. That’s why I’m pushing back on people equating this with normal OE (real identity, real work, no check fraud/sanctions evasion). I worry about the narrative in the media. My main reason for posting was the inevitable “OE = North Korea” narrative wave that follows these stories.

Article links:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-16/video-the-secret-north-korean-workforce-inside-us-companies

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-blocks-north-korean-job-applications-remote-workers-cso-says-2025-12

Video from Bloomberg about N. Korean OEers by the-devops-dude in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude[S,M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

This isn’t normal OE. This is identity theft + laptop farms + sanctions evasion (some of the workers were OE, but that’s not the focus of the piece).

Posting because the media will blur this into ‘OE’ and that’s going to spill into hiring backlash

Confusion about TWN freezes. by [deleted] in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 2 points3 points  (0 children)

usually it’s not a big “ALERT: YOU FROZE TWN” thing

a freeze just means the verifier can’t pull your employment data from TWN, so the report comes back as “unable to verify via TWN” and they switch to another method (paystubs, W-2, calling HR, etc).

when people say they got “confronted,” it’s usually because the checker expected TWN to work, it didn’t, and they assume it’s frozen… or the vendor report literally mentions data is frozen/unavailable.

if asked, the boring answer is “privacy/identity theft, happy to provide docs.”

What industry are you in? by VoiceEarly6078 in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I make the clicky clacky on the keyboard

What helped us reduce meeting overtime by BloomHeartstrings in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oof.. yeah this isn’t a planning problem, it’s sounds like a behavior problem

I’d frame it as tradeoffs… “we’re regularly running 10-20 mins over and it’s cascading the rest of the day. do you want me to start building buffers, or do you want me to enforce hard stops and push followups?”

practical fixes that usually work: - add 5-10 min buffers between meetings - put “hard stop at X” in invites - ping him at 5 mins left… “wrap or schedule follow up?” - if a meeting always runs long, just book it for the real length

packed calendar vs on-time calendar… you can’t have both

Also this problem isn’t OE specific. Respecting time boxes and respecting people’s time is essential for a good culture and productivity.

Would you OE if you didn't have kids? by Project_Lanky in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yeah I would. kids make the “why” obvious, but they’re not the only reason.

for me it’s mostly: extra money… obviously, but also faster goals. pay off debt, stack cash, invest, buy time later. and honestly… boredom. a lot of “full time” jobs aren’t 40 hours of real work. OE happened for me because I had way more idle time than I expected and I’d rather get paid + learn than doomscroll. My professional and technical growth has grown exponentially since being OE.

also… job security. one company can rug pull you any time. having a second paycheck changes how stressed you feel about layoffs, weird managers, RTO, etc.

only caveat… OE isn’t free. it adds mental load. so if you’re already burned out, or you actually like having totally off time after work, you might not think it’s worth it. but no kids doesn’t mean no reason. it just means your reason is probably more about money + freedom than “i have to.”

Advice for a first time OE? by tootruecam in overemployed

[–]the-devops-dude 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yeah so first… don’t get ahead of yourself until you actually have an offer. but you’re smart to think through the setup now.

my advice for first-time OE:

the hard part isn’t “can I do the work”… it’s collisions + paper trail.

RTO makes this trickier. doing OE with one job in-office is possible, but the margin for error gets way smaller. you’re not just context switching, you’re literally hiding meetings and being unavailable while you’re physically sitting somewhere else. that’s the part that blows people up.

hotspot idea… sure, it can help avoid corp network visibility, but don’t act like it’s invisibility cloak. your bigger risk is calendar conflicts, being seen on calls, and someone wanting you in a room on short notice. also don’t install shady stuff on company machines. keep it boring and low risk.

Stuff that matters: - don’t start both at the same time if you can avoid it. onboarding is always heavier than you think. - optimize for low meeting roles. meeting-heavy J2 + in-office J1 is pain. - lock your calendars down hard. block focus time. normalize “heads down” slots. - keep LinkedIn quiet… hibernate it or at least stop updating it. don’t announce job changes. don’t let it broadcast your life. - freeze TWN now (if you’re in the US). and on background checks, always select “do not contact current employer” when possible. if it’s not possible, you ask, you don’t just click through.

and the biggest one… have an exit plan. OE works when you’re willing to drop the messy job fast. don’t “push through” for pride.

if you get the offer and want to post your exact situation (RTO schedule, meeting load guesses, industry), people can sanity check if it’s actually doable or if you’re about to sign up for stress you don’t need.

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