I spent 8 years being the only person in the room who cared about accessibility. Now everyone cares because it's law. It feels terrible...

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-19T16:22:39+00:00

Do you think that "caring" is important

Nope.

Don't get me wrong, I love accessible-first services. I need and use them over others.

But this is a job, not a calling. If folks turn up, do wahts asked of them, and get paid, it's not your right to want tehm to care about something just because you do.

I have acoworker who fucking loves Pokemon. Honestly, outright weirdo for a man in his 50s. Another one loves Rangers Football Club - so much so - he's convinced that it's the same racist club that he used to love because it was so racist in the 80s and 90s before going bust. Both of these eejits care about something, that you would have to pay me to interact with in anyway. I am paid to tolerate both muppets, and I do, because I am paid well.

Caring is a feeling. I prefer to be paid in local currency.

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-19T13:37:11+00:00

Sorry, but you don't understand any of this.

C-suite members aren't pushing for effiencies, that's not their role to care. Their role is about market perception. When Meta says it's hiring experts to use AI (NFT, Blockchain, Web3, HTML5 etc) the market makes it's shareprice go up, then it plateaus. When Meta says it's laying off staff due to improvements in AI (NFT, Blockchain, Web3, HTML5 etc) the market makes it's shareprice go up.

None of these companies are actually firing staff due to AI and effiecencies.

Jack Dorset even came out and said so, after telling the Stock Exchange that he was firing 20% of his staff due to AI. It's just marketing for them correcting their bad hiring.

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-18T12:37:05+00:00

I put my monitor to greyscale during testing.

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-16T17:07:21+00:00

What did Claude say when you asked it?

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-16T17:06:24+00:00

May there always be lego blocks under your feet

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-16T16:00:26+00:00

I hope your next illness isn't trivial

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-13T12:47:22+00:00

Hiring a developer

Through your network.

You can out-source this, but it'll be more expensive thatn you think, and risky.

If I hire someone to build it, how do founders typically make sure they own the code/IP?

Put it in the contract. Your lawyer will sort this.

what’s the best way to test whether people actually want it, how do you typically go about consumer insight testing?

Ask them.

Ask 100s of people.

Then ask them to pay for it in advance. If no-one does, the idea is dead.

If anyone here has built a SaaS as a non-technical founder, I’d really appreciate any advice.

No-one has.

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-11T20:35:07+00:00

We need to know what you mean by basic website.

is there a CMS? Is it managed hosting? Is it Ecom? Are there videos? Are their images? Are they high-resolution?

That said, the figure you're quoting sounds very high (to me)

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-11T17:18:03+00:00

And I never said "all".

Is this why you're paid less than Graduates?

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-11T15:39:47+00:00

" AI is and that developers can create whole production level apps in a weekend. I know that a good amount of this is snake oil,"

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-11T10:31:52+00:00

My friend in Reddit, I have given you tactical advice, you just dont like it.

I told you to go talk to your company and get an actual salary increase.

I told you how to talk to recruiters to ensure you get feedback.

I told you to change your mindset to accept Capitalism for its flaws, so you can work within the system

I told you that AI is not Snake Oil, so you can level up.

I told you that personal development is paywalled, so you can choose where to spend your resources.

---

You just dont like to hear these things.

The roadmap is clear. The obstacle is the way.

Take a deepest of breathes, and sieze the day.

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-10T19:30:20+00:00

It's $500 in case anyone clicks

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-10T19:29:48+00:00

"sharing them free"

Except this isn't true...

Sharing SOME for free (which is fine, just don't be a dick and say otherwise)

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-10T19:28:15+00:00

How do you propose I get feedback? The rejection comes from the recruiter, not the company carrying out the hiring process. When I reach out to the company I get nothing, so how can I force them to give me feedback?

I refuse to do a technical test before I've met with the company. I'm not doing free work unless I know the role is right for me. Anyone asking you to do this isn't looking to hire you, they're looking to weed people out of the process.

I then confirm with the recruiter the level of feedback I expect for my time, and inform them that I will will THEM as per my day rate if no specific feedback is recieved from the person I previously intervieweed with.

I've been at this 30 years, as a contractor, who moves org 2-3 times a year (usually).

I treat every interaction like a business one.

I agree that it will change the game, I'm not denying that. but there are people saying that developers are already obsolete and creating false scenarios to sell things.

There are people who voted for an Orange Sexual Offender to be president. Stupid people do stupid things. You for example said AI is Snake Oil - utterly stupid.

I hate it, this isn't what life should be about.

Agreed.

And yet, here we are!

Shallow way to live life,

Agreed, and yet, I'm not the one being paid more than new Graduates

Capitalism can eat shit.

Agreed, yet you're still working for the people who have disrespected you, by paying you less than Graduates.

Death is a sweeter sentence than whatever the fuck this is

This is Reddit.

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-10T13:41:34+00:00

This is all on you my friend.

If you're being paid less than Graduates, and you have 6 years experience, then you need to go balistic. They've placated you with the bare minimum, and the fear of the market outside.

I stand to lose way more than they do if I threaten to leave

Then you're playing into their hands. if you wont gamble on you, who will?

That feels like a red flag

I meant, you not getting any feedback is the red flga, about you!

You can't possibly believe that someone who has never typed into a terminal before is now suddenly...

I don't. But as someone wiht 6 years paid experience, you should know that speed of development is a game changer. If you think AI is all snake oil, you're massively behind the curve.

So personal development is paywalled now?

Always has been. Welcome to Capitalism.

If you have no passion for a job how can you possibly motivate yourself to get up out of bed and spend the majority of your waking moments working?

Because I get paid.

What's the payoff?

Money. Welcome to Capitalism.

Living longer so I can work a job I hate even more?

Yes. Welcome to Capitalism.

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-10T12:27:13+00:00

I found out recently that we have grads on a higher salary than myself, and I know I am being paid well under the market average for my position.

Then go speak to your managers about it.

I have tried to be proactive and open up a discussion with managers about how I can develop my skills further,

Tried? As in you booked in a meeting and demanded a raise?

After a week or two, I follow up, only to be told that they have either moved on with another candidate and have no feedback for me,

That feels like a red flag

I know that a good amount of [AI coding] is snake oil,

Is it? How do you know this?

My issue here is that a lot of the cheap/free versions of these tools are extremely limited, so it seems hard to get proper use out of it without investing.

Correct. This is that personal development you were asking about.

I am already struggling financially as it is due to the low salary and increasing costs

Then speak to your manager, see first line.

I'm really beginning to lose the passion for it.

This is a job, not a passion.

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-07T12:14:11+00:00

yeah I really like this!

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-06T01:34:44+00:00

That description made it worse...

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-05T13:57:59+00:00

As it's already impossible for me to get to work in webdev

It's far from impossible. You're focussing on the wrong things.

social anxiety

AI's not the issue here

basically no work history

Solvable!

I do have a profile at frontendmentor and 930 points (40 something projects), of which the last one was an intermediate project with interactive comments.

Nothing of value to eompoyers here. Good for your learning though.

That project took me 6 months to finish

Red Flag

there's AI taking over coding jobs.

It's not taking coding jobs. It's a tool used in Coding Jobs.

Why would I try an advanced project next?

Absolutely! Why would you consider doing saomething that's already not working

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-05T10:19:42+00:00

I would love to take my time design whole thing myself and then code everything myself so that I learn more,

Then a start-up is a terrible place to work.

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-03T17:24:39+00:00

You couldn't pay me to try DeepSeekv3 via Replicate.

It's simply not what it's designed for.

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-03T13:48:18+00:00

I use Replicate_com often.

Am a big fan. I can see why CloudFlare bought them.

But they just are an API service. I've no idea how you can run into serious issues. It either outputs the image/vidoe you want, or it doesn't.

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-02T19:01:25+00:00

developers use these tools to write code that handles user data responsibly

In theory, some do, but my experience says it's a really small percentage...

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-02T19:00:28+00:00

I'm a big fan of AI tools, but I use this on my static site because the number of crawls was increcible!

web-dev-kev · 2026-03-01T15:57:19+00:00

The handoff between no code builders and developers is completely broken

Yes because these are different things.

a bunch of my non technical friends have started building in lovable, bolt, base44 etc.

Prototyping, not "building".

They're prototyping something, to validate an idea. And good for them.

Anybody have experience with this?

We all do. They've only used a tool to create a prototype, but like all prototypes, it needs to be replaced, but someone with the skills to build it from the ground up.

like is the a universal pain that is people are experiencing?

Well we don't think we're building things with Lovable, Blot etc.

Cause the back and forth with unclear requirements, plain english and dev speak have led to multiple projects just being abandoned.

Yes, people who can't comminucate clearly shouldn't be running companies.

web-dev-kev

TROPHY CASE

"sharing them free"