Also the code is self-explanatory so I see no point in having a comment, which might be outdated after some refactoring.

Calling a void function and then checking for the result on an object's member variable (notwithstanding the string/object conflation noted earlier) is awful. Return values are your friend, friend.

lol this has been great

Google "Royals Angels tickets":



Sweet, click through:



Brilliant algorithm StubHub. Not like you're a multi-$billion company and this is your core business or anything.

Maybe you need more rigorous whiteboarding and tougher javascript bar trivia in your interview process. That will catch stuff like this.

Some young dev next to me asked for a standing desk because he has trouble sitting for long periods of time. He tried for about 5 minutes and decided it was not gonna work.

Tried it for a few hours today and i really like it. It’s adjustable for sitting as well. I know the running joke is no one lasts using these things but i was really used to standing for 8 hours as a captain and this feels way more comfortable and natural to me. Ive gotten more done in 2 hours than i did all day yesterday

You clicked on an ad though

Yeah an ad that says "Royals vs. Angels" not "Angels vs. the next team they play".

I always click the ads of companies I don't like because it costs them money. If I like the company I scroll down to the regular link.

I used one for years, standing about 3/4 of every day. I found that sometimes I had to sit down to really think deeply. I lost momentum when I changed jobs and have never gone back to standing.

Wait...ah nevermind

Lol I do exactly the same Suzzer

Are the Royals and Angels actually rivals? That part seems suspect too, maybe back in the 80s or something.

So I had a meeting with HR today. It was scheduled a couple of days ago and I thought nothing of it at the time since I thought it was just a formality of meeting the new HR rep for our team.

For some context, our team hasn't been that stable, we had one teammate transfer out 6 months ago because he had difficulty dealing with a staff engineer on our team. Then we had another 2 people on our transfer out in the past month. One of them had issues with the same staff engineer, the other just was sick off politics involved, primarily because friction that was seen. So we lost around 3 people to transfers.

One of the junior engineers on my team asked me to have lunch with her. I learned that she had asked HR about the process of transferring teams and she also noted the same issues, mainly friction she has seen with the team which seemed hostile but also she was not getting that great of mentoring opportunities. She told me that the previous senior engineer who transferred out would curse under his breath after meetings. The poor girl had to sit next to him while he vented. She was worried that her asking to transfer had spark some kind of investigation from HR. But I assured her that it probably was just some formality.

Well turns out I was half right, the meeting was not only a formality but an opportunity for the rep to ask about the team dynamics. I gave her an honest perspective of the situation. We often have disagreement in design decision and there has been some friction. Some people on the team just don't do well with disagreements. When you have a stubborn staff engineer paired people who can't handle conflict well, it's a bad mix. There are some things we could work on, and I think our team generally agrees with that.

She asked me if I was happy at work. I replied that "I don't wake up dreading to go into work " which she thought was a hilariously low bar. I'm not sure what her intentions were, and what she plans to do with what I given to her. But she did say she will speak to the rest of the team. I know I have a pretty good rapport with everyone so I'm not too worried.

My money is that our team will get disbanded soon. We have 3 good engineers leave the team both because of that staff engineer. If that junior engineer leaves, that would only leave me, another junior engineer and the that staff. The other junior engineer has already talked about leaving as well, so it's only a matter of time.

Our team at the time consisted of:
1. Staff engineer (everyone has problems with this guy)
2. Senior Engineer (left because of guy 1. I also had issues with this person too)
3. Software Engineer (left because of overall team dynamics)
4. Software Engineer (me)
4. Junior Engineer (always has problems with staff 1. Programmer rock star)
5. Junior Engineer (person looking to leave, not getting good mentorship)

Soon I think it will just be
1. Staff engineer (everyone has problems with this guy)
2. Software engineer me

Anyways just wanted to vent. Hopefully no ones team is as dysfunctional as mine.

On the bright side! I'm helping out interviewing. Did my first onsite interview today and it's an odd feeling being on the other side of the table.

Barrin i could tell you some stories to make you feel better. But that sucks. Just transfer.

Massive yikes. Where is management? This is not a HR thing at all.

So Staff is higher than Senior?

Engineering job naming conventions always seem weird to me.

So we just entered into a partnership with a small french hardware startup. We’ve been in the exploration/proposal phase for 6 weeks which I was mostly left out of. Now last week out of nowhere they wanted a comprehensive executable project plan (including sales/marketing deliverables) to deliver to the other company and all i had for inputs was a very very rough sketch of the very major milestones with rough timelines and there were only like 7.

I couldnt work on it because the CFO (who is acting product manager rn) dropped this on my lap and left for vacation for a week. So since hes been back I put about 30 hours into this thing and expanded the milestones into a WBS and gantt chart with over 100 items.

The CFO stressed it didnt have to be perfect with perfect dates/deadlines etc it was just a draft. Felt good about it yesterday until we presented it to my CEO who ripped it apart for not being perfect/comprehensive with all dependencies/etc. I told him his timelines and expectations were completely unrealistic with our resources and I lacked the knowledge to perfectly predict timelines 6 months out much less estimate work that is still undefined. He told me my job was to make them realistic LOL.

Anyway project plan is a loaded term and I expected the French company just wanted a list of tasks/milestones. So I delivered it really late last night after working about 30 hours in two days and woke up to their feedback, and it looks good. But their PM wants it in microsoft project form (a joke PM tool) LOL so i was right about them just wanting a list of tasks and my CEO was being ridiculous. He was right that I do need to nail those things down, but for what they wanted right now (a draft) it was impossible.

I guess this is bad?

So they have you doing marketing now too? That will help your dev creds...

No i dont know how you read that from that post and dont get why you gotta twist the knife either. Dont think Ive ever been quite so miserable. There have been a few meetings I considered walking out of and going home.

When I say sales/marketing deliverables i am not generating them. I’m provided them by sales/marketing of both companies and am expected to somehow just immediately understand them and how they fit into this project.

The managers have been giving me support but they all seem to disagree with each other (and not to each other’s faces) but I think that’s just the nature of my position, it’s really difficult to navigate though.

[qoute]Now last week out of nowhere they wanted a comprehensive executable project plan (including sales/marketing deliverables) to deliver to the other company and all i had for inputs was a very very rough sketch of the very major milestones with rough timelines and there were only like 7.[/quote]

I’m not trying to twist the knife, I’m waiting to hear stories from you about doing something cool and getting atta-boys from the senior dev.

Like ive only been on this for a week and theyve had 6 weeks of leg work already, of course theres been a ton of sales and marketing stuff already done, that’s how i got this ****ed up input to work with.

I’m not trying to twist the knife, I’m waiting to hear stories from you about doing something cool and getting atta-boys from the senior dev.



Ok sorry, the last week or two has been extremely demoralizing and I’m on like 6 hours of sleep this entire week so I’m a little sensitive.

I wont have time to do any more dev stuff but I just built a huge demo of our software running on intel hardware and it has been pretty successful. There wont be opportunities to do that kind of stuff really anymore. I’m in the process of preparing my resume in case I really need to just bail.

I think I am kicking ass but it is really, really not fun. Going to ask for a 25% raise at the end of the month and if they say no I have to seriously consider just walking away.

I would be more concerned about them giving it to you, it would make it harder for you to walk away until you felt even worse...

Yea... there’s also a scenario i can see forming where my boss leaves and i’m almost positive i wouldnt get his title but would be doing all of his work