guareber

How do parents retain the ability to reduce us to stroppy teenagers?

Posted by DogtasticLife@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 71 comments

Snapped in a postmortem this morning and now nobody's putting me on the followup invites

Posted by Prize-Mycologist4340@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 241 comments

guareber@reddit

Yes, yes I did and I replied exactly how I would've navigated. You use "paper" passive tense instead of directly accusing the guy signing your performance reviews in public. Perception *is* everything.

Snapped in a postmortem this morning and now nobody's putting me on the followup invites

Posted by Prize-Mycologist4340@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 241 comments

guareber@reddit

Yep... It goes in stages too! First you catch yourself using business language and you tell yourself it's useful to manage upwards, then you look around and think "fuck, am I the only adult in the room?" and next thing you know you're advising people on the internet...

Snapped in a postmortem this morning and now nobody's putting me on the followup invites

Posted by Prize-Mycologist4340@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 241 comments

guareber@reddit

Except you don't need to point the gun at someone to point it away from you. You use royal we, "the budget has never been approved", etc etc etc. When someone inevitably asks, you say " I don't remember who exactly from (dpt A, dpt B,...) , I'll pull the emails with the proposals and share them. That way, if it's your direct boss it's his own damn fault for asking. The way forward is calm and collected, not blowing up. Humans have a default tendency to feel attacked, defusing that from the start is the easiest way. Fuck me, I've really become a manager........

Left a job where I was undervalued, navigated three competing offers, now my manager is making my exit difficult. How do I make the right call?

Posted by thenetsecguy24@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 199 comments

guareber@reddit

I'd you like the place to work, you think the new team is well known to you and not in a bad place, I'd still keep the internal offer, talk to your new hiring manager and let him deal with it - worst case 2 more weeks won't kill you. The new external group is an unknonwn, you could be signing off for a shitload of stress. I'd *also* be using the external offer to negotiate one day of remote work a week, but you would know better whether your new manager can squeeze that in or not.

Left a job where I was undervalued, navigated three competing offers, now my manager is making my exit difficult. How do I make the right call?

Posted by thenetsecguy24@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 199 comments

guareber@reddit

You probably didn't get to the end of the post - he's not thinking about the counter *at all*, he's thinking "do I still take the other internal position in another team that I had applied to, or the external one"

Do we underrate how good it is to live here?

Posted by McZootus@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 403 comments

guareber@reddit

> Every single person I know who has lived abroad for extended periods laments having to return. That's because they've **had** to return. Cohort bias issue.

Do we underrate how good it is to live here?

Posted by McZootus@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 403 comments

What did we used to do before we could just scroll on our phones?

Posted by Careless_Squirrel728@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 727 comments

If you're going on a long car journey, do you check oil, tyre pressures etc?

Posted by box-o-locks@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 294 comments

guareber@reddit

Exactly. We top up wash and tire pressure within a few weeks of getting notified on either dashboard or phone app, and our car is a 5 year old Toyota...

Our AI spending has gotten so high that layoffs wouldnt make a meaningful difference.

Posted by sassasmebas@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 624 comments

guareber@reddit

We started on corporate $200 per month licenses, and are moving to token-based starting jun1st. First thing we asked was "cap all keys to 200 per month". Why would you open yourself up to uncontrolled liability like that without a cap?

Why can’t we have resealable biscuit packets?

Posted by Mrs_Peee@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 211 comments

guareber@reddit

The trick is routine. You grab 2 biscuits while your tea is brewing, close the pack and put it away. By then, tea is done. Repetition wins.

Is Teaching Linux instead of Windows to kids in school is a viable option?

Posted by FAMPpro@reddit | linux | View on Reddit | 357 comments

guareber@reddit

When I was in Uni, I did 6 months of volunteering in a school in a very low income area and the computers were all Ubuntu, it worked out great. Some kids learned a tiny bit, others learned a bit more, but they seemed at least partially engaged and I didn't have any behaviour problems. I say go for it my dude!

UK Heatwaves - do you love them or loathe them?

Posted by Chocolateforlunch37@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 1298 comments

guareber@reddit

Agreed. I had a look this morning at the AVG humidity between my birthtown and London and it's not really that far off, but over there I'd be around 25C with a light jumper. Here, I want to dig a hole and bury myself in it.

UK Heatwaves - do you love them or loathe them?

Posted by Chocolateforlunch37@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 1298 comments

I want nothing to do with AI. Is there still a place for me in this industry?

Posted by ProbablyNotPoisonous@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 237 comments

Token Based Billing Changes June 1

Posted by chickadee-guy@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 380 comments

Things I used to be proud of doing well - Modern AI just does better

Posted by ninetofivedev@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 314 comments

guareber@reddit

I dunno brother. I've been assigned as a reviewer for an agentic internal tool that's been left as abandoneware by some external software house, and is currently only being worked on by its product owner and....... it makes some *really* bad decisions often enough. I'm pretty sure I'll be involved in a full rewrite a year or two down the line if the tool proves its value.

Do British people not feel the cold?

Posted by DevelopmentLow214@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 1764 comments

guareber@reddit

Same shit happens to me in Spain for xmas (I have family there). As long as the sun is out, I'm in just a t-shirt. The sun just heats much much more than we're used to.

When did we universally stop having lunch ‘hours’?

Posted by newdawnfades123@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 635 comments

How to be a good interviewer

Posted by haasilein@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 49 comments

guareber@reddit

This is a variant of my loop. I try to start with something that directly references a project they've worked on, the type of question that you can't really not answer correctly. What I'm looking for is how you describe it, how wide / deep you worked on it, and if you learned anything at all. From there, I like to do a question that is very much out of your realm of experience as far as I can tell - not in terms of complexity, but in terms of familiarity (typically by changing the industry context). I warn that I am trying to understand how you approach new situations, and ask them to describe how they would attack it, if they can think of anything they'd focus on. I'm looking for info based on their known unknowns, and how they deal with unknown unknowns. I'm not asking trivia style "but what is the syntax of X". Finally, I'm now regularly asking if they have experience using AI-augmented/assisted coding, and regardless of whether they say yes or no, I ask them if they can think of good vs bad usecases for LLM-assists. I'd expect *every* developer in 2026 to have a basic idea of what the tool is, even if they haven't used it before. Any who don't lack basic curiosity and forward thinking. I don't care if they have biased "I hate what AI is doing to our discipline" views as long as they are substantiated. I'm looking for engineers, not ticket-fillers.

Is it me or have interviews gotten way more convoluted even with more experience?

Posted by skidmark_zuckerberg@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 212 comments

Is it normal to be asked to pay £600 for a "mandatory 1:1 digital device" when starting a public secondary school?

Posted by Koolio_Koala@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 996 comments

Every shop seems understaffed but none are hiring, what isnt adding up?

Posted by tylerthe-theatre@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 744 comments

guareber@reddit

Except shoes is literally the only store where this type of thing is regular. I can't remember the last time I went to a standard retail store where I couldn't just get what I wanted and move on. So why put staff outside roaming if all there needed for is the tills and one more function somewhere?

Should I stop speaking up?

Posted by QuitTypical3210@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 115 comments

guareber@reddit

Honestly, that's a call for the product owner. "Is there enough value in supporting yaml json and xml as well to justify extra devwork?" Yes -> do, No -> move on.

Should I stop speaking up?

Posted by QuitTypical3210@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 115 comments

guareber@reddit

I'll give you a hack: don't *tell them*, *ask them* instead. The philosophy of asking vs telling makes a lot of things a lot easier to defend. Of course, you need to also be able to move on when the answer is not what you'd expect, but that's easier once you get into the mindframe of "I raised it, no longer my problem"

Managers decided AI is worth 5x speedup; how do I explain to them how it really works?

Posted by chaitanyathengdi@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 313 comments

Are storage heaters a dealbreaker?

Posted by nothingtobedone13@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 478 comments

guareber@reddit

I'm not OP, but: the heat never lasts until you're off to bed the day after. We rented a place like this once and ended up having to buy electric blankets to be able to watch the telly at 8pm because the place was freezing.

Do you guys write code on paper or only in IDE?

Posted by ElectronicStyle532@reddit | Python | View on Reddit | 171 comments

Asked our head of sales if putting client addresses in ChatGPT was data sharing. She looked at me like I was the idiot.

Posted by shangheigh@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 514 comments

Asked our head of sales if putting client addresses in ChatGPT was data sharing. She looked at me like I was the idiot.

Posted by shangheigh@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 514 comments

guareber@reddit

The problem is that from your org's perspective, it doesn't matter if it's true - it only matters if the contract say it's true. Your org doesn't care about anything other than its liabilities.

While GitHub Actions remains a key part of this vision, we are allocating resources towards other areas ...

Posted by esiy0676@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 96 comments

Are weight loss injections or tablets actually worth it?

Posted by Competitive-Panda215@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 228 comments

guareber@reddit

Hey mate, sorry to necro-thread. How are you doing lately? Would you be able to recommendyour provider (feel free to PM)? Looking to get my mum in a program and she asked me to do research for her.

What’s the best way for me to lose weight/fat?

Posted by JuicyPineapples53@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 314 comments

guareber@reddit

C25K is great and easy to follow, and you should be advised that if any particular week felt way too hard, you can just repeat that week instead of progressing to the next one. I've done it twice (once from couch-potato and another after an injury) and I've enjoyed both. One thing no one tells you (or at least it happened to me) is that as you start regularly excercising, your appetite also changes. I found myself craving *salad* way more often when running 5k multiple days a week. I think you should give it a try. It'll only cost you time.

Why do most sysadmins prefer Vim over Nano?

Posted by Darshan_only@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 685 comments

Do you guys think QA is a dying field?

Posted by False_Secret1108@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 278 comments

guareber@reddit

Until your product starts getting bad press due to outages and you need to start offering compensation. >Most software companies are a monopoly at this people Let's agree to disagree on "most"

Do you guys think QA is a dying field?

Posted by False_Secret1108@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 278 comments

guareber@reddit

I don't get this take. With agentic flows basically making PR reading a nightmare, I'd say QAs are likely to be *more important* in the next few years.

Why are UK wages so low??

Posted by Working_Green8930@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 479 comments

guareber@reddit

> US wages are $90-120k WHERE? Because the US isn't a uniform, small sized thing. Context *really* matters. 90K in Maine is vastly better than 120K in LA.

Why are UK wages so low??

Posted by Working_Green8930@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 479 comments

what is a small luxury you’ve had to give up due to the cost of living?

Posted by Maleficent_Day_3869@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 665 comments

How Microsoft Vaporized a Trillion Dollars

Posted by Aaronontheweb@reddit | programming | View on Reddit | 372 comments

guareber@reddit

You mean you don't think SAFe is a good enterprise framework to work from? I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you! No one manages to read through the whole thing.

Junior devs who learned to code with AI assistants are mass entering the job market. How is your team handling it?

Posted by Ambitious-Garbage-73@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 502 comments

guareber@reddit

100%. Curiosity on literally anything in our discipline is a huge positive signal right now. Even if that anything is understanding the AI itself

Coworker is astounded that the Artemis II launch isn't blowing everyones minds (that he's spoke to). Why do you think that is?

Posted by PaddedValls@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 1221 comments

principal engineer. 13 years in. just got rejected from a senior role because i "lacked confidence" in the interview

Posted by Difficult_Skin8095@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 233 comments

principal engineer. 13 years in. just got rejected from a senior role because i "lacked confidence" in the interview

Posted by Difficult_Skin8095@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 233 comments

guareber@reddit

Hey, I'm not saying that it's great how some companies do. I don't think anyone is perfectly happy with exactly how they run interviews. I'm just saying that there _might_ be qualities that are legitimate to a hiring group that are... let's say difficult to find good signals for. I agree, most interview loops are quite bloated, but there's a lot of organisational baggage that _may_ apply in analysis paralysis or past-employee trauma.

principal engineer. 13 years in. just got rejected from a senior role because i "lacked confidence" in the interview

Posted by Difficult_Skin8095@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 233 comments

guareber@reddit

Honestly, no, you're not expected to guess. But you *are* expected to be a good match for the role, team culture and challenges expected ahead. Take it as a "you can know your stuff and still not be a good fit, nothing you can do about it". The really shitty part is that honest feedback to unsuccessful candidates is very widely discouraged by HR / legal departments pretty much across the West. Most people would understand honest "here's why we don't think you're a great fit", but it'd take just one asshole with a mission to start pulling BS on social media (or the legal system) to send plenty of money down the drain to fix it.

principal engineer. 13 years in. just got rejected from a senior role because i "lacked confidence" in the interview

Posted by Difficult_Skin8095@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 233 comments

guareber@reddit

Tbf, that interviewer might've been replicating internal conditions. If the specific team/product/dept the role is in has recently gone through some flux the it might be desirable for them to see how a candidate deals with that uncertainty. It could also just be a lot of performative crap.

EM role in big companies

Posted by Rtktts@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 23 comments

guareber@reddit

Agreed, and same. If the EM isn't creating the space for technical conversations to happen honestly and for feedback to flow naturally, then he's not doing his job right.

Why do people seem to like to harass me in public?

Posted by let_it_rain_boat@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 295 comments

guareber@reddit

Spot on. The key is cutting off the feedback loop of tease/abuse -> response -> laughter -> more tease/abuse. Easiest way is to just stop giving a fuck. Put on your headphones and ignore. It works on so many other situations, like beggars, drunks, those assholes in front of the tube pretending to be charities, religious preachers on the street, etc etc etc.

Dog owners, if your dog comes to me happily, am I allowed to pet?

Posted by nrkive@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 429 comments

guareber@reddit

It's easy, 3 steps *1: show your hands to dog and allow him to sniff them but don't touch him yet. Feel free to smile and talk to the dog in whatever silly voice you end up using. *2: look up to owner. If they want to warn you about something or ask you to not pet, they will do so now (and 99% of the time it's just "sorry, she's a licker!") *3 if owner didn't give warning in a couple of seconds, pet dog.