drrob

It's mostly been due to the code quality: everything LLMs have spat I've had to heavily edit to make it readable, good quality code, and that's when the code actually works - the number of iterations it takes me to get code that actually works normally means I could have coded it faster myself without trying to get an LLM to do it.

True. There's a bubble that will burst with LLM stuff, I am sure of it.

Defence. We don't use any LLMs, and couldn't even if we wanted to.

To be fair the code they produce is dogshit, so it isn't a problem.

I'm on Vodafone, I can confirm they're okay.

I agree, but I still call myself a software engineer...

That AI is utterly dreadful at coding, and I can't fathom how anyone is getting any productivity gains out of it.

I'm the developer of a boxing game called Leather, that I've had in the Play Store and App Store for about 6 or 7 years now.

As I'm working towards a Steam release I've been digesting a lot of this guy's advice - https://howtomarketagame.com/

Whilst much of his guidance is of course marketing rather than design related, he does write about genres and game mechanics that attract players - specifically on desktop rather than mobile. It's worth a few hours of your time to check his stuff out.

I too had the battery bloat issue back in 2020 with my XPS. I won't be buying one ever again.

I'm the Systems Architect in a small (fifteen people) non-IT consultancy, and I'm on £72k, so I'd say your estimates are bang on.

As a UK user it's just nice to finally have it back. Good to know things are still going swimmingly despite the GDPR setbacks.

"Woopee cushion" is the name you're looking for.

To be fair, if you can get 1.5x you'll have done well. Aim for 2x and be willing to get negotiated down.

I'd say it depends on the sort of application you're developing.

In the next couple of weeks I'm due to release a boxing game (shameless plug: leatherthegame.com), and other than myself my only tester has been my cousin.

Having worked on the project for over 3 years I'm aware that there are areas where I "can't see the wood for the trees", but I am confident in my own knowledge, and only wanted an external viewpoint to see how a noob would see things from afresh (both in terms of not having used the app before and also him being only a lite-casual boxing fan, so he wasn't up-to-speed with some terminology).

I know full well that once its released the proper boxing fans will get in touch, and I'll change things post-release from that feedback, so my strategy is very much a post-launch end user feedback one. In an ideal world I would have had more friends who could help me test it, but there's only so many opinions I can factor in pre-launch, and managing their experiences and feedback would have been a mini-project to manage purely by itself. When already time-constrained with launch schedules, app store listings and last minute bug hunts and device optimisation I couldn't spare the time to manage a phalanx of testers.

This has been a passion project/scratch-my-own-itch project, which is why I feel more secure not having many outside opinions. If you're building something more strategic, to fill a target niche in a specific market say, then my approach will DEFINITELY NOT WORK. In this case you'd be best off firing out a message on LinkedIn or something like that, asking for would-be best testers.

Any tips? We have a 10 month old boy, and everything we've tried thus far has failed; has to be rocked, hummed and boobed to sleep every time.

There's an old saying: in any headline that asks a question, if any of the words are in quotation marks then the answer to the question is "No".

I used to work at a place with an ostensibly open-plan office, but with lots of wall panels on wheels that could be moved to form little work areas. These also doubled as white boards.

In short: I like modular, configurable workspaces, with lots of whiteboards.

In the better places I've worked "getting things done" was the priority. The places that valued code quality always overshot deadlines by enormous degrees (over a year late on an 8 month project, for instance).

Typically I find that code quality isn't too vital, as the majority of big-co systems tend to get re-written from the ground up every few years, rather than modifying and evolving the existing system.

I'll go with the book Lucifer's Hammer.

Or "We're developing a website for them, maybe we can upsell them an associated Android/iOS app as well".

I'm afraid I have to agree; the ones I've worked with have all been characterised by terrible code quality.

Perhaps the key thing is a tighter attitude to specialisation: most Indian (and, for that matter, far east Asian) development teams tend to have a "we can do everything across a billion platforms and techs" approach, where it might be better off concentrating your offering down to a few key techs, and really doubling down on the quality of those.

If my area was merely served by two tin cans joined by a piece of string I'd have changed years ago.

The classic excuse I'm receiving from Virgin Broadband at the moment is "we're currently upgrading the network in your area, there may be some speed disruption for several months." I'm paying for 100mbps, a few weeks back I tested it during one bad spell; I was receiving less than 1mbps.

I was struggling to sync my emails, never mind watch Netflix.

My strategy would be to constantly change "stimulus" to keep my self active and awake. I'd try reading for a bit, then of course I start to go foggy and you get a headache from focusing on the text. Then I'd play video games for a bit, then watch a film, then a documentary, then go for a walk, then do some work.

I found switching activities every 45 minutes or so kept me sufficiently engaged.

It would be handy in pill form, because keeping my eyes open for that long was quite tedious.

Incidentally, one of the (many) recommended none pharma treatments to depression is to stay awake for one night (don't go to bed at all), then go to bed the next night as usual (similar to jetlag prevention strategies I suppose). The idea is that the extreme tiredness when you do go to sleep resets your circadian rhythms and ensures deep rest. I've tried it, and it does kinda help.

Make sure your phone number is on your CV, and get it on Jobsite, Monster, Reed, TotalJobs, etc. Make sure you've ticked whatever box allows these profiles to be publicly viewable by recruiters.

Then wait a couple of days for the Recruiters' automated search systems to index your CV. You'll start getting phone calls about positions soon after.

There are some specific circumstances surrounding what I'm doing, so consider £925 as an ultra-rare, not-in-any-way indicative dayrate. To be fair even in London that would be high, though I know some fintech consultants can get that and more. And legacy language guys.

In summary I'm a SaaS guy, being used to replace 3 Europeans who aren't likely to be there long-term to continue to build the product beyond its initial launch. My (albeit extortionate) day rate is less than their 3 combined, so it made sense for the company. Right place right time for me.

For colour, from your perspective: if you can get £500 a day in London that's not bad at all, up here in the East Midlands (I'm near Nottingham) I can get £350 to £400 a day, though I would normally trade some back for work flexibility (I prefer to work less than 8 hours a day).

I'll email you at the Spreadserve one in a bit.

To be fair we're already experiencing the beginnings of "Less tech people = more money"; the contract job I've just started hired me due to the "staffing adjustment" of some of their European coders.

The result is £925 a day for me, which in east midlands UK is a very tasty morsel.

A friend of mine is an analyst, he has a business studies degree.