My experience with Google hardware has been the opposite. Three early Pixel phones died within a year or two, and pretty abysmal experience with Pixel Buds. They'd send me replacements, but I tired of them breaking.
I switched to an iPhone after being a long-time Android fan. Haven't looked back. Converted my wife to an iPhone too. Apple is better at hardware.
iPhones also receive security updates for a long time. I buy iPhone 3+ generation old brand new at the Apple store, and it... works really well.
That's one free round trip international flight per year in a lot of cases. Plus sometimes other benefits like theft insurance, warranty extension, phone insurance, etc.
You're subsidizing everyone else if you're not trying to get the best loyalty program.
Welcome to capitalism. Do you refuse to buy items on sale at the grocery store because they are subsidized by the more premium items? Do you refuse to buy the rotisserie chicken because it’s a loss-leader priced to get you into the door?
You’re taking a 2%+ loss on every purchase if you’re not playing the game. But you better carry debit cards and cash because some vendors charge extra for credit cards, and some charge extra for using cards at all!
Fedora is good and fairly stable, but it has bugged on me a few times.
In the past 3 years:
- mouse/cursor issues due to some kernel upgrade I think, as Fedora stays close to upstream
- unresponsive computer due to a bug in the AMD graphics driver
Both were easy to fix (kernel cmdline change or just kept updating my computer), and I absolutely recommend Fedora. That's what I'd use if I had servers. But, you'll probably have to debug _some_ issues if you use something less-used like AMD.
I will have forgotten almost everything by the time something inevitably breaks in a few years. Unless I am constantly recalling the knowledge and applying it, I don't find it worth it. And I _don't_ want to be constantly recalling this knowledge. I want it to just work.
OMZ has been working steadily for me for the past 8+ years. Autocomplete, syntax highlighting, and a concise prompt--really all I need.
I mean you learn things about the shell ans shell scripting in general which you do retain. Also shell config is one of those rare things that doesn't "inevitably break." The only stuff that breaks are related to program settings which omzsh isn't going to handle anyway. You end up learning a bit and have a much lighter config. Case-in-point, you had to spend some time combing through and learning all the aliases it defines you when you could maintain a small few that you actually want. Also, zsh has plugins natively.
AWS is very heavy on Rust internally for core services.
EC2 (lots of embedded work on servers), IAM, DynamoDB, and parts of S3 all heavily use Rust for quite a few years now already.
We can move really fast with Rust as compared to C, while still saving loads of compute and memory compared to other languages. The biggest issue we've hit is the binary size which matters in embedded world.
Linux has added support for Rust now. I don't think Rust's future supremacy over C is doubtful at this point.
AWS might honestly be the biggest on Rust out of all the FAANGs based on what I've heard too. We employ loads of Rust core developers (incl Niko, who is a Sr PE here) and have great internal Rust support at this point :). People still use the JVM where performance doesn't matter, but anywhere where performance matters,I don't see anyone being okay-ed to use C over Rust internally at this point.
Just a single data point against this. I got interviews with 4 companies out of 30 or so I applied to. Cleared all the onsites. Think FAANG, famous hedge fund, popular data analytics platform, and defense. 4 different industries. Job market's not the best, but it's also not that bad if you have 5 YOE+. Offers were good, ~$50-100K over my current pay.
So many people are using AI during the interviews to cheat, as long as you don't use AI and are good at leetcode, probably not that hard to snag an offer. I also interview people at a FAANG, and #1 reason to reject people these days is AI use. If you don't use AI and can leetcode and system design, you're pretty solid and will stand out from other half-baked candidates.
Was this very recent? The job markets for software engineers has been horrid, at least from mid 2022 to mid 2025. Maybe it’s changed now?
Anecdotally, I know a few engineers with 10+ YOE in NYC, Seattle, and California, all with actual FAANG or FAANG adjacent work experience, who couldn’t find jobs. One of whom even took a minimum wage job, and another who nearly did the same as well.
Maybe the tax code change is kicking off an industry revival?
My friend that left cruise got a 2.3x pay bump (post-ipo) moving to Figma in Feb 2025. He also had interviews at Meta and other FANGA (where he used to work).
If tier3 companies are paying $540k-$1.5m for staff in 2025, then I assume the market is turned around.
Let me guess, you went to an elite university and you worked in Big Tech? I think you should be proud of your success, but it's not indicative of the larger American economy or the tech industry in general. There are reports that new grads in CS have higher unemployment than philosophy majors. Something is structurally unsound, even if the kernel of the industry composed of people like yourself is sound.
I'm finding it really hard to detect who is using AI and who isn't for leetcode questions. I'm not even sure its a big deal because as soon as they start they get all the AI tools anyway. I try to talk more about their work experience now.
There is a very simple solution to AI cheating and I'm not sure why it hasn't made a comeback - fly candidates in for in-person interviews (which btw, if people remember, was the norm before COVID).
Not the OP, but I interviewed a candidate for a remote position. He was kind of halting in his responses, until he suddenly wasn't. Borderline erudite, and I recognized some LLM speech patterns. I told my manager I thought he was using an LLM, but we hired him anyway.
After a few months on the job, he hadn't done any meaningful work. His responses to support tickets were clearly written by an LLM and offered only the most generic (and therefore unhelpful) support. He was eventually let go, and deservedly so.
For every candidate who gets accused of using an LLM and is actually using one, there are five candidates who get accused but are not actually using any LLM.
I know your comment is mostly in good faith, but I wish people considered whether it's worth it to use terms like "right wing commentators" instead of the simpler "commentators".
The "right wing" label will just shun around half of Americans from taking your comment in good faith. Is the point to snark or to convince people to change their minds?
I sat with your comment, and here's the thing: if there are "left wing" commentators saying that these tariffs make sense or that America can spin up a manufacturing economy in a few weeks "or just stop buying stuff", I haven't seen/found/heard them.
In other words, it's a genuine false equivalency, at least in this case.
I am most definitely not suggesting that all left-leaning commentators are smart or good-faith actors. The left gets plenty wrong.
However, if you're going to force me to take a side on who is currently winning at stupid, I suppose my cards are on the table.
This is a really good link. Will definitely refer to this when making a car purchase in the future. Thanks!
It seems like Volvo's reputation as one of the safest car is still well deserved after all. I don't own a Volvo--too expensive for me, but good to know.
> They really don’t require you to know the latest frameworks, databases, Kubernetes, etc
The latest "framework, databases" are constantly changing. Being good at leetcode and system design is a better signal (ofcourse, not perfect) than knowing specific tools.
Being good at system design implies you are aware of tradeoffs across various systems, and that coupled with willingness to grind means you can at pick up new tools and probably deliver on projects. I have used 13 languages and an equally absurd amount of tools across 4 orgs in my 5 YOE at FAANG. It's constant learning, or you're out basically. Doesn't make sense to quiz on anything specific. The interview process is quite fair actually.
Leetcode is only a useful problem to ask if the candidate has not encountered that problem before and has not practiced leetcode. Otherwise it is exactly as good a signal as knowing some arbitrary framework or database.
"Grind" just means "memorize a bunch of stuff for later regurgitation", which is the same thing as is demonstrated by memorizing the API for some arbitrary database or javascript framework.
Willingness to "grind" is a positive signal for people hiring developers in the same way that low critical thinking skills is a positive signal for people hiring law enforcement officers, and results in a team of similar quality.
Leetcode is a standardized test that shows your ability to write code, grind and pattern match in a very complicated space. It is not possible to memorize solutions to all problems. There are way too many problems in this space. All the people complaining about leetcode are a prime example of this. It takes a lot of time and background knowledge to learn all the algorithms, data-structures, and problem-solving patterns... to get good to the level where you can ace FAANG and trading interviews with a high probability. It's a more useful metric than memorizing specific APIs which is not standardized, has basically no/simple pattern matching, and does not really test coding skills. There are also too many frameworks, and this just doesn't stand the test of time. People would need to constantly re-learn frameworks for interviews.
Most companies have been using leetcode and system design for dozens of years for a reason. It's not changing anytime soon.
Also, leetcode can be really fun :) if you remind yourself to be truly curious about the problem.
I switched to an iPhone after being a long-time Android fan. Haven't looked back. Converted my wife to an iPhone too. Apple is better at hardware.
iPhones also receive security updates for a long time. I buy iPhone 3+ generation old brand new at the Apple store, and it... works really well.