Thanks. I think I have a good understanding of the business, having worked at the same place for 7 years. I am a leader in the sense of bringing technical ideas to the table, either for DX or product features. Often I use LLMs to sound out my ideas and thoughts and mould them into something I can go and talk about to higher-ups or other engineers to get buy-in. Also using LLMs a fair amount for writing tests which is great as I hate that bit!
Yeah I absolutely understand I'm in a better spot than juniors! But I worry slightly about the mid/longer term implications so want to make sure I'm prepared now rather than out of a job in some years due to AI.
I don't think I'm taking a moral stand against LLMs, but as you said, LLMs let complexity spiral and often I'm commenting on a PR for something a colleague has done which is clearly AI and not quite right. I try to care a lot about the code my team write but for sure we use LLMs.
Yeah you're right. I've always been front-end oriented, from when I was 15 making websites. But my fascination is more on the problem-solving side and coming up with new technical ideas, so I think if there were genuine problems to solve I could do that. I definitely see your point though.
Technologies: Typescript, React Native, React, AWS, Node.js. Some Swift/Kotlin/Java (would like to do more, especially Swift). Have written some Lua. I like writing automation scripts in Bash. Heavy user of lots of Terminal-based tools, such as Neovim, Tmux, etc (see my dotfiles: https://github.com/tomoakley/dotfiles)
I am a Lead Engineer at a small tech company in London called TotallyMoney, where I have been for the past 7 years, specialising in React Native (and some work on the web). During my time there the iOS/Android app has become the main focus for the company (however we maintain a web app too). I have been a large part of driving the app forward, both technically and in terms of the product. I have been a software engineer for 10 years and have a degree in Computer Science.
Some highlights of things I have worked on include new CI pipelines (automated testing, creating new app targets for manual testing and more), universal/app links, Swift and Java native/turbo/nitro modules, automated “real device” testing using AWS device farm and Maestro, spinning up our own CodePush server on AWS, and many features written in TypeScript. The app is not written with the Expo framework so I have had a lot of opportunities to understand React Native more - but open to working on an Expo app.
I want to remain focussing on React Native although I’d love the opportunity to write more Swift/Java, and also open to working on the web some of the time.
A hybrid approach to in-office/home works well for me (ideally 2 days in-office) but a full-remote job would be ok for the right role/company. Not open to relocation but some travel would be ok.
Technologies: Typescript, React Native, React, AWS, Node.js. Some Swift/Kotlin/Java (would like to do more, especially Swift). Have written some Lua. I like writing automation scripts in Bash. Heavy user of lots of Terminal-based tools, such as Neovim, Tmux, etc (see my dotfiles: https://github.com/tomoakley/dotfiles)
I am a Lead Engineer at a small tech company in London called TotallyMoney, where I have been for the past 7 years, specialising in React Native (and some work on the web). During my time there the iOS/Android app has become the main focus for the company (however we maintain a web app too). I have been a large part of driving the app forward, both technically and in terms of the product. I have been a software engineer for 10 years and have a degree in Computer Science.
Some highlights of things I have worked on include new CI pipelines (automated testing, creating new app targets for manual testing and more), universal/app links, Swift and Java native modules, automated “real device” testing using AWS device farm and Maestro, spinning up our own CodePush server on AWS, and many features written in TypeScript. The app is not written with the Expo framework so I have had a lot of opportunities to understand React Native more - but open to working on an Expo app.
I want to remain focussing on React Native although I’d love the opportunity to write more Swift/Java, and also open to working on the web some of the time.
A hybrid approach to in-office/home works well for me (ideally 2 days in-office) but a full-remote job would be ok for the right role/company. Not open to relocation but some travel would be ok.
I’m not thinking of anything particularly ambitious. Just something fun I can work on by myself or with a couple of others and can demo to the rest of the company (I work for a pretty small company). They won’t be bothered about “owning” the work.
I'd say if you have experience with vintage computer then it's probably worthwhile to get one. However just work with an emulator if it's not too exciting to hold a real machine because the cost of maintenance might be pretty high.
I'd second the emulator recommendation. While programming, say, an Apple ][+ can be fun, getting one running maybe not so much. Plus, with an emulator, you'll have the ability to do things like write your code in a modern editor and then paste it over to the emulator rather than trying to work with 8-bit tools. I used to hand-assemble my 6502 code back in the day because I couldn't afford to buy a fancy macro assembler, but I wouldn't recommend writing code in long hand and filling in the hex codes on paper before typing it all in to anyone in 2022.
if you do go, my favorite exhibit at Bletchley is the Harwell Dekatron a.k.a WITCH. It's a really good machine for learning how computers work, both because its so early meaning it has simple architecture, but also for other reasons:
It uses base 10 instead of base 2 to store values in its memory, so doing the calculations in your head is a lot easier
It's memory is made from special tubes that have a orange glow at one of 10 positions, meaning you can see the contents of the computer's memory in its entirety just by looking at the machine.
Building off the previous point, you can see the cpu register, which is a single small piece of memory that stores the current data to be modified, which again with the lit-up memory means you can see what the computer is doing at any givenm time.
Finally, the computer has a debugging switch which can pause and step forwards through each instruction the computer is performing, as well as a more granular mode that lets you step through individual parts of an operation (for example each digit being added in a adding operation separately)
It's not always running but if you go I hope you get to see it :)
EDIT: oh and I suppose I should mention there is more than one museum at bletchley, there is the big one that focuses on ww2, but the museum of computing is tucked away to the side a bit.
Yeah I absolutely understand I'm in a better spot than juniors! But I worry slightly about the mid/longer term implications so want to make sure I'm prepared now rather than out of a job in some years due to AI.
I don't think I'm taking a moral stand against LLMs, but as you said, LLMs let complexity spiral and often I'm commenting on a PR for something a colleague has done which is clearly AI and not quite right. I try to care a lot about the code my team write but for sure we use LLMs.
Yeah you're right. I've always been front-end oriented, from when I was 15 making websites. But my fascination is more on the problem-solving side and coming up with new technical ideas, so I think if there were genuine problems to solve I could do that. I definitely see your point though.
Thanks for your views, very helpful.