2023-08-30

Well it is coming up on two business days since I interviewed over at that finance company. I guess that means that they are not interested - or that their recruitment process is completely unlike their ultra-low latency network. Not that it matters. I’m pretty ambivalent towards the notion of a new job.

Learning a bunch of new faces, redefining my persona, my reputation all-over-again doesn’t ignite much passion in me. But I have to say, it was nice to feel the thrill of excitement that comes from interviewing. It feels a little bit like a rollercoaster crossed with a talent contest. I know that I have a safe job, so the whole experience is ultimately safe, I don’t have the desperation of needing to pay the mortgage or feed the kids. But my ego has the need to impress a stranger. And the intellectual in me enjoys being challenged to think about problems I’d never considered.

Considering it took over two weeks to get an interview in the first place, it would not surprise me if they suddenly came back to me out of the blue. But for now, I shall assume it was a thing I tried.

The one thing that it did highlight, is the same feeling I’ve had with my previous two employers. Being a technically minded type, which can communicate well and likes people, I’ve quicken gotten myself almost promoted out of technical work three times now. This would have been another sideways but also slightly down move - to take me back to technical. Maybe, I see that as an easy way to get into an organization. But perhaps, I should put a bit more focus on getting to the next level.

I was given the advice this week, that I should stay, for another year or two, but given the flexibility of the work - maybe I should just start doing the job I want now. It’s certainly nice to have external validation that someone else could see me as a CTO one day if I wanted it. They went on to say, job title or not, doing the reps, getting the experience, and then being able to say in the next job interview that I’ve been doing x for y years with z number of people is all that matters.

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2023-08-29

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2023-09-01

What distinguishes you from other developers?

I've built data pipelines across 3 continents at petabyte scales, for over 15 years. But the data doesn't matter if we don't solve the human problems first - an AI solution that nobody uses is worthless.

Are the robots going to kill us all?

Not any time soon. At least not in the way that you've got imagined thanks to the Terminator movies. Sure somebody with a DARPA grant is always going to strap a knife/gun/flamethrower on the side of a robot - but just like in Dr.Who - right now, that robot will struggle to even get out of the room, let alone up some stairs.

But AI is going to steal my job, right?

A year ago, the whole world was convinced that AI was going to steal their job. Now, the reality is that most people are thinking 'I wish this POC at work would go a bit faster to scan these PDFs'.

When am I going to get my self-driving car?

Humans are complicated. If we invented driving today - there's NO WAY IN HELL we'd let humans do it. They get distracted. They text their friends. They drink. They make mistakes. But the reality is, all of our streets, cities (and even legal systems) have been built around these limitations. It would be surprisingly easy to build self-driving cars if there were no humans on the road. But today no one wants to take liability. If a self-driving company kills someone, who's responsible? The manufacturer? The insurance company? The software developer?