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  • Showing only topics with the tag "work". Back to normal view
    1. How are AI and LLMs used in your company (if at all)?

      I'm working on an AI chat portal for teams, think Perplexity but trained on a company's knowledgebase (prosgpt dot com for the curious) and i wanted to talk to some people who are successfully...

      I'm working on an AI chat portal for teams, think Perplexity but trained on a company's knowledgebase (prosgpt dot com for the curious) and i wanted to talk to some people who are successfully using LLMs in their teams or jobs to improve productivity

      Are you using free or paid LLMs? Which ones?

      What kind of tasks do you get an LLM to do for you?

      What is the workflow for accomplishing those tasks?

      Cheers,
      nmn

      12 votes
    2. Norwegian and or European salary expectations?

      Short version: is there a levels.fyi or equivalent for employees in the European Economic Area (EEA)? How do I figure out what an equivalent employee in Norway makes vs one in the US? Long...

      Short version: is there a levels.fyi or equivalent for employees in the European Economic Area (EEA)? How do I figure out what an equivalent employee in Norway makes vs one in the US?

      Long version: I just found out my partner got the offer for a job that'll force relocation to Norway from the US for a new role. My current role, schedule, and responsibilities will likely work just fine in Norway and I expect that I can keep my job if I pitch it correctly to the executive team. I need to figure out what:

      • I should be making
      • What potential hires from Norway or the EEA would need to make

      I work as the Head of AI running a team of 4 technical (ML Engineers) and non-technical (Data Capture technicians) people in a Series A startup. I am the Engineering Manager, the Team Lead, the Tech Lead, an IC, and periodically do pre-sales and technical customer support/onboarding. My team is all new, basically, having been hired in the last 90 days or less, and I am excited to delegate after finishing their onboarding! Currently, I have 1% equity and make $200,000. My role is remote and requires 20-30% travel. Where I live now is actually more expensive for flying across the US than from Oslo and about the same time factoring layovers, so travel costs will decrease. Due to how meeting schedules work out, no meetings will have to be moved to accommodate me at all. Is advocating for maintaining the same salary correct or should it decrease given the higher worker protections and benefits required by Norwegian employment law? Separately, what would hiring Norwegian employees look like from a comp perspective? I'd really like to keep this job and make a strong case for why it won't be a huge net-negative for the company.

      10 votes
    3. Job search blues

      I’m a software engineer with 4 years of experience in a contract position that ends in a few months, with no renewal or conversion. Previously I was laid off in December 2022 and didn’t find work...

      I’m a software engineer with 4 years of experience in a contract position that ends in a few months, with no renewal or conversion. Previously I was laid off in December 2022 and didn’t find work until March 2023, so I’m trying to stay ahead of unemployment by applying for jobs before my contract ends.

      Since January I’ve been applying to all sorts of SWE jobs, either tailored to my experience or generalist roles I can fill. I’ve had two interviews, and they were for small on-site companies in my town. One I had to turn down an offer because their company was a nightmare, and the other went with a candidate who had more experience.

      I feel demoralized, frustrated, and anxious. Only two interviews in nearly 6 months? I thought the job search in 2023 was rough, but this is ridiculous. I’m confident in my ability to perform above expectations and I think if I could at least get more interviews I wouldn’t be searching for so long.

      I assume my resume must be the issue so I’ve rewritten it several times, getting feedback from managers and senior employees while also feeding it through ATS scanners. It’s come a long way but as of recently they all tell me it’s a great resume. They say it should at least get me an interview. And ATS scanners aren’t telling me anything is missing.

      Recently I even got an internal referral for a position through a friend of a friend, and my experience lined up nicely with the job description too. I thought this would be a sure thing, most hires come from networking rather than cold applications. Their engineering manager viewed my LinkedIn profile and I’ve since been ghosted. This experience hurt the most, because what else could they want? I feel like I’ve got a sticky note on my back that says do not hire instead of kick me!

      I can’t be alone in this experience. Is anyone else on here struggling in this job market? How long can this go on for and how bad is it going to get?

      43 votes
    4. Career advice: specializing in niche tech stack vs. finishing first degree

      Hello all, was inspired to fish for responses after seeing another user request resume feedback. Apologies if the background is on the longer side. TLDR: Dropped out 10 years ago; have only a high...

      Hello all, was inspired to fish for responses after seeing another user request resume feedback. Apologies if the background is on the longer side.

      TLDR: Dropped out 10 years ago; have only a high school degree and university transfer credits. Conflicted between finishing my degree online while working full time, vs. specializing in a niche tech stack (Salesforce) via current employment. Looking for any input because I'm prone to decision paralysis.

      Background I'm in a really weird place currently in terms of long term career track. I dropped out of college for computer science a decade ago. The school was a private for-profit (yikes) and I couldn't transfer any credits out. Either way, I was aimless, so I enrolled at a local community college with the intent of transferring to a state 4-year, earn my bachelor's, and figure things out from there. A connection at the community college helped me find full-time employment in a help desk role, so I paused my studies.

      That help desk role turned into a weird application analyst/developer position that involved configuring applications using a low code platform. I taught myself Python and some super basic React while there, and my crowning achievement was making a hideous set of Python scripts that ended up replacing an automation program that the company couldn't get working anyways. When my boss at that job moved to a new company, he contacted me in the next year to fill a systems analyst position, which in practice was learning Salesforce administration and whatever else third party tech tools the company decides to adopt for projects. I've been here for 1.5 years now. The pay is not amazing for HCOL, but I'm still living with family and the work is fully remote so I'm not complaining.

      The best part, actually, is that there's a lot of room for career growth with actual on the job experience... if I teach myself Salesforce development. There's a few other people on my team who all stumbled into Salesforce admin tasks like myself, but none have a CS background so I've already taken on and delivered on some tasks that would previously have gone to a consultant.

      I don't know how many folks here work with Salesforce development, but my research tells me that it's a locked ecosystem, incredibly flooded on the entry level by people holding certificates from Salesforce, and a different enough beast from traditional software engineering that X years as a Salesforce developer won't exactly translate to X years of experience when trying to pivot to a software dev role. I already had a difficult time getting any responses back when I tried to apply to junior software dev roles during the pandemic - which could be my resume, but I'm sure the lack of a degree and primary work experience being on low code platforms were not helpful. Either way, the thought of relying on Salesforce for breadwinning is... not something I am "above" by any means, but does trigger a bit of anxiety for the future.

      The second option would be to go through some reputable online degree program like WGU or CSU Monterey Bay's CS Online. I've actually been slowly earning credits to transfer to the latter, but I've never been a great self-paced learner. I read that these programs are perfect for people working full time, but I absolutely do not fit the bill for the type of student who can blitz through WGU's program in a year. So both would take me maybe two years to complete if I start in 2025, which is something to the tune of $15-20k USD. I can afford this, but it's not exactly a drop in the bucket either. Dropping work to attend in-person at lower costs at a local university unfortunately is not an option.

      If I were driven and disciplined enough, I could do both - learning SF dev on my own time and applying it to work, while also earning my degree - but I'll be honest and say that's just a recipe for disaster. I know me; if I had even a fraction of the discipline required to make that work, I'd have upskilled out of here years back when pandemic hiring at tech companies were at an all time high. That train has come and gone, though.

      18 votes
    5. Using a desktop monitor outside

      Hiya folks, I work remotely, and I've got a little deck with a table and umbrella that I like to work at for most of the summer. The trouble is, my umbrella can never be fully angled to shade me...

      Hiya folks,

      I work remotely, and I've got a little deck with a table and umbrella that I like to work at for most of the summer. The trouble is, my umbrella can never be fully angled to shade me from the sun.

      I find my laptop screen (13") to be woeful for working on outside. Not only is it tiny and promotes bad posture, it also doesn't have amazing brightness. Lots of squinting and hunching, depending on the sun!

      Every monitor in my house it turns out is 350 nits, except my laptop screen, which is 500 nits.

      Does anyone have practical experience lugging a monitor outside and working on it during the sunny day? If so, what brightness gets you over the usability threshold?

      It seems like I could get a 1000 nit monitor relatively easily. Anything above 1000 the market seems to narrow quite quickly.

      21 votes
    6. An equitable solution to a problem at work regarding sick leave and staffing?

      Please bear with me as I'm not terribly sure if this is the right place for this, if I'm phrasing it right, or if I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill. I work at a childcare center - a private...

      Please bear with me as I'm not terribly sure if this is the right place for this, if I'm phrasing it right, or if I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill.


      I work at a childcare center - a private school marketed as "the best in the area". By most metrics, we are exactly that. I've worked here for nearly 15 years in a variety of roles, namely as a prek teacher for over half of that time. I have a good relationship with my directors and the schools owners, despite some issues in the past (I'm eager to champion more rights and privileges for employees).

      This week was the sickest I have been in years, and it was the same for several other staffers as well. We couldn't call in, however, because none of us had fevers, vomiting, or diarrhea (the "big three" for what's acceptable to call in for). We all had flu-like symptoms, though those of us who went to the doctor tested negative for anything. Dozens of students had been getting ill with STREP, Influenza A/B, and Fifths in the weeks prior. It just took its time in reaching the staff!

      I co-teach in my class and my co-teacher and I both lost our voices for days. Others had full-body aches, tremendous coughing fits, extreme lethargy... It was terrible. However, almost none of us got the time off that we needed to recover. Why? Staffing. The owners/directors don't want to close a room due to illness, even if both teachers in the room are horrendously sick. I spent days with the kids, barely able to talk or move, just trying to get through the day. My coworkers were the same.

      Does that seem right?

      The directors/owners essentially picked those who were deemed "sickest" to take a day off. While in the moment I understand that decision, it doesn't seem like a terribly good way to handle it either. I want to bring up my grievances about this with the owners (I already have with the directors, they don't disagree with me but "that's just the way it is") but I also know that showing up with a problem and no solution won't go over well. I also know they don't want to close a classroom at all costs, which is my preferred solution. The last time one was closed was when 5/6 teachers in another room had COVID simultaneously and we were mandated to close the room.

      Anyone have any thoughts? Even if it's to show me a side I may not be considering here? Thank you for your insight.

      22 votes