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What did you do this week (and weekend)?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
I was pretty busy, but the main thing is I actually got down to it and did some job applications last week.
Not a ton, but... at least one a day. Feels low but I like to be thorough; I have multiple resumes that emphasize different skills and I even write cover letters like some kind of boomer. Maybe it's naive to be trying to snipe when most people are shotgunning, but I seriously can't get into the mass application mindset yet. I care very much about the quality of my applications just out of personal pride, and I still have the luxury of caring about where I end up for now.
I did a couple cold emails too, since I'm very interested in certain tech that is a bit more uncommon. I keep an eye out for blog posts about "Why We At Company X Use Uncommon Tech" and give them a read, and if seems realistic I'll shoot off a polite email to the Company X career inbox. I'm not expecting to get an interview this way in the near term, but I've always gotten what I want: a human response along the lines of "love the enthusiasm, we're not hiring right now, but send us your resume and connect to our hiring manager on LinkedIn". I know I ultimately I want to end up working with this tech and the clarity makes it easy to be patient.
I've also been getting occasional recruiter messages, though most of them are the quality I've come to expect (bad) with spotty follow-through if they have any relevance to me to begin with (rare). Yesterday I got one that stood out by actually correctly referencing two things in my skill set, associating the skills with the right company names, having a relevant job opening, and making the process of scheduling a call super easy. The bar is on the floor.
I'll be working on an application for that job for sure if the call goes well. It's a more mathematics-based problem area, so I might get to blow the dust off my math degree next week and brush up on my linear algebra.
I swear recruiters are a blight on the tech industry. I don't know why American businesses are apparantly hiring recruitment firms from India to find American talent, and frankly I don't want to know because I know it's going to be stupid and/or short sighted.
Just try to keep your spirits high. I'd probably be doing the same thing as you if I weren't a coward.
I'll venture a guess based on what i see from my employer:
Employer loses large number of employees due to a combo of lots of retirees and the tech job boom over the last few years.
Employer puts up poorly worded job postings internally, and like 2 places online. Does not get many applicants.
Employer does not pay remotely competitive for job postings in question...some reasons legit, some not....so many applicants say no or quit in < 3 years.
Employer hires consulting/temp/recruiting firm to try to fill the gaps. Recruiting firms in general are losing relevance, but payout/effort can be huge. So its ripe for spammers. Even legit recruiting firm can and will farm out that initial 'get someone on the phone' phase as cheap as they can.
Employer is happy to get any staffing at all.
FWIW I do mostly love my employer, but they do suffer a massive disconnect of expectations vs reality with respect to technology. You can't expect entry-levels to stick around when you're paying 30% less than other equivalent jobs. And they gutted retirement pensions with the rest of the US, so everyone below the cutoff mostly cuts and bails, while their workforce averages higher and higher. We're at a tipping point where masses of institutional knowledge is gonna get lost, and responsibility handed out to a bunch of entry levels and fresh hires. Plus side lot of shedded legacy garbage, downside its gonna be turmoil for 10 years as they try to reconcile it.
I'm mid-senior level myself, but yeah - the competition for anything entry-level seems even worse right now than where I'm at.
Part of it is the expectation that everyone has to come pre-trained, and that it has been this way for a while. White collar companies are not interested in investing in their own workers, it's entirely on the workers to learn the tools and take courses or build a 'personal brand' (🤮) on their own time. But it's basically inevitable in that case to run into the problems you mentioned above with regards to institutional knowledge and a broadly shitty hiring pool as entry barriers grow harder to surmount.
The framework for fuller on-the-job training is not strong anywhere, and to get it re-established would require tolerance for risk and thinking longer and broader term than profiteers are capable of.
Spent too much on gear. I preordered the Polyend Tracker Mini because I love the OG and want the extended version, possibly to use in tandem with the original, as well as my OP-1 with the USB midi capabilities and battery of the Mini. I've been using the Tracker to justify this purchase, and also because I have been getting into the wavetable side of things. I have a track I want to refine that I'll drop in the creative projects thread soon, but I need to tweak the structure as it's super repetetive.
I then preordered the Dirtywave M8 designed by Trash80 who looked familiar: He created the Arduinoboy gameboy sync hardware. This thing looks like LSDJ on steroids. I also bought an Arduino Teensy to run the headless version on until the hardware comes in. I also see myself tying it into the Tracker Mini or even the regular Tracker.
I haven't heard of the Dirtywave M8 before. That's a pretty impressive project, but damn is that a high price for what appears to be relatively inexpensive hardware. But then again, given it's capabilities, I'm not surprised they would ask for that much money, and manufacturing on a relatively niche device like this can also be pretty expensive. That being said, I'm a little bit disappointed that it's not open source, but I'm still interested in it even though I don't have spending money right now.
I didn't know that Polyend was making a new version of their Tracker, and this one is really tempting. It kind of feels like what the original should have been. That being said, I'm more of a synthesizer head so the fact that it still only offers samples is a bit too much of a limitation for me. Even with the bigger screen and more buttons (that I would assume makes it a little more user-friendly), I'd probably pick the Dirtywave M8 over it.
It's built on a Teensy, and I'd wager a good chunk of the costs are manufacturing.
The reason I'm pointing out it's built on the Teensy is you could wire it to midi for example, run it headless, and it's the same deal. Since it won't be out til July I plan to get the hang of it on the headless Teensy setup so I can tie it into other gear and not have to learn the device.
I saw that. The Teensy base is one of the reasons why I thought it would be relatively inexpensive at first.
Coincidentally when the Teensy 4.0 first came out I thought that super-fast MCU made it perfect for a portable synthesizer project. It was one of those projects I always thought about doing but never started.
Headless is kind of pointless to me, though, since it would mean having a computer around which can already do all of that without the extra hardware. I mean, I do already have a ton of synthesizers on my phone, so the only real benefit to these devices is the physical interface (and presumably a better DAC/ADC).
Now I'm kind of wanting to get a cheap portable controller to work with my phone. Got any recommendations? I'm considering getting a Korg NanoKey2.
I don't do any music stuff on my phone so I'm not sure. I'd bet the NanoKeys are pretty good, I almost considered buying the some Nano devices myself, but never had the need to. They seem to be solid devices at least.
Coincidentally right after asking you that, I did a bit of looking around and found the most "blursed" keyboard I have ever seen. I thought you might be as amused as I was.
That's wild. I kinda want one but fortunately can't find a link.
Got my second rainbarrel set up. Did a cleaner cinderblock platform, and use an old timer valve to water my blueberries ever morning/night.
Spent the first very warm day of the year at the beach. Was nice to get some proper sun.
My sister came to visit, and we revisited Castle Crashers. I always forget how big 8 years of age difference can be when talking childhood experiences and videogames. Especially as older adults who forget that age difference exists in the day to day.
It's been an exhausting month of catch-up on years-overdue chores. First we cleaned out a decade of junk (hey other Tilderillo who posted something similar). Then we moved house, something we'd been wanting for years. We downsized, thank god, and I pinky swear we'll plan the new place meticulously and avoid hoarding.
It feels like this is the year for things like that. As we all know, 2020 happened. Then 2021. Then 2022. A lot people couldn't take it any longer, present company included, and with the COVID vaccines in full force, everyone took their much-needed vacations last year. This year is the year of cleanup. Catching up on 3 years of overdue chores. Huge, huge relief... ahhh...