I'm trying to do a deep dive on RAG/LLM based apps since I didn't had the chance yet.
I'm building a chat-assistant that will be able to discuss with you and find more about what's your current work status and what you're looking for. Then it will suggest best suited roles for you from the HN Who's Hiring threads.
It's still very early, I've managed to index the latest thread and there's a CLI chat tool to discuss with the LLM.
It's been great because I learned a ton already, about LLM deployments, RAG evaluation, prompt engineering, LLM internals, etc.
I'm thinking that GDP is best used for longer term periods and not for a goverments' short term term, 4-10 years. For example, a goverement could be recklessly spending money that could have an effect on GDP but that doesn't show the whole picture.
Regardless, GDP is always useful so def one of the right metrics for economic performance in general.
That's very interesting, I've never exposed to such a development environment. Is there maybe a GH repository or something that I can see the above in action? Thank you
I see you have a good suggestion but I haven’t really got what the problem is. Is it the weekly release cadence, you mentioned branch hell but tbh I’m not familiar with it, how does it look like? What are the biggest pain points?
I’m only trying to make sure I understand the problem otherwise I cannot evaluate the solution. Plus it would have make it very hard to sell it to me, if I was to take the decision.
Id say every 3rd deployment or so, especially when new features are added, there is a lot of stress around cutting a release and deploying. People on the team become extra scrutinous of people who break the release build or don't have the features completed, or havent submitted enough tickets. Which, as a manager I appreciate the peer pressure, but I doubt the stress is good for moral of the members who are on the receiving end of it and I think the same feedback without the urgency behind it would be pedagogically more valuable.
Second, when a release is made and a bug is found there are branches mad from main (not develop) to fix the bugs, that must then be merged into develop (referred to as a merge-back) which increases surface area for errors as well as more time spend untangling the emerging web of branches. Now, in the hands of a capable engineer this isnt a massive lift, but also there are processes to automate all of this and that capability would be better spent day dreaming about a side project as far as I am concerned.
It’s all about “listening” to the users with quotes because it doesn’t necessarily means face to face communication. Although f2f is best for relation building, it can’t really scale.
Data are everywhere these days and you should be gathering as much as you can(emphasis in can, it can be expensive). Take Google Analytics for example added to a blog, you can see your most read articles and write more of those, see where people exit and take action, setup interaction tracking and see what buttons are working best. You can do AB tests and compare results between two comment forms.
Same logic applies to a product as well.
But then it’s not just analytics and valuable information can be extracted from everywhere. Look at your DB and see what people have been storin (being cautious on prívacy laws). Gather NPS and see what feedback you’re getting from there.
Big companies usually have departments focused on data gathering and analysis, but even for smaller products, I would say that the best thing you can do is being data driven. Try to base your decisions with data that make sense.
Thank you for your insightful response and good wishes. I completely agree that "listening" to user behavior is essential for success. We need to collect and make sense of all the data we can. Being data-driven can lead our product to greater success. All points you've mentioned are pretty valuable. It's easy to say, but not much easy to do.
Same experience for me! Never worked as a barista but it was actually a super fun and educational journey to learn all things espresso and coffee.
I bought a Mignon Zero grinder and a Delonghi Dedica with a non-presurrised portafilter for about $500 for both. Both are beginners friendly and for home use. I've learned all about dialling an espresso, the amount of coffee to put it, the duration of the extraction, the amount of coffee to get out and what role the cut of the coffee plays.
I've calculated that the investment will pay back it-self in a few months, ~5-6.
I couldn't suggest what you should do next with your life because of course that's different to everyone.
But seeing that your experience is mostly on FAANGs and big companies, have you thought of going with a smaller early-stage company? These are environments where people usually expose them selves to a broader spectrum of things, even having the ability to choose specifically what they want to work on.
Workplace politics unfortunately are everywhere, small or big companies. You can't really avoid those.
I also can't stress enough other replies here about really exploring your self outside of work. What do you like spending your time on outside of working hours? Any hobbies that take your mind off? If there aren't any, can you start exploring new activities (without necessary having to take a sabbatical or move to another place?)
I'm building a chat-assistant that will be able to discuss with you and find more about what's your current work status and what you're looking for. Then it will suggest best suited roles for you from the HN Who's Hiring threads.
It's still very early, I've managed to index the latest thread and there's a CLI chat tool to discuss with the LLM.
It's been great because I learned a ton already, about LLM deployments, RAG evaluation, prompt engineering, LLM internals, etc.
https://github.com/kbariotis/hn-jobs