I used Claude Code for that PR. I didn’t learn anything. I felt like I was flinging slop over the wall to an open-source maintainer. I felt like a fraud and my impostor syndrome got worse.

But here’s the thing, I still contributed something of value. It’s something I have been wanting in Hugo for a long time: the ability to syntax highlight ERB snippets in my posts. It was approved and merged by the maintainer (thanks for dealing with my slop, Alec).

It just feels odd. I know there are many people that are excited about this new era of writing code. But to me this has sucked out all of the fun. I have never felt like a bigger fraud in this field. I’ve always thought that I’m privileged that I get to have fun at all in my line of work. As Ori Bernstein says: “using LLMs to write code is as fun as hiring a taskrabbit to solve my jigsaw puzzles”.

But then again, I know that realistically I would not have the mental capacity or skill to create a pull request like that without AI tooling. My brain is already fried from work on most days. I don’t think I would have been able to learn the codebase and get enough context to make that PR all by myself. It’s a lot. I just wanted some ERB syntax highlighting for my little blog.

Even at work I’ve used Claude Code and other AI tooling to deliver fixes and improvements that have real customer impact. But no matter how big the impact, I feel empty. I agree with Xe Iaso in the first sentence of their post: “Whenever I have Claude do something for me, I feel nothing about the results”.

Now that using AI is a normal expectation at work and how I’m evaluated in performance reviews, I suspect that this fraud feeling will only grow. The industry as a whole is incentivizing delivering code/features/fixes at a quick pace even if it’s all just slop.

I keep thinking a lot about how I perhaps tied my identity too much to my career. I’m not the greatest engineer, but I’ve always worked hard to deliver good work and learn as much as possible. I care a lot about understanding underlying systems as much as possible. I care about the craftsmanship of my code (to the best of my abilities). Unlike me, AI tools don’t care about any of these values.

At the end of the day, the shareholders care about delivering features, gaining customers, and making money. They don’t care how software is built.

I don’t know what to make of this.

Discussion on Hacker News

Why do I have to create a separate account for each company that uses Workday to handle applications? Why do you ask me to upload my resume and then still prompt me to manually enter data? Why is the application process so long compared to other tools like Greenhouse and Ashby?

I swear I’ve avoided applying to so many companies just because they forced me to create a Workday account to apply. I’d rather stay unemployed and apply elsewhere.

Just look at how much people hate Workday. Business Insider published an article about how much people dislike it. People on social media like Threads are also annoyed. The best place to see people frustrated with Workday is Reddit. Search for “workday sucks site:reddit.com” on Google and you’ll see what I mean. Titles like “I fucking hate Workday.” tell you everything you need to know.

Fuck Workday.

Your company has an opening that I believe I am qualified for that also pays more than my current position. I also need money to pay for bills, groceries, rent, and the overall cost of being alive.

> “Why are you leaving your current company?”

I found a job opening at your company that pays more than my current role.

> “What are you looking for in the next role?”

A big pay bump. Opportunities to become better at software engineering would be cool too.

> “What excites you about this role?”

Two things:

1. This position at your company pays more than my current role.
2. There may be more opportunities to grow as a software engineer. But mostly the first reason.

> “What are your salary expectations?”

Whatever the maximum of the salary range is for this position.

> “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”

If the compensation for this position increases year to year and is in line with other top-paying companies, I see myself staying at your company. It also helps if there are growth opportunities for me as a software engineer.

Otherwise, I see myself at a different company from yours that pays more.

On a more serious note…

Don’t get me wrong, growing as a software engineer is still important to me. I want to work with great people and build cool things. It just sucks that I have to lie during interviews because honesty would get me disqualified. Doing 4+ rounds of interviews is already exhausting enough.

It’s obviously an advertisement but it made me think about how much we actually work in our lives. I looked up the average lifespan of a male in the USA and got this:

That’s depressing. We work most of our lives. I know that wasn’t their intent but yeah.

Fuck.

References

• https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/life-expectancy.htm

I’d rather do a hackathon outside of work with friends or colleagues, even if there is no financial gain.

You might ask, “if you don’t care about money, why not just do a hackathon for your company?”.

If I join a hackathon outside of work I can do it to potentially create a side hustle or simply for the joy of creating software.

If I volunteer to work on a hackathon for my employer, my ideas and creations are taken from me even if I enjoy working on these projects. It feels like someone is taking advantage of me, especially if hackathons are not part of my job description and I receive no additional compensation for participating. If there is compensation, it’s usually something like a $100 Amazon gift card.

Maybe it’s just me that can’t get motivated or excited about a company hackathon.

I can summarize company hackathons like this: you come up with a million-dollar idea for your employer and (maybe) get $100 in return.

Overall, I just don’t think Proton is focused as a company and their core offerings are lacking even after years of customers providing feedback. I mainly subscribed for Proton Mail to be able to use a custom domain. I’m also trying really hard to de-Google my life. Proton seemed like the obvious choice to introduce more privacy in my life.

Over the years Proton Mail has not improved very much. It’s still very slow and has UI bugs.

A common UI bug I run into is that emails don’t render properly in dark mode. The text in my emails will be white along with the background, making the emails unreadable. Here is a Reddit post where a user runs into this very issue.

In regards to speed, I don’t expect Proton Mail to be blazing fast since there is end-to-end encryption, but I thought I would see a few speed improvements after a few years. That has not been the case.

Proton also released a Proton Mail desktop app that is as slow and buggy as the website. This is because it’s an Electron app. When it was released I installed it, used it for around 10 minutes, then deleted it. It offers no benefit over the Proton site itself.

Instead of focusing on optimizations and bug fixes, Proton rolled out Scribe. It’s basically an AI assistant for emails. This is the wrong area to focus on, in my opinion. Also, it feels like Proton is just following the current trend of tacking on LLMs into every product.

Aside from mail, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, and Proton VPN were also services I was interested in. With the exception of Proton Drive, I found these services to also be lacking. Proton Calendar was barebones for a calendar and I don’t trust it to use professionally. I still use Google Calendar for scheduling important meetings. Proton VPN gets the job done, but it is not as customizable as Mullvad VPN. In my case, I like being able to choose the protocol and port to use when connecting to a VPN. Mullvad VPN lets me do that. Proton VPN does not.

Finally, Proton released Proton Wallet. This came out of the blue. I do not understand why they would work on this service when their other offerings need more work. There was a lot of community backlash on Reddit when they announced it. Here’s some more feedback that overall represents my sentiments.

This post is meant as honest feedback. Proton has a respectable mission that resonates with me. I wish Proton well and I hope I can return some day. I sincerely mean that.

Further Reading

• Proton Spam and the AI Consent Problem

2025-01-15 Update:

I was recently made aware about Proton CEO Andy Yen’s comments regarding the incoming USA administration. Do with this information what you will.

• https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/
• https://archive.ph/txuJ2
• https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i1zjgn/so_that_happened/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1i210jg/protonmail_supporting_the_party_that_killed/

I’d rather see a shitty Microsoft Paint drawing as opposed to some AI image.

I know there are plenty of things you can roast my blog for but at least you know for a fact you’re getting the thoughts of a real human being and not some LLM.

If you run a personal blog, please avoid AI-generated images.

Discussion over at Hacker News

I have run into this question many times as I’ve been applying to and interviewing with lots of companies.

99% of the reason people want to work for a company is because they need money. That’s it. They want to be able to pay off debt. They want to be able to pay their bills. They want to be able to pay rent or their mortgage. They want to be able to provide for their family. They want to be able to afford a better life. And so on.

Sure, the tech stack might be exciting. Or the product may be compelling. The work-life balance may be good. But I promise you that the biggest reason is still money.

If you don’t believe me, find your most passionate engineers, cut their compensation in half, and see if they stick around. I guarantee you they won’t.

Let’s stop beating around the bush and be real with each other. Do you really want to be lied to by every candidate?

It’s okay to be motivated by money. That’s the world we live in. An engineer can do amazing work for your company even if they are only motivated by money. Also, companies are only motivated by making money. What’s wrong with the average person being motivated by the same thing?

You may have come across my application to your company at some point. I may have said something about wanting to work with bright people and looking for growth opportunities. While that is still true, you should know that 99% of the reason I applied to your company is to earn money so I can buy food, pay rent, and provide for my family.

Let’s stop asking this question in the application and interview process. We all know the real answer.

Discussion over at Hacker News

It seems like most (if not all) companies do these kinds of interviews simply because that’s what all the big companies do, like Google, Facebook/Meta, Amazon, and so on.

I’ve had very bright engineers tell me that I shouldn’t memorize things that I can easily Google. But yet, these interviews quiz me on things that I can easily Google but I may not know off the top of my head. It’s absurd.

I don’t really have a solution to this problem, I just know it’s a problem.

And I’m sick of it.

To add more context, I have both succeeded and failed at these kinds of interviews. My failure rate is not influencing my opinion. If anything, my previous professional experience influences my opinion.

If you need a Software Engineer with AWS, Kubernetes, and Ruby on Rails experience, and you don’t do silly quizzes, feel free to reach out!

Further Reading

• Discussion over at Hacker News
• Re-imagining Technical Interviews: Valuing Experience Over Exam Skills

I wish companies were more honest about this. It’s okay to admit that the ultimate mission is to make as much money as possible. It’s obvious that companies exist primarily to earn money. I would have more respect for companies that were more honest about this.

It doesn’t matter if investor expectations are surpassed, layoffs can still take place.

It’s somewhat understandable if a company is struggling financially and resorts to layoffs. However, there are plenty of companies that are profitable and still lay off the people that earned the company those profits.

Many companies are not only profitable, but their executives continue to earn huge sums of money amidst layoffs.

Aside from layoffs, employees may have their pay frozen even though company revenues are up. That’s what happened at Microsoft. Let’s not forget that Microsoft is a $2.5 trillion company (at the time of this writing).

It doesn’t matter how much value you’ve delivered. It doesn’t matter how much impact you’ve had in a company. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been at a company. You are still disposable.

Employees everywhere are disposable, not just in the tech field. You can work at a company for over 30 years and still get thrown away like nothing.

This article shows the mindset some very wealthy executives have about the average worker/employee.

There are some bits I want to highlight:

Quote:

“There’s been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them,” Mr Gurner said. “We need to remind people they work for the employer, not the other way around.”

Quote:

[Mr Gurner] has previously made headlines by suggesting young people cannot afford homes because they spend too much on avocado toast.

In Conclusion…

It’s okay to like your job and employer. Just understand that, as an employee, you are disposable.

Further Reading

Here are some articles I’ve come across that share similar sentiments or are very relevant. I highly recommend giving them a read.

• Maybe you should store passwords in plaintext
• Our Company Is Doing So Well That You’re All Fired
• What Companies Still Get Wrong About Layoffs
• I Accidentally Saved Half A Million Dollars
• Once You’re Laid Off, You’ll Never Be the Same Again
• G̶o̶o̶g̶l̶e̶r̶… ex-Googler.
• Motivation in an Absurd System
• The Three Year Myth

Discussion over at Hacker News