Magmalgebra (u/Magmalgebra)

Magmalgebra commented on Don't use Redis as a rate limiter medium.com/ratelimitly/wh... · Posted by u/5pl1n73r

Magmalgebra · 15 days ago

I wish the article talked more about why people use Redis as a rate limiter and why alternatives might be superior. Anecdotally I see the following play out repeatedly:

1) You probably already have Redis running

2) Adding a "good enough" rate limiter is easy

3) Faster solutions are usually more work to maintain given modern skillsets

If you are a b2b SaaS company odds are your company will exceed 10 billion in market cap looong before Redis rate limiting is a meaningful bottleneck.

Magmalgebra commented on We Don't Believe in Work-Life Balance entrepreneur.com/business... · Posted by u/g4k

sigseg1v · 17 days ago

Ever since the recent AI fad, more and more of these types of people have come out of the woodwork.

Every random unknown business now truly believes that they have built something novel and revolutionary. They have the audacity to see difficult things being invented by geniuses and think "wow, I can do it too". They think that they must succeed at all costs; their employees must work unlimited hours and they must use unlimited resources because nothing is more important.

It's kind of sad to watch, knowing that in a couple years nobody will care and their company will have produced nothing of value, while the negative consequences of their "progress at all costs" will still be felt by individuals and the world.

Magmalgebra · 17 days ago

This is so much better than a decade ago! No underhanded "we're a family" - the company says "you will work 60 hours a week and take a big risk" and employees can say yes or no.

Magmalgebra commented on Open AI announces $1.5M bonus for every employee medium.com/activated-thin... · Posted by u/blindriver

volkk · 17 days ago

i'm having a lot of cognitive dissonance with the amount of money being thrown around -- you have people making a few dollars a day in some parts of the world, and in others you get an extra 1.5mm to sit at the computer for 2 hours a day and then take a nap. Let's be honest, not all openai employees are phd researchers, and this is one giant publicity stunt akin to a gameshow (Look at us! we pay a TON, much more than the other guy!)

black mirror-esque somehow. but hey, now a few thousand people in SF are guaranteed millionaires (as if they weren't already)

Magmalgebra · 17 days ago

> others you get an extra 1.5mm to sit at the computer for 2 hours a day and then take a nap

A few of the most world class reserachers can do this, all of my other friends and colleagues at OpenAI work 10-14 hours day - often 7 days a weeek.

OpenAI pays eyewatering sums but you're absolutely sacrificing years of your life for it.

Magmalgebra commented on Renting Is for Suckers andrewkelley.me/post/rent... · Posted by u/Bogdanp

Magmalgebra · a month ago

I've read a lot of blog posts making this same argument for a year "Cloud makes 80% margins! You're fool for paying them!" and I think they show a lack of curiosity as to why so few companies paying 9 figure cloud contracts feels incentivized. That's a huge incentive for a director looking to make their mark right?

In fact we have an example of a company that spent years moving off cloud - Dropbox - and the company has been stagnating since - so this isn't some "easy win".

If you talk to smart business leaders you'll hear the main 3 points come up over and over: cloud offers three huge advantages that are worth incredible margins to many companies:

1. Your business can scale existing or new workloads very quickly

2. It frees up organizational focus for your customer's problem

3. It's easier to hire cloud skills for than bare metal skills

You'll note that improvement on all of these are a trade of money for more time and lower risk. Put in those terms I hope it's not confusing why we continue to pay cloud provides.

Magmalgebra commented on From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership humansinsystems.com/blog/... · Posted by u/yunusozen

crystal_revenge · a month ago

I find "engineer to manager" guides are fundamentally not possible to write. I've been a manager of a team 3-4 times now and each experience was entirely different from the previous.

But this post makes the biggest mistake, something I have struggled with in every management role: focusing on managing down.

Managing down isn't actually that hard to get the hang of if you have strong technical skills and reasonable communications skills. But managing down is very similar to being a good teaching professor: absolutely worthless and largely done at your own peril.

Managing up is, in practice, 100% of a manager's job. I've been on teams where this was so easy I didn't even realize it was something I had to do. Leadership liked me, I could do whatever I wanted and they were happy. I've been at places where this was an impossible task (and I saw multiple other managers/leadership hires get let go very fast if they didn't "fit in", despite being hired to "shake things up"). I've been at places where I started on the ground floor, management loved me, loved my work, my team consistently outperformed... but never in a billion years were going to allow me "into the fold" so to speak.

I used to admire strong technical managers that had a great vision for how to solve problems, but I also have admiration for great teaching professors. In practice the best managers care primarily about politics and growing their personal stake in the organization. I've found that the more clueless they are the better (just don't point that out).

Magmalgebra · a month ago

> Managing down isn't actually that hard to get the hang of if you have strong technical skills and reasonable communications skills. But managing down is very similar to being a good teaching professor: absolutely worthless and largely done at your own peril.

To your earlier point - even this is contextual. Incredibly high performing teams tend to be really hard to retain. It's not that hard to make your bosses love you if you're posting wildly out of band results - so the struggle is making sure the people who are actually making that happen stay on and stay engaged.

(I'll note that some of the most successful managers I know built their career on creating playgrounds for a small number of high performing ICs)

Magmalgebra commented on How to negotiate your salary package complexsystemspodcast.com... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

scarface_74 · 2 months ago

Post 2022, there are hundreds of people applying for every job and they can easily find someone good enough to fill the position.

Have you tried your strategy in the last 2-3 years?

Magmalgebra · 2 months ago

I have - it works.

I can also assure you that despite the 100s of applicants hiring remains hard even with competitive market compensation. Filling a generalist senior eng headcount with $500k liquid total compensation can take months. Many engineers have wildly inflated ideas about their own abilities.

Magmalgebra commented on How to negotiate your salary package complexsystemspodcast.com... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

flatline · 2 months ago

This was the standard advice 2-3 years ago when the market was hot, I can’t imagine this being feasible for most people right now.

Magmalgebra · 2 months ago

This has never stopped working for me - I interview every year or so as a matter of course.

My experience helping others is that in a tightening labor market they are experiencing "small fish in a big pond" syndrome mentioned above.

Compensation for the bottom 50-75% of talent has dropped significantly since 2021* - if you are in that band and chasing the same comp you're dealing with the "small fish in a big pond" situation. If these people drop their compensation expectations back to 2017 levels many of them will find jobs much more plentiful - though the very bottom of the pool is being driven out of the industry entirely.

* this estimate pulled from conversations with engineering leaders and recruiters at large SV tech companies

Magmalgebra commented on How to negotiate your salary package complexsystemspodcast.com... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

entropi · 2 months ago

Last time I got a job offer the hiring process took ~4 months with seven steps, and I had to answer within 3 days.

I do not get how is anyone realistically supposed to coincide the multiple offers they get. Unless you are already in an extremely privileged position, I cannot even imagine how you can do that.

Magmalgebra · 2 months ago

> I had to answer within 3 days.

If you re-read the transcript, I hope you will come to the understanding that this is a lie. The company is trying to leverage your desperation for a job.

> Last time I got a job offer the hiring process took ~4 months with seven steps

Just like increased compensation, gettting the timeline you want requires leverage. When interviewing I always communicate that I expect an offer from a peer competitor within the next few weeks - this expedies my interview process. I always end up with a minimum of 4 competing offers to use as a BATNA.

Something the article winks at here is that negotation has only a small expected payoff if you've navigated your career such that you're a "small fish in a big pond" so to speak.

Someone who can barely pass a FAANG interview likely can't negotiate much with Google but probably could negotiate at lower tier company like SAP.

*edit* I do this strategy 12-18 months whether or not I leave a company, it has never failed me

Magmalgebra commented on How to negotiate your salary package complexsystemspodcast.com... · Posted by u/surprisetalk

deadbabe · 2 months ago

The proliferation of AI and LLMs has completely obliterated leverage.

Don’t want the job for the salary offered? Too bad. Hire a cheaper person armed to the teeth with the best LLM coding tools and move on.

Unless you’re coming in with significant clout that will move revenue and relations to bridge partnerships across other companies, you will not be worth the extra $250k on skills alone.

Magmalgebra · 2 months ago

This is situational - as a strong engineer I have more leverage than ever to demand ever more eye watering compensation.

Weaker engineers and junior engineers are in more the situation you describe. This is tough and I feel for these folks but it is possible for many people to become stronger engineers if they choose to put in the work.

I'd encourage you to not take on a feeling of hopelessness here.

Magmalgebra commented on Career advice, or something like it brooker.co.za/blog/2025/0... · Posted by u/SchwKatze

yodsanklai · 2 months ago

I worked only in one big tech company, but my impression is that they try very hard to have a consistent work culture across the company. Everything was super standardized and controlled. There's also a high turnover so even if there's a bunch of senior people that maintain a sane culture, they'll leave eventually.

As for director/vp, I barely know mine. I think this guy just wants to keep his cushion job and deliver whatever BS his managers ask him. Just like the rest of us really...

Magmalgebra · 2 months ago

> my impression is that they try very hard to have a consistent work culture across the company

they do - and they fail!

A truism is that your manager is the biggest determiner of your work environment. This is just as true for your manager as for you. To that end, your director/vp has a really outsized influence on the people you interact with the most (and thus define the experience of working at the company for you).

If you're like me and love talking to people you'll find a huge variation in the lived experience of people working these jobs.