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kangax's comments

kangax | 4 years ago | on: Is 40 the New 60?

In my experience, it depends on the company. At Facebook, 90% of my peers were younger than me (I was 30). At LinkedIn, right now, many of my peers are around the same age or older than me (I'm 35). I imagine in places like Microsoft or Oracle there are plenty of 40/50+ engineers who aren't worried about being kicked out.

kangax | 4 years ago | on: Sauna use as a lifestyle practice to extend healthspan

I agree with this and was wondering the same thing. Would love to see randomized studies comparing a) control, b) sauna c) exercise d) sauna + exercise.

On the other hand, anecdotally, lots of Russian weighlifters swear by sauna benefits and have been doing it for decades as a recovery from grueling daily heavy sessions.

kangax | 5 years ago | on: Chronic alcohol use reshapes the brain’s immune landscape

Go to the gym!

With a bit of commute it could fill up to 2 hours of your day and have a plethora of benefits. Once you get into the whole "getting better than yesterday" thing, it's exciting to go train every day and improve your "stats".

kangax | 5 years ago | on: Loss of smell could be a 'highly reliable indicator' of Covid-19, research says

That's crazy, I'm so sorry you haven't regained your senses the way they were.

My friend is experiencing exactly the same results many months after having Covid. Doctor prescribed steroids for him which made it better for a brief period of time but then it regressed.

I, on the other hand, lost my smell for about 4 weeks after which it mostly came back to normal.

I just don't understand why no one is talking about this, as it seems like quite a lot of people have had permanent changes to their smell and this is just absolutely terrifying.

kangax | 7 years ago | on: Facebook retires Nuclide Atom extension

This is much needed. The extension has been broken for our team for a couple months now. No clear resolution. The Flow suggestions in an editor are basically unusable right now.

kangax | 7 years ago | on: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

I was on an infra so the "product" was improving both developer experience and user experience. Thing is — as a senior engineer, you're encouraged to do work that spans across multiple teams. The self-review would include all the impactful things you've done by helping person X or team Y or product Z, etc.

kangax | 7 years ago | on: Ask HN: Ex-FAANG developers, where are you now and why?

I was E6 at Facebook for 1.5 years.

Left due to a combination of not finding the right team/project and constant pressure to work on something impactful rather than fixing existing issues I cared about. This seems to be a common issue at FB with senior engineers joining and having to ramp up quickly (2 of the senior teammates left while I was there for the same reasons).

Currently at WeWork where you don't have to write multi-page assessment of all the impactful things you've done during the last half.

It's not perfect but the work-life balance at senior level is better than at FAANG.

kangax | 7 years ago | on: Plans for the Next Iteration of Vue.js

I agree that TS increases barrier to entry for contributors. However, it's very different from Coffeescript. It offers better program correctness via types whereas CS was mostly sugar. Libraries that (properly) use Flow/TS are less likely to have bugs and are safer to contribute to (you're less likely to introduce a bug) and that's a good thing.

kangax | 7 years ago | on: Modern Code Review: A Case Study at Google [pdf]

This is such an underrated comment.

I love this style of code reviews and it's the one I've experienced best discussions with. It goes in line with assuming that you, as a reviewer, don't know what the intentions/rationale are rather than blindly dictating your solution. A lot of times the reviewer that says "this is wrong" is then explained to why it was done a certain way and is the one proven wrong. Questioning yourself as a reviewer is always a good idea. Asking questions gives feedback without coming off aggressive/judgemental/patronizing.

kangax | 7 years ago | on: Ask HN: What do you struggle with?

As mixmastamyk said, it's exactly the same as the gym (I work out ~5 days a week too and I started from being the least athletic person in school/college).

I hear people say — I'm already 30 and starting to exercise is too late, or that they're intimidated by other people at the gym, or that they don't know where to start. Having gone through a similar experience as yours, I gotta say you just have to start. Don't overthink it. You'll fail. Try again, keep at it, and eventually there'll be a breaking point.

Good luck.

kangax | 8 years ago | on: How to Quit a Top Tier Tech Job

Nice breakdown.

I would add that money comes with responsibility and it's the money/responsibilities ratio that really matters.

I was at a top-tier tech company (the one that's getting all the heat lately) for 2 years in a senior eng role, breaking my neck and struggling to maintain healthy work/life balance. Leaving it felt devastating but in retrospect, it was the right decision. Now I'm at a non-tech company, making almost the same money, having twice fewer expectations. All while working on just as exciting tech and problems.

I can likely get a tech position in finance and make even more, but at what cost to my work hours and expectations? Not worth it.

kangax | 9 years ago | on: Is Facebook’s Massive Open Office Scaring Away Developers?

I'm at FB office in NYC and I agree with your points. MPK always has that more chill vibe and is less dense/quieter. The NY office has gotten much better though. Many engineers are now on 15th floor which has no distractions like help desk and is generally surprisingly quiet. I notice myself working in almost complete silence among many people around and only once in a while put my headphones on. Sucks to hear about your experience.
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