How to get noticed as a remote engineer – and why it's important to
Happy Friday and welcome back to the newsletter! As always, read on for some of the best software engineering insights, opinions, and news, from Triplebyte’s Compiler blog and around the web.
//From Compiler
When you’re a remote engineer, it’s easy to get lost in the mix. Here are some tips for standing out in a virtual workplace.
Today’s mass WFH status means we aren’t currently sharing an office with co-workers and bosses, so we can't rely on lunches and water-cooler chats to build relationships as normal. And this can have serious consequences – even for your career advancement hopes. Luckily, there are tactics you can employ that will allow you to regularly reinforce your value, develop meaningful relationships, and gently remind everyone there's a human (possibly one deserving of a promotion) behind your Slack photo. read()
Announcing Triplebyte programming language quizzes (in beta)
If you think you know Rust, show us. Triplebyte has added JavaScript, Java, Python, Rust, and Go language quizzes to its skills assessments library, and we need engineers to beta-test them now. read()
In This Economy: Out of work? Here’s where to start.
We’re still not out of the woods yet with this pandemic-born economic downturn. So I figured I would resurface this blog that explains the first things you should do as an engineer who has found themselves out of work in the middle of a dragging job market. read()
//Around the web
📉 FAANG software engineering jobs aren’t rebounding. Like I said above, the tech job market isn’t out of the woods yet with this pandemic – and some data I came across this week makes me wonder whether Big Tech companies are too concerned about returning to pre-2020 employment numbers. Thinknum ran the numbers on software engineering job postings since January for Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook and found they’ve cut back 35%, 36.5%, 32%, and 15% respectively. Google, the only FAANG to find itself in the plus for engineering job listings since the beginning of 2020, waited all the way to September to notch its high mark of +27%. With the tech world admittedly weathering the troubles of COVID-19 better than many industries, one has to wonder whether Big Tech is simply taking this year to reset what its (traditionally bloated?) software engineering needs might realistically be moving forward. read()
🤖 NVIDIA’s AI video call avatar tech is what we’ll all be Zooming with soon. (I hope.) Finally, a practical and non-destructive (I think) use of machine learning-powered facial generation. In a new demo, graphics chip maker NVIDIA shows that its new technology for mapping video call attendees’ faces and simulating their movements and expressions is seriously convincing and can actually be a bandwidth-saver compared to standard video compression. Sure, we’re only talking about a savings of .01 KB per frame, but that kind of data can add up in today’s WFH world! And going by NVIDIA’s samples, deepfake video conferencers might even look better than real-life video conferencers (no downsampling and pixelation under network stress). watch()
🇺🇸 Python + 2020 poll tracking. I don’t want to get political here … but this tutorial for building your own US presidential election poll aggregator with Python Flask seems pretty cool. Just thought it deserved a quick shout-out. read()
💻 The widening responsibility of front-end developers. Here’s a great and beautifully designed essay on the ever-changing role of the front-end developer, written by CodePen co-founder Chris Coyier.
Here’s an example. Of course I have a Button component. Of course I have an Icon component. I’ll use them in my Card component. My Card component lives in a Grid component that lays them out and paginates them. The whole page is actually built from components. The Header component has a SearchBar component and a UserMenu component. The Sidebar component has a Navigation component and an Ad component. The whole page is just a special combination of components, which is probably based on the URL, assuming I’m all-in on building our front-end with JavaScript. So now I’m dealing with URLs myself, and I’m essentially the architect of the entire site. [Sweats profusely.] Like I told ya, a whole pile of new responsibility.
It’s a fun and thoughtful read. read()
😂 “If doctors were interviewed for jobs like software engineers.” Finally, for your lol of the week, here’s Android engineer Emily Kager’s TikTok gag on why it’s bonkers that coders, unlike other professional, can be made to feel they have to spend all their free time coding in order to prove they have “passion” for their career:
//Jobs
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