The fact that we're willing to rely on LLMs to generate code knowing that it only mostly works because that code has been generated before thousands of times is not an indication that stochastic models are good, it's a massive, punishing indictment of computing as a field.

Using an insanely huge expensive model to quasi-reproduce work that's been created thousands of times already isn't productive or efficient. It's a symptom of profound failures of language, practice, process and imagination.

I've got a client looking to hire five senior engineers in Sydney -- they work in data engineering, but they'll take anyone that's competent and work it out from there. Pay's about A$160K to A$180K + superannuation for someone that nails their interview process. No LeetCode stuff, though there is an online screen that is reportedly at the level of "You weren't lying about programming, right? Can you like, read a CSV and write some SQL?"

Hit me up if you know anyone that'd be interested!

A good post on the state of civic tech today.

Many practitioners are rushing to implement harmful solutions, more efficiently

https://blog.ronbronson.com/better-technology-for-cruelty-or-administrative-burden-as-a-service

#Government #PublicInterest #PublicSector #CivicTech

The new CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation worked at J.P. Morgan and Lehman Brothers. The Foundation has now fired a longtime lead developer and disbanded the team whose job was to listen to volunteers. Most of the people they fired were union organizers. Wikipedia’s editors are now threatening to strike. To stand in solidarity with them, sign the petition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Workers_United_solidarity

For more, read on!

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