I just got an Instagram DM from a complete stranger wanting my help with Git.

A DM. On Instagram. Asking for help with Git.

Ooooookay.

Been trying not to get ahead of myself, but I'll be starting a new SRE role at @getsentry starting on March 27th. (Funemployment was getting a little tiresome. This is how I know I could never be a man of leisure, and why FIRE is the wrong approach for me.)

I'm happy to give Tweeps (both current and former) referrals and/or references, as appropriate, and maybe someday I can compile my freshly-updated list of "terrible interviewing practices" into something coherent.

Apparently Twitter is suddenly very interested in hiring or re-hiring SREs, because of recent incidents.

So https://twitter.com/jredmond/status/1588675418064039937 was right. That's cool. I'm still not planning to go back.

Since U.S. people are starting to put together tax stuff, and since a number of my readers have some RSU-based compensation:

EVERY LAST STINKING PENNY OF YOUR RSUs' VESTING-TIME VALUE IS INCLUDED IN YOUR W-2. EVERY LAST STINKING PENNY OF MONEY WITHHELD FROM RSU VESTINGS FOR TAXES IS ALSO INCLUDED IN YOUR W-2.

You should have a pay stub for each vesting day with a non-zero gross amount and a zero net amount. LOOK AT IT. It includes all that detail, and you should be able to trace YTD figures.

Twitter sent me an email demanding I return the laptop they'd given me.

Guess they don't have enough staff to notice that I already returned it. In November.

2022 has just ended for me here in San Francisco. I'm not going to say it was a superb year for me - "complicated" seems more apt, even if it is a little terse - but 2023 is already very promising.

Happy New Year, everyone. Don't forget to eat your black-eyed peas, lest my grandmother come reprimand you on Monday.

I guess it's been a while since posting here, so the quick update:

I've spent most of my time lately talking with recruiters and hiring managers at places without a bird theme. So far so good, I think, but I still question what sort of signal one really gets when putting an SRE or system engineer candidate through Leetcode exercises.

It's also a little odd, but of all the people I've spoken to about my career, only one has asked why I left Twitter - and he caught himself partway through. Lol.