I’ve noticed the young guys in my org behave very differently from how juniors have historically acted.

First, I suspect these guys could not survive at all without llms. They don’t have the metal models to problem solve and work through tasks to develop domain expertise. They have some kind of token induced learned helplessness. I think they might not even have code editors on the systems; literally all work they do is typing into the prompt box of codex.

Despite this, they have extremely high confidence and no filter. They will throw out bizarre business and architectural ideas that are just totally nonsensical to anyone with domain expertise or even just some general engineering battle scars. The proposals will often be ai filtered to sound plausible and look impressive but they make no sense. They will initiate meetings with vendors and other teams, go above peoples heads and get management and directors involved in random stuff.

They will also frequently do low value …

I see these posts all the time “What makes a great senior/staff/.. etc Engineer” and nobody ever talks about just having good intuition.

Over the past year, my engineering org has gone from <200 to >500 engineers and my reports specifically have focused on hiring senior and staff level engineers.

Now there are a few things that we did wrong, but in my defense, most of this was outside of my control.

1. We hired externally for positions instead of promoting some of our better engineers who exceeded. This seemed to be some sort of notion that our talent level was shit (and to be fair, we do have a lot of shit talent at the company), but the baby went out with the bath water.

2. We over indexed on pedigree during the hiring process. A number of engineers who I gave a thumbs down on were hired anyway because they came from a well known tech company. Even though it was obvious that they were probably dead weight at said company.

3. We failed to retain our top talent. We kind of forced this …

It feels like we’ve reached a point where even senior/staff engineers are making code changes through AI without fully understanding the changes themselves.

Recently, a staff engineer on my team opened an MR. I pointed out an obvious bug, but their response was basically a copy-paste from AI and barely had any meaning given the context. So not just the code changes but we’re also using AI to “complete” the conversations, and I’d be ashamed of myself if I were a staff.

That worries me. Not because AI is bad, but because of how over-reliant we’ve become on AI to the point we stopped using our inner creativity and the feeling of solving hard problems.

Is this becoming the new normal? Are we moving toward a version of SWE where people spend less time understanding systems and more time blindly prompting tools? At the same time, companies are also widely expecting more productivity from their employees and I am not sure if it’s the pressure of delivering …

So management started introducing some new things they are tracking for “productivity” which is starting to kind of put me on edge.

The first thing they are now starting to track: Pull Requests.

Not because they think having smaller PR’s makes reviewing easier, or to make the codebase healthy, but they are now using PR’s as a way to sort of grill Engineers or use as a “you’re not being productive” if PR’s haven’t been opened. My tech lead has told us that ANY change we are doing has to be done through a PR. PR’s are not being tracked at a team level but rather by each individual Engineer, so it has caused some of the engineers to do some odd things. Example, if two engineers are working on a PR and one of them submit the PR for review and then finally merge it to the main branch, that other engineer that was working along in the branch is shit out of luck and will probably get a talking to at the end of the week. So, now …

Where were you all at 32?

I been in SWE for almost 8 years now, my salary does not reflect my skillset but I do like the place I work, they treat me well. I tried doing some interview the past month and no offer yet.

But I’m feeling so behind in my career, my goal is to be a system architect and I feel like I don’t deserve to ever get there and that’s its impossible for me to reach there.

Did anyone else feel like there career did not have much runway left?

I’m kind of super into this thing. I haven’t been this excited about reading since bookfairs in elementary school.
It’s the XTEink X4 running Crosspoint Reader Custom Firmware. I’m pretty sure it’s an esp32-C3 running inside but I’m not 100% sure.

Hey everyone,

About three months ago I posted the first version of this here, back when it was called Nomad. It got way more attention than I was ready for and also took a fair beating in the comments, and a good chunk of that criticism was right. I have been working on it pretty much nonstop since, and at this point it is a different app, so a second post felt fair. It is called TREK now.

Quick recap of what it is: a self-hosted trip planner. You build an itinerary day by day, drop in places, times and notes, see everything on a map, and anyone you share a trip with edits it live alongside you. It runs on your own box and none of your travel data leaves it.

What is different since the Nomad post:

• It got fully rewritten. The first version was a “prototype” held together with tape. It is a clean monorepo now (client, server, shared contracts) and contributing no longer requires an archaeology degree.
• Realtime collaboration is solid. Two people editing the same day …

I run the usual stuff: Pi-hole, Jellyfin, NAS. The basics. Lately I’ve been diving into self-hosting AI tools and it’s a different beast entirely compared to just running a media server.

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The hardware requirements alone are a conversation. A 4K movie stream uses your GPU for transcoding maybe 5% of the time. Running a local LLM pins your GPU at 100% for minutes straight. The power draw difference is noticeable.

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But the tradeoff is interesting: no API costs, no rate limits, no random service shutdowns. Once the hardware is in place, it’s yours. You can throw a million requests at it and the only cost is the electricity.

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I’m curious what non-obvious things people in this community self-host. What’s the weirdest or most useful thing you run that surprised you with its value?

Hello!

We’re two friends working in tech, and we’ve been building Safebucket: a simple, S3-agnostic, open-source alternative to WeTransfer, Dropbox and Palmr.

What’s new in v0.6.0:

• File preview: Preview images, videos, text, etc directly in the UI
• Bulk download: Select several files and download them in one click
• LDAP support: Add your LDAP as an authentication provider

We’re open to feedback, contributions, and questions. What features would you like to see next?

Github: https://github.com/safebucket/safebucket
Documentation: https://docs.safebucket.io

DokuWiki (the self-hosted, file-based wiki) was created before Markdown was popular, so the author created his own syntax specifically for DokuWiki.

Since the rise of StackOverflow, GitHub, and Reddit, Markdown is now everywhere. People have been creating third-party plugins for DokuWiki to add Markdown support, but it’s been mediocre. The next release of DokuWiki will finally have built-in Markdown support 🙏

• https://github.com/dokuwiki/dokuwiki/pull/4636
• https://www.patreon.com/dokuwiki/posts/dokuwiki-support-158080793

We’ve had a lot of newer users finding the sub lately, so here’s a simple starting point.

What is Usenet?

Usenet is one of the oldest parts of the internet that is still actively used today.

It is a decentralized network of servers where articles are posted to newsgroups and carried across Usenet providers. It existed long before the modern web, and people still use it because it can be fast, reliable, private over SSL, and very powerful once it is set up correctly.

Unlike a single website or app, Usenet works through a few different parts: providers, indexers, NZBs, clients, and automation tools.

That is where the learning curve comes from. To fully use Usenet, you need to understand what each piece does and how they work together.

The basic pieces are:

• Provider — gives you access to Usenet servers
• Indexer/search — helps you find NZBs
• NZB — points your client to the articles it needs
• Client/newsreader — SABnzbd, NZBGet, etc. This connects to your provider and retrieves the …

Summer is here, and we’re kicking it off with one of the best Newshosting deals of the year.

The Most Complete Usenet Bundle for $1.67/month 

Includes: 

• Unlimited Newshosting access
• 6,523+ days retention across 125,000+ newsgroups
• 100 SSL-secured connections
• Free newsreader with built-in search 
• Free VPN account 
• 250 GB Easynews bonus account
• 500 GB Tweaknews bonus account

Grab the deal: LINK

$25.05 for 15 months ($1.67/month) 

• Includes 3 free months
• Renews at $71.88 per year thereafter
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Summer Bundle Highlights:

Unlimited Usenet Access

Unlimited access with full retention and access to Newshosting’s highest-completion network.

Free Newsreader with Search

The included newsreader makes it easy to search, browse, and access articles without needing extra software.

Bonus EU Backbone Coverage

The included 500 GB Tweaknews account provides access to a separate high-retention EU backbone for added coverage and completion. 

Browser-Based …

I’ve gathered the current Summer 2026 Usenet promotions in one place to make it easier to compare the available offers. If I missed a provider or an existing deal changes, let me know and I’ll update the list.

Eweka is celebrating Summer with a deal that combines unlimited Usenet access, Easynews access, and VPN protection in one plan.

€2.50/month for the first 15 months (€37.50 total). This promotion includes 3 additional months at no extra cost.

Renews at €71.88 per year (€5.99/month).

EWEKA DEAL LINK 

What’s included

• 6520+ days of retention
• Unlimited Eweka Usenet access
• 50 connections with SSL
• Newsreader with search included 
• 1TB Easynews account (web-based Usenet access)
• Premium VPN account 
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Every subscription includes a free newsreader with Usenet search, making it easy to search and access Usenet from a single desktop application. 

The deal also includes a free 1TB Easynews account for web-based Usenet access and a free VPN account at no additional cost. 

Behind every Eweka subscription is a trusted European Usenet backbone serving the Usenet community since 2002, delivering fast and stable speeds, excellent completion, and access to one of …

Great news! Our $1.99/month special offer was originally expected to end, but due to popular demand, we’ve decided to extend it as our Summer 2026 promotion. 

Thank you for your continued support, and we hope you enjoy Easynews at this special summer price!

The Easynews Summer Deal is now available for just $1.99/month. Unlimited Usenet. Built-in search. No setup required.

Easynews combines unlimited Usenet access with a built-in web interface and search engine, making it possible to search, browse, and access Usenet articles directly from your browser. 

GET DEAL HERE

$1.99/month ($29.85 total for 15 months), renews at $79.99/year.

This includes:

• Unlimited Usenet access
• Web-based access with built-in search (no newsreader needed)
• Full NNTP access (works with any newsreader)
• 6,523+ days retention
• 60 connections
• Free VPN included (with kill switch, SmartDNS, and ad blocking)
• 30-day money-back guarantee

Why Easynews?

No setup required

Log in through your browser and …

I have never seen Plex being used in a professional setting like this so I am happy to see this. They are using it to have complete control over the options the kids can watch (plus don’t have to pay for a Netflix subscription like they had before) shout out to them for this!!!!

Anyone else experience plex on a business setting?

I’m usually not a fan of financially supporting poor decisions, and I know I played right into the classic marketing trap, but after talking with my wife about ease of use and “turn-key” solutions we elected to pull the trigger and purchase the lifetime plex-pass before the price hike. We figured it’s better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it; plus, it will essentially pay for itself in 3-4 years, so there’s that. I know I’m not the only one to make this move, so hopefully I’m in good company lol.

https://preview.redd.it/my0n7rod5p8h1.png?width=1588&format=png&auto=webp&s=dae836f88cba3fa0dddf6bb34db6b0d060890a9f

https://preview.redd.it/b2d2p6th5p8h1.png?width=1332&format=png&auto=webp&s=7e016b9f4f52c3044499cda4a01a179fe16bddc2

https://preview.redd.it/tqtbas1j5p8h1.png?width=677&format=png&auto=webp&s=93ae5f1eaac9f87b19f143f7f1390773100a25aa

https://preview.redd.it/pzjqw4xp5p8h1.png?width=1372&format=png&auto=webp&s=ec5da231299799ad289a66d6203069d95f1a7171

I basically maxed out my 20 TB of storage right as the cost of storage has skyrocketed. Nobody can predict with certainty when the cost for hard drives will come back down, but it will probably be at least a year or two. Not sure what anybody else’s plans are. Just saying this sucks.

“To Boldly Go…”

This is why I freaking love Plex.

https://preview.redd.it/yt4nb6i5kx8h1.png?width=3836&format=png&auto=webp&s=e1b215b45e4722ec65d52935c70f35031dc9e982