I’m back for a fucking rant.

My previous post I was happy, I’ve had an interview today and I felt the interviewer acted with integrity and made the role seem worthwhile. Fuck it, here’s the link:
https://www.devrant.io/rants/889363

So, since then; the recruiter got in touch: “smashed it son, sending the tech demo your way, if you can get it done this evening that would be amazing”

Obviously I said based on the exact brief I think that’s possible, I’ll take a look and let them know if it isn’t.

Having done loads of these, I know I can usually knock them out and impress in an evening with no trouble.

Here’s where shit gets fucked up; i opened the brief.

I was met with a brief for an MVP using best practice patterns and flexing every muscle with the tech available...

Then I see the requirements, these fucking dicks are after 10 functional requirements averaging an hour a piece.

+TDD so * 1.25,
+DI and dependency inversion principle * 1.1
+CI setup (1h on this platform)
+One ill requirement to use a stored proc in SQL server to return a view (1h)
+UX/UI design consideration using an old tech (1-2h)
+unobtrusive jquery form post validation (2h)
+AES-256 encryption in the db... add 2h for proper testing.

These cunts want me to knock 15-20h of Work into their interview tech demo.

I’ve done a lot of these recently, all of them topped out at 3h max.

The job is middling: average package, old tech, not the most exciting or decent work.

The interviewer alluded to his lead being a bit of a dick; one of those “the code comes first” devs.

Here’s where shit gets realer:
They’ve included mock ups in the tech demo brief’s zip... I looked at them to confirm I wasn’t over estimating the job... I wasn’t.

Then I looked at the other files in the fucking zip.

I found 3 of the images they wanted to use were copyright withheld... there’s no way these guys have the right to distribute these.

Then I look in the font folder, it’s a single ttf, downloaded from fucking DA Font... it was published less than 2mo ago, the license file had been removed: free for Personal, anything else; contact me.

There’s no way these guys have any rights to this font, and I’ve never seen a font redistributed legally without it’s accompanying licence files.

This fucking company is constantly talking about its ethical behaviours.

Given that I know what I’m doing; I know it would have taken less time to find free-for-commercial images and use a google font... this sloppy bullshit is beyond me.

Anyway, I said I’d get back to the recruiter, he wasn’t to know and he’s a good guy. I let him know I’d complete the tech demo over the weekend, he’s looked after me and I don’t want him having trouble with his client...

I’ll substitute the copyright fuckery with images I have a license for because there’s no way I’m pushing copyright stolen material to a public github repo.

I’ll also be substituting the topic and leaving a few js bombs in there to ensure they don’t just steal my shit.

Here’s my hypotheses, anyone with any more would be greatly welcomed...
1: the lead dev is just a stuck up arsehole, with no real care for his work and a relaxed view on stealing other people’s.
2: they are looking for 15-20h free work on an MVP they can modify and take to market
3: they are looking for people to turn down this job so they can support someone’s fucking visa.

In any case, it’s a shit show and I’ll just be seeing this as box checking and interview practice...

Arguments for 1: the head told me about his lead’s problems within 20mn of the interview.
2: he said his biggest problem was getting products out quickly enough.
3: the recruiter told me they’d been “picky”, and they’re making themselves people who can’t be worked for.

I’m going to knock out the demo, keep it private and protect my work well. It’s going to smash their tits off because I’m a fucking great developer... I’ll make sure I get the offer to keep the recruiter looked after.

Then fuck those guys, I’m fucking livid.

After a wonderful interview experience and a nice introduction to the company I’ve been completely put off...

So here’s the update: if you’re interviewing for a shitty middle level dev position, amongst difficult people, on an out of date stack... you need people to want you, don’t fuck them off.

If they want my time to rush out MVPs, they can pay my day rate.

Fuuuuuuuuck... I typed this out whilst listening to the podcast, I’m glad I’m not the only one dealing with shit.

Oh also; I had a lovely discriminatory as fuck application, personality test and disability request email sent to me from a company that seems like it’s still in the 90s. Fuck those guys too, I reported them to the relevant authorities and hope they’re made to look at how morally reprehensible their recruitment process is. The law is you don’t ask if the job can be done by anyone.

I just watched https://youtube.com/watch/... - towards the (very) end he's talking about how software developers rule the world... and I just realized something.

A while back, I was working on an accounting sub system for a SaaS product. We managed some of the revenue of our customers and had the accounting for that part as well. Revenue + Payments (with all the VAT / sales tax / ... that you need to have). BUT no expenses.

One day, the head accountant of a customer, angrily demanded that we immediately implement a new payment method, called commission.

You don't need to be an accounting expert for knowing, that a commission is an expense you have because somebody else marketed / sold your product / service for you. Making it a payment method is probably wrong. With a bit more knowledge you'd know that the taxes which are around expenses are completely different to revenue or payments. (btw payments didn't even have any taxes in those countries that we covered at that time at least).

So there I was standing, a software developer, trying to explain the product manager and the head accountant of our customer, that the idea is beyond stupid, and the fact that it comes from an accountant is super scary to me. (he was usually extremely picky about everything we did.)

Luckily, it was easy to convince the manager. He tried to explain it to the accountant but that person just didn't get it.

as if designing resilient distributed systems, which have 99,99% up time weren't hard enough, we also need to be experts in every domain that we have to deal with? And if there is a tiny bug and one out of 10s of thousands of transactions is screwed up, people start panicking and "loose trust in the product"? - what the hell is wrong with them?

Luckily it's a minority of customers only, but each of them is such a pain. Do you also have customers like that? who should know better, but somehow you are the expert in their domain?

9 Ways to Improve Your Website in 2020

Online customers are very picky these days. Plenty of quality sites and services tend to spoil them. Without leaving their homes, they can carefully probe your company and only then decide whether to deal with you or not. The first thing customers will look at is your website, so everything should be ideal there.

Not everyone succeeds in doing things perfectly well from the first try. For websites, this fact is particularly true. Besides, it is never too late to improve something and make it even better.
In this article, you will find the best recommendations on how to get a great website and win the hearts of online visitors.

Take care of security

It is unacceptable if customers who are looking for information or a product on your site find themselves infected with malware. Take measures to protect your site and visitors from new viruses, data breaches, and spam.

Take care of the SSL certificate. It should be monitored and updated if necessary.

Be sure to install all security updates for your CMS. A lot of sites get hacked through vulnerable plugins. Try to reduce their number and update regularly too.

Ride it quick

Webpage loading speed is what the visitor will notice right from the start. The war for milliseconds just begins. Speeding up a site is not so difficult. The first thing you can do is apply the old proven image compression. If that is not enough, work on caching or simplify your JavaScript and CSS code. Using CDN is another good advice.

Choose a quality hosting provider

In many respects, both the security and the speed of the website depend on your hosting provider. Do not get lost selecting the hosting provider. Other users share their experience with different providers on numerous discussion boards.

Content is king

Content is everything for the site. Content is blood, heart, brain, and soul of the website and it should be useful, interesting and concise. Selling texts are good, but do not chase only the number of clicks. An interesting article or useful instruction will increase customer loyalty, even if such content does not call to action.

Communication

Broadcasting should not be one-way. Make a convenient feedback form where your visitors do not have to fill out a million fields before sending a message. Do not forget about the phone, and what is even better, add online chat with a chatbot and\or live support reps.

Refrain from unpleasant surprises

Please mind, self-starting videos, especially with sound may irritate a lot of visitors and increase the bounce rate. The same is true about popups and sliders.

Next, do not be afraid of white space. Often site owners are literally obsessed with the desire to fill all the free space on the page with menus, banners and other stuff. Experiments with colors and fonts are rarely justified. Successful designs are usually brilliantly simple: white background + black text.

Mobile first

With such a dynamic pace of life, it is important to always keep up with trends, and the future belongs to mobile devices. We have already passed that line and mobile devices generate more traffic than desktop computers. This tendency will only increase, so adapt the layout and mind the mobile first and progressive advancement concepts.

Site navigation

Your visitors should be your priority. Use human-oriented terms and concepts to build navigation instead of search engine oriented phrases.

Do not let your visitors get stuck on your site. Always provide access to other pages, but be sure to mention which particular page will be opened so that the visitor understands exactly where and why he goes.

Technical audit

The site can be compared to a house - you always need to monitor the performance of all systems, and there is always a need to fix or improve something. Therefore, a technical audit of any project should be carried out regularly. It is always better if you are the first to notice the problem, and not your visitors or search engines.

As part of the audit, an analysis is carried out on such items as:

● Checking robots.txt / sitemap.xml files
● Checking duplicates and technical pages
● Checking the use of canonical URLs
● Monitoring 404 error page and redirects

There are many tools that help you monitor your website performance and run regular audits.

Conclusion

I hope these tips will help your site become even better. If you have questions or want to share useful lifehacks, feel free to comment below.

Resources:

https://networkworld.com/article/...

https://webopedia.com/TERM/C/...

https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/...

https://macsecurity.net/view/...