bigmutant

6 ms·

1.
by bigmutant 9mo ago
Pretty common attitude from folks who have never worked in one of the BigTech companies where Java rules (Amazon being a prime example). Since they never encounter Java in the "SF-style Startup" world, they assume that it must be
2.
by bigmutant 11mo ago
DynamoDB is used *everywhere* in AMZN Retail, this is absolutely not surprising. Plus the vast majority of internal Services are using EC2 in the form of Apollo/ECS. So OP probably hit some parts of the site that are hosted in us-west-
3.
by bigmutant 11mo ago
To clarify, most of CDO (Consumer Devices Other) does run on AWS in the sense that NAWS is the target state, MAWS is legacy and actively (slowly) being migrated off of. CDO (including Alexa) has been using DynamoDB/Lambda/Kinesi
4.
by bigmutant 2y ago
Sure, I did the same, BS/MS with a focus on Compilers/Programming Languages. It's been personally gratifying to understand programming "end-to-end" and to solve some tricky problems, but 99% of folks aren't goi
5.
by bigmutant 2y ago
Def agree. Most people will never touch an Abstract Syntax Tree or even Expression Trees. Almost everyone working in back-end will use Cloud Services, will make mistakes based on assumptions of what they provide
6.
by bigmutant 2y ago
The fundamental problems are communication lag and lack of information about why issues occur (encapsulated by the Byzantine Generals problem). I like to imagine trying to build a fault-tolerant, reliable system for the Solar System. Would
7.
by bigmutant 2y ago
Good resources for understanding Distributed Systems: - MIT course with Robert Morris (of Morris Worm fame): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQP8WApzIQQ&list=PLrw6a1wE39... - Martin Kleppmann (author of DDIA): https:&#
8.
by bigmutant 2y ago
As others have said, this is a solved problem in a lot of companies. Basic answers are: 1. Queuing 2. Asynchronous APIs (don't wait for the 'real' response, just submit the transaction) 3. Call-backs to the Client A good asyn
9.
by bigmutant 2y ago
Absolutely not true in my experience. MySQL has its share of issues (all DBs do) but it is rock-solid when using the correct engine (InnoDB for most cases, RocksDB for high-throughput writes, Memory for caching). MySQL is very hard to beat
10.
by bigmutant 2y ago
That all depends on the setup. The "standard" setup (not specific to MySQL) is: - Single Write Leader per partition - Backup Write Leader that is setup with synchronous replication (so WL -> WLB and waits for commit) - Read Fol
11.
by bigmutant 2y ago
Agree, Data Quality in-the-wild is a huge concern. I've led efforts to establish Lineage/Quality in large orgs and doing this after-the-fact is a massive undertaking. Having this "up-front" before all the data pipelines
12.
by bigmutant 2y ago
Never really understood the folks pushing for RPC-over-HTTP. RPC is for systems that are close together (ie intra-DC). These simple rules work well: 1. JSON-over-HTTP for over the web 2. RPC (pick your flavor) for internal service-to-servic
13.
by bigmutant 2y ago
Northrop Grumman had a lot of folks from Crenshaw/Hawthorne/Carson when I was there, due to a partnership program with the local Cal State (Long Beach). All of the security staff was from that area too. Good folks, would 100% work
14.
by bigmutant 2y ago
The Tech-Priests of Mars are calling
15.
by bigmutant 4y ago
Sort of. The main issue is that AMZ/AWS doesn't differentiate (by title) between someone recently promoted to L6 (generally ~8-10 YOE) and someone deep in to L6 (~12-15 YOE). Other companies solve this with the Staff Engineer titl
16.
by bigmutant 5y ago
Before you accept any offer from FANG/MANG/hot startup, *make sure* you understand the on-call expectations. Example: at Amazon, *even data scientists* do on-call. Practically all SWEs before Principal do. In AWS, first-line manag
17.
by bigmutant 5y ago
FAANGs/large companies in general have a ton of accidental complexity. A lot of the work devolves into "make this work in our complicated environment". Its just more pronounced at FAANG due to the scale.
18.
by bigmutant 5y ago
Amazon's vest structure is 5/15/40/40. Every vest after the first two years is bi-yearly ie every six months (including additional grants). Amazon makes up the difference with cash in the first two years. The Target Comp