protomok

SaaS could be a good transition, there are quite a few SaaS shops using C++ for example. Or possibly backend if you're willing to do some cloud based side projects.

Embedded is a lot of fun but IMHO there is more opportunity and compensation up the stack.

So true. I recall early in my career an older engineer telling me the closer you are to the money the more money you make.

> I realised that the HR head, who has few relevant skills and can viably be replaced by a mollusc, makes more than I do.

=)

  "One benefit of working together in person, many
  executives said, is the potential for spontaneous 
  interactions. 
  ...
  She noticed that she was soon having conversations 
  with peers that wouldn’t have happened in a remote 
  set up—a discussion sparked by a passing question 
  in the hall"

I can relate to this. I miss the impromptu conversation about idea -> whiteboarding session -> JIRAs -> new features, new design, etc.

WFH was great for the first month or so but at this point I find myself missing going into the office. Once the vaccine arrives I plan to switch to around 4 days on site / 1 day WFH.

That’s incredible! I have a hard cut off around 6.5-7 hours of sleep, anything less and I have noticeable performance decrease - inability to concentrate , needing to re read lines of code multiple times, etc.

You should reach out to the sleep researchers, a drug to temporarily not need sleep without massive burn out after would be pretty cool!

My two cents - keep the books/papers/resources on the shelf and go out and build an embedded project. Sure, you could read about interrupts, registers maps, chip datasheets, etc. but the rate of learning will be much greater if you learn by building.

For example, why not build a home automation system?

Start with a Raspberry pi and start hooking up peripherals...light switchtes, timers, sensors, etc. You'll stumble across buses like I2C/SPI, you'll learn about networking. You'll figure out what registers are and learn what interrupts are and what they mean.

You'll get lazy rewriting communication code and stumble across messaging frameworks like MQTT to communicate with devices on your network. You'll run out of money using Raspberry Pis for each new device you build, and you'll find cheaper ways of doing things like desiging devices using MSP430 or ESP8266s.

You'll make mistakes, and you will learn. Best of luck on this new adventure!

My favorite for 2018 - "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder" by Nassim Taleb. I particularly enjoyed the discussion of asymmetry and the implications for investing but also for systems in general.

Another +1 from Deep Work. The main takeaway for me was the following quote:

"We spend much of our day on autopilot, not giving much thought to what we are doing with our time. This, is a problem. It's difficult to prevent the trivial from creeping into every corner of your schedule if you don't face without flinching your current balance between deep and shallow work"

I tried his pretty extreme recommendation to schedule every minute of every day (see chapter 'Rule #4' or 6:30:30 in the audiobook), my summary below:

   -> I use a 4"x6" lined post-it note pad and block out 30 minute/block blocks throughout the day
   -> Interruptions are scheduled for future blocks (although occasional mandatory interruptions
      of course occur from time to time), and I edit the post-it note throughout the day
   -> At the end of the week I do a post-mortem and review which tasks slipped to the next week and recap what happened

I've found a surprising amount of distractions lurking throughout my day that I've been able to eliminate. Scheduling your day is also really compatible with Agile development as you can easily answer why your JIRAs slipped into the next sprint, what your blockers were, etc.

I'm curious what the impact will be for GM tech workers. IIRC they hired a bunch of software devs in Markham and Oshawa over the last few years

Same problem here - deviated septum is such an annoyance. I find I often have to breathe out of my mouth as breathing out of my nose is sometimes not possible as one or both nostrils are frequently unusable.

Curious how others work around this ? I understand there is a surgery that can correct a deviated septum , but surgery is always a last resort in my view.