Here's the description of a job I was offered recently:
SDETs: Typescript / Cypress.io, JMeter (performance testing), Selenium. Used to working as automation engineers in stride with development.
Problem with that? Contrary to the U.S., the Engineer term is strictly regulated in Canada. If you call yourself an engineer, you risk fine and injunctions.
Summer 2023, wildfires are terrible in Canada. Air quality deteriorates: Montreal becomes temporarily the worst city in the world for air quality. This is the most direct effect of climate change so far. It is in our face.
With the effects of global warming increasing every year, I suspected it marked a turning point. In the future, we won't enjoy the constant freedom of breathing in fresh air whenever we step outside. We'll have to pick the moments, like during Canadian winters when snowstorms hit: we'll need to stay indoors, close windows, and wait for conditions to improve. Or do we?
I'm currently reading a fantastic book from Peter Attia: Outlive - The Science & Art of Longevity. The book emphasizes the fact that traditional medicine - Medicine 2.0 as he calls it - is shaped around the notion of healing at the very end of a disease lifespan, like the crew of the Titanic tried to save the ship at the last minute, even after being warned hours before the incident.
I was listening to a podcast featuring my friend Olivier Jean, gold medalist during the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. Towards the end, the host asked him a question that gets asked a lot: How do I find my passion? How do I maintain it enough so I can keep going on?
I was recently proposed a position as a Senior Software Engineer. Whether I'll get the job or not, I want to talk to you about something that never smells good: after-hours work. This is not for a startup or a product that rarely gets deployed; I'm talking about a multibillion company that will need to deploy countless times in the future. This primitive, obsolete, and outdated approach is how many companies still operate: waiting until nobody can use our platform/service, then deploying it manually.