u/LectricVersion

Follow up from this post around feeling that PoE2 had too high an execution threshold.

Lots of you commented pointing out that it was probably my build (And a few of you even DMed me to call me some really nice names, special thanks to that lot). Turns out you were all right.

I rerolled as a Ranger. I love bows so I don't know why I didnt do that in the first place? But the moment to moment gameplay is SO much better. I love that it feels like a twin stick shooter!

I ascended to Pathfinder and hit some big walls in Act II. That forced me to really think about my build, and where my damage was coming from. After a lot of grinding for currency to respec, and a lot of time on Path of Building, learning how things work (eg. That +X% projectile damage affects the poison from Gas Arrow too!), I finally got a working build together and finished Act II.

Now I'm nearing the end of Act III, running a Acidic Concoction & Gas Arrow build, and I am cleaning up. I also keep finding potential synergies and things to tinker with which is really fun. Right now I'm playing around with Hollow Palm Technique which lets me use Quarterstaff skills when unarmed (which I have to be to use Acidic Concoction), so I can use Hand of Chayula which can apply Despair and Wither with Withering Touch for extra poison damage. But I could also potentially respec my second weapon set into a caster with Essence Drain and scale up the chance to apply Withering Touch with +X% spell / chaos damage - Pathfinder has a passive that lets me allocate points from the Sorcerer starting point.

Honestly, hitting a wall, realising your build isnt working, and the puzzling through and eventually discovering something that does is peak ARPG for me, and PoE2 is nailing it. Looking forward to hundreds of more hours of this!

Just a word of caution on applying for roles at Monzo.

I applied for a Lead Analytics Engineer role and a recruiter got in touch. We had a nice chat and I was put through to the first round, an hour with a senior AE where we did a deep dive on a project I worked on. It was intense but I enjoyed it!

The next day I received an email informing me that I was successful and inviting me to complete a a take-home task; a straightforward data-modelling exercise in Google BigQuery. I clicked the link and found that I couldn't access the sample datasets, so I emailed the recruiter back immediately showing the error message I received.

That was two weeks ago. Since then I've followed up three times, and also emailed the general hiring@monzo.com address - no response!

I have to say I'm pretty disgusted by this - I've been in the hiring manager position myself many times throughout my career and I would be horrified if we treated a candidate in this way, especially if we had been giving all the signals that the process is going well.

Also makes me wonder what would have happened if I did complete the task - would they have just ignored the submission?

Definitely recommend proceeding with caution with this company!