u/SeleniumDrive77

Microsoft is really shooting itself in the foot with a lot of the really high-profile people, like Jeff Fritz. I watch Jeff’s Twitch streams all the time, and it’s always great content.

I’m even hearing less and less from the two Scotts online. Scott Hanselman still has his podcast, for sure, but the only really high-profile .NET guy we seem to see now is Dan Roth, especially within the Blazor community.
I see James has jumped teams again, now doing Visual Studio Code material on YouTube and TikTok.

I get that employees move teams and new, talented people join. It’s just sad nonetheless. We never hear from Maddy anymore, and .NET and .NET Conf have had very poor-quality content over the last few years.

I, like many, was stupid with money when I was younger, spending on cars, games and other foolish things. So I never really got a good handle on my savings.

I feel the NICS pension scheme will help with that, but they don’t give you much time to decide.

I’m leaning towards the Alpha scheme. From what I can tell, it’s around £15k, depending on your final salary, for life.

But who decides what “for life” really means? What if you live to 90, which not everyone gets to do, but I hope I do. And what about the lump sum, the typical pension figure of around £250k at the end of service?

My dad would have dealt with financial decisions like this, as he was into banking and was able to explain it all really well to me.

I am only joining this year. It says to return your decision within 5 days of starting. Can we talk to an internal pension advisor?

If it is the 15 k for life how much comes out of sallary each month.

View Poll

Can my 2019 ST take 5W-20, or should I really not mix different viscosity types?

I know Ford recently changed their specification to 0W-20, so I’m quite surprised that the non-Ford garage put in 5W-30.

Will the 5W-30 they put in at the time of the oil change cause any long-term issues with the engine, considering they should have used 5W-20 or the newer 0W-20 Ford specification?

I found this online PDF that detailed the breakdown of successful applicants in the most recent ICT competition.
Might be useful to someone.

I walked away from the game for a while, but I'm determined to get past this level! Has anyone got any pointers for it? It's A Plague Tale.

Do you know the mission I'm talking about? It just seems like other people are faster at throwing the stones using the slingshot than me when the guards on the other stairs walk down, they get me

I was just thinking it would give people a chance to unwind during the week without doxing themselves, of course.

What’s considered standard dress code for ICT here? In my previous tech jobs, rocking up in jeans and a hoodie was the normal, so I assume the Civil Service is a bit more dressier. Don't worry I still refuse to own a pair of chinos!

During my interview, I noticed a lot of guys wearing a plain white tee under a dressy shirt with dark jeans. What about footwear, though? Are clean trainers fine, or is it better to stick to formal shoes? Since ICT deals with staff across all grades and seniorities, I want to make sure I’m hitting the right level of business-casual.

Mods how about a new start Pin tips and tricks for the first day? Start date not till October cause of notice period

I haven’t played any of the existing Fable games, and I thought I should at least play the older games before the new one comes out. I decided to start with Fable 2 because I was worried that going all the way back to the original might ruin some of the anticipation for the new game.

Was I right to start with Fable 2?

Heard a batch lot were sent out across ICT, including mine ;-). Very happy person today.

Like a few others here, I was successful in a previous competition a few months back. Out of the blue, I got an email the other day to complete pre-employment checks, followed by the actual offer a few weeks later.

Without giving away the exact role, I noticed the offer letter doesn't mention the ICT allowance (£3,713 per annum), even though the role definitely qualifies for it. I've seen conflicting info online some people say the allowance isn't explicitly shown until you're actually onboarded and active onsite. Is that usually the case, or should it have been listed in the offer?

Also, are there any updated pay bands online? The most recent ones I can find are from 2025, but I saw mentions online about new rates applying from 1st August has anyone seen the latest scales published?