u/moises8war

I found it quite funny though haha. The one time I did hire an HVAC guy, he did stop to smoke cigarettes multiple times.

Yesterday, I visited an HVAC supply store here in Austin, Texas, and the guy behind the front desk told me only licensed people can buy HVAC, condenser or evaporator coil units since a refrigerant is involved and according to him, its ilegal in the state of Texas to sell these refrigerant-involving products to unlicensed people. He then proceeded to refer someone who can buy the product for me.

Is this true or is this a way for the guy behind the desk to provide his friend with business?

Holaaa
Para los Latinos que se fueron a vivir a US, Europa u otra parte, ¿qué tal fue regresar? Y ¿qué los hizo regresar? ¿Qué fue lo que más extrañaron de su país en América Latina? Y ¿qué ha sido lo más difícil de regresar?

En mi caso, pienso en regresar a Panamá pero temo que como ingeniero en computación / desarrollador de software, no encuentre las mismas oportunidades que encuentro en Texas.

Saludos

Education costs are probably a lot less expensive in Panama than in the US. Enrolling in a university would allow one to better integrate with the local culture. Has anyone considered this? And if so, any recommendations for universities?

Cheers

How hard was it finding a job in sales after years as a software developer?

What was the most challenging part about the new career path?

Did the years of software development serve the sales profession?

Does the moral mentality change in some way? For example, as a software dev, one may feel self righteous if one feels that what they are building contributes to society while feeling morally wrong for attempting to sell an inferior product to customer (this is just an hypothetical example).

How will the sales profession be affected by AI?

What about fulfillment? Did you felt more or less fulfilled in your new role?

What about work culture and team chemistry? Did you felt part of a more supportive team as a software dev or as a sales person?

Did the new role offer any new skills that became useful in your life outside of work?

Did the sales routine or mentality affect your daily psyche or state of mind?

In my case, about 12 years ago (2014), I came to the US from Panama as a transfer electrical engineering student. After attending a couple of career fairs, I realized if I wanted to get a job, software dev was the place to be at. I studied electrical engineering simply because I had done better in my math and physics courses in high school. In my senior year of high school, I started a course at the university necessary to pass the med school exam. Eventually, I got too distracted with my football practices and couldn’t finish the course and I think that eventually made me forget all about med school and instead chose to go to the engineering school as en electromechanical engineering student. After having completed my 3rd year (out of 5) and having broken up with my girlfriend at the time who was the daughter of one of the professors in the electrical engineering department, I came to the US.

That’s a bit of my origin story. What is yours?

After being in the industry a few years or close to retirement, would you still choose this career as your first option?

What would you have wished someone would have warned you about?

In my case, after being a software dev nearly a decade, I wish someone would have warned me how many hours I would spend outside of work learning new technical skills. The skills treadmill is intense. I also wish someone would have told me the importance of setting my boundaries in the company and my team because usually they will want to get more out of you.

A lot of people can stay in roles for questionable reasons such as prestige, and dependence on salary (due to debt). Other people have kids, and staying because of that is a good reason. Rarely anyone stays because of the LOVE what they are doing and feel very connected to a deeper purpose.

Why have you stayed this long or why did you get into this fast changing tech industry?

This post was not written by AI.

Do you feel people are eager to clock out and go home or do you feel your team and co-workers are happy to be there? How do you feel yourself?

Do some of us get ourselves stuck in tech because we get use to the lifestyle it buys and the respect it earns from some instead of staying in the industry because we feel it is leading towards some project or success that is completely unrelated to status?

At face value, it seems to me that other careers such as business analysts, consultants, doctors, lawyers and pilots value experience, contacts made over the years and resume built far more than software development since one’s newly learned skills quickly get devalued over time.

Now, on top of this, their also seems to be a quite layer of ageism in the industry where companies have a preference for younger engineers who are more willing to give out their hours than older engineers.

Any thoughts on this point of view of the industry? What is the best way to handle these issues in the case that they are true?

Is it worth the career path in the long run despite the ageism and an experience that doesn’t quite appreciate or compound in value over time? In fact, that “experience” also gets people stuck in fixed modes of thinking, and this is why continuously revitalizing the company’s talent pool with new talent becomes ever more important as the company grows. Another reason why there seems to be an inherent ageism in the industry.

If this ageism is true, a software dev may benefit from looking to pivot into new career paths as they grow older; ideally careers that value age; perhaps career paths with more people interaction involved.

When forced to stop at a bathroom on the road, do you wash your hands? And if so, do you use the fragrance-packed hand soap offered by 99.999 percent of places or do you bring your own? Or do you carry your own?

If you do carry your own, which brand do y’all recommend or do y’all make your own?

Also, bathrooms in restaurants, coffee shops and super markets are always packed with fragrances and probably chemically-loaded cleaning products.

Cheers,
Any thoughts about this topic?

Hi! On January 2025, I quit after 8.5 years of being at IBM as a cloud software developer to cycle from Austin to Panama and build a tiny house in my yard.

I am 33 single male considering a comeback to the industry, while also being on the fence. It feels like a good opportunity to pivot my life in a few directions. Going back to school feels like a great option, and even start a completely different field. I am a Panamanian and Spanish citizen, and a green card holder.
Universities in Panama are free, and that is where my family lives. University in Europe is not free, but significantly less expensive than the US.

About a decade ago go, when I transferred from Panama’s Technological University (UTP) to the University of Arkansas since Panamanians get instate tuition, I switched from Electromechanical Engineering in Panama to Computer Engineering since it would increase my odds of landing a job in the US and help me get a green card down the line.

A decade later, and in my 30s now, with a higher degree of self esteem to follow what feels right to me instead of my parents plan (who always pushed me to stay in the US), I am not sure investing my 30s away from my family and closest friends from back home is the way to go. With the US being as dynamic as it is, even though I have been in Austin close to a decade, I have failed at establishing a tribe and close community. A community that feels like home. This has contributed to my identity still being attached to back home perhaps. Once I obtained that green card (US residency), I felt a strong sense of confusion about what was the next move.

Unfortunately for me, my parents and siblings do not like visiting the US for political reasons and that contributes to my sense of isolation it feels.

ChatGPT is a great tool. I use it with high frequency for going over house construction project plans. It’s great for sorting through technical details.

Artificial intelligence’s rise also makes me wonder if it’s worth continuing to anchor my identity to a profession where from the outside (after 1.5 years of barely any software dev exposure other than some raspberry pi projects I feel like an outsider) it seems like it will be a profession massively disrupted over the long run, and maybe non existent at some point in the next decade. Are the high salaries worth it relative to other career paths in this new landscape of value creation ?

Anyway, back to the original premise: a comeback to tech. If I do return, is there a best area to focus on? Robotics? Large Language Models? Is it better to aim for a startup or for a large corporate job? Is it worth continue expanding one’s technical knowledge or should one aim towards project management roles better? Should one move to California in this next phase of tech or are second tier cities in AI funding such as Austin, Boston and NYC okay places to be at if pursuing a tech career?

So sorry for the perhaps unnecessary side stories. Stay blessed everyone

Hi! I recently started listening to Ray Dalio’s book on Principles for Dealing With the Changing World Order (still in progress). I felt it was a good time to ask here how to best prepare for its possibility.

Should we all be learning Chinese? Should we get a Chinese Student visa and go spend a year or two in China? I am trying to learn more about the fall of the Roman Empire as well to see if there are any best strategies.

Should one start moving their assets to a different currency such as the Yuan ?

Based on the little I know, they seem to have the infrastructure to eventually surpass the US in robotics and AI. Since it’s a one party system, they are able to plan decades. In the US in the other hand, politicians over spend billions to get elected, spend their term undoing what was done by the previous president and establish policy in order to get a elected the next voting cycle.

Cheers

Hi! I am building an outdoor office (or maybe one could call it a tiny tiny house) with a bathroom. A lot of framing, roofing, plumbing, electrical, foundation, insulation work I have been doing myself. It would be nice to get some help every once in a while like: cutting lumber, cutting insulation, digging holes, running some wire through a pipe, digging a trench etc. How do y’all hire for these types of tasks? When hiring a contractor to complete the entire job, how do y’all ensure the contractor doesn’t cut corners (as they most commonly do in my experience) ? Is there a way I can hire someone who I can pay by the hour and have them help me for a weekend?