u/srx202121

I’m looking for a car for my parents. Currently they have a Suzuki Fronx, which after my last visit felt very cramped in the backseat for 3 peopl and overall had poor ride quality on high speed bumps. It also struggled in Ghats with the 1.2L engine and auto gearbox.

As a result I’m thinking of the Scorpio N as it has flat sides and a square hood that has good visibility for my dad (he is in his early 70s and drives certain routes but also hires a driver for long distance).

Use case is mostly highway and less crowded suburban roads in Maharashtra. Also want a decent road presence and people giving way (Scorpio still has that image I suppose). We are thinking of the diesel auto variant in Z8s. That seems to have much of what we need.

Are there any others to consider in that price bracket that would fulfill our use case?

I have a 12 YOE with a focus on DevOps, some python, AWS Cloudformation and MongoDB. Lately I've been less hands on but have worked on event driven architecture design and done code reviews for pipelines running with serverless components and Python SDK. Most of the data I've worked with has been csv and spreadsheet data for schedules, structured metadata and image/media key value stores. As a result I've primarily worked on MongoDB and used aggregation pipelines to join or transform data for downstream deployments. I have also used Gemini Pro and couple of POC deployments of Ollama for a RAG application (non prod).

I am now looking to get a crash course on Data engineering and databricks, but a little confused whats the best way to get a good understanding of typical data engineering problems (I have a vertical I need to focus on so looking for data patterns that I can then translate to what I need), what gaps I need to fill having no experience with Databricks, little to SQL and any data warehouse technologies. I've not used dataflow or kinesis etc yet so I dont have hands-on experience with these type of streaming pipelines either. (Claude has given me some good insights but reddit often times has better more real world recommendations)

Are there Udemy courses or any other video series that is considered gold standard for onboarding? Would also be open to some blog posts or project ideas to get my feet wet. ideally if AI or ML based applications would be ideal. Cheers!

I'm currently on FMLA for some health issues - I initially declined STD as I thought I may not need it and in general didn't want to deal with hassle of returning it for any reason.

My illness has made me take an extension on my FMLA which was granted, can I retroactively apply for STD and still get it for the full period of my FMLA?

Secondly, as part of my recovery, I'm currently staying with family and upon return may not immediately be able to return to office and work remotely for a short time. Our workplace has a loosely followed but documented hybrid policy. If I am terminated for No show/attendance issues for any reason upon my return within the initial 30 days, will I have to return my STD pay with taxes?

Does policy violation or termination for no-show mean you can't apply for unemployment? Is it possible to appeal?

I’d appreciate some real answers from people in AWS or Amazon HR rather than speculation or hearsay.

I’ve read multiple mixed responses on Reddit and teamblind on this topic so would like to get some clarity if that’s possible.

I worked at AWS for close to 8years and was put on Focus in 2022 due to a bad year. I quit while on focus as I had another job aligned.
Fast forward to now, I’m being approached for a potential opportunity at AWS, but unsure if I should pursue it.