One of the startups I worked at had a simple rule - if you wanted to complain about something being bad, you had to come with suggestions how to make it better. And they had to be real, tangible option that could be implemented, not "how about we use technology X".
If you had nothing - you could flag something as an issue - but you were expected to either say how you suggest so solve it or shut up. You did your part of flagging the issues and that was it. It was a startup working with banks & everyone knew there are issues all around, but a lot of them we couldn't solve ourselves, because of the banks being unwilling, regulation being not clear enough if we're allowed to change anything or sometimes both.
If you came with a plan how it can be fixed while minimising the risks associated - no matter if you were junior or senior, at least you'd be listed to. If the ideas are good, the other devs would pitch in to make a realistic implementation plan. Beauty of laws & banking - if something is unclear, no one wants to touch it, so as long as you pass that hurdle - you'd get the go-ahead :D
Yes, quite a few issues ended up being ignored, but at the same time - if no one knows how to fix it, what's the point of draining everyone by continuously complaining how bad it is.
We had relatively few of meta discussion that were not product related - ever since them, I do believe that devs start focusing on code quality and "the right way to do it" only when they lack the power to make any of the product decisions.
I had a similar experience when I got into software.
As a junior, more than once I wished to just to quit the field - even after years of CS studies & it being one of the best opportunities one can have in my area.
The draining nature of the "this is shit, we need to do clean code" and "TDD is the way" discussions being constantly repeated day-in day-out, can quickly kill any interest in working on code. It's not that far from being forced to write a book using a 100 most common word list and if you use any word outside of that, you're a shit writer because it will make it harder for others to read, because you used a word that's not in the most common word list...
I'm quite glad that I moved away from that corporate environment into startup space a year later, which showed a whole different perspective. Where code itself is useless and what mattered is if it delivered value. If your hacky solution can deliver value - then you can justify making it better. Otherwise - who cares.
I do think there's way too much attachment to code & its perceived quality in the dev community. On the other hand, if you work in a team where majority of people are well into their careers - there's a lot more nuance when it comes to the extremes such as "TDD all day all night" and "daily pair programming". They are seen as tools to utilise when appropriate, rather than mantras to be repeated mindlessly.
Are you the unicorn person that can learn everything on the program without the "incentive" of failing if you don't?
Personally, I'm finishing my 2nd bachelors right now, in law - an area that has nothing to do with my current job and probably won't have a lot to do with it in the future. But when it came to what's a better use of my time - learning a new discipline or gaming my evenings away (it's a remote degree), doing the degree felt like the right (albeit quite painful) choice.
So unless you are joining a new big thing startup, there is no good justification not to finish what you started (especially if you already paid for it).
From personal PoV as a software engineer - not that surprising.
I've yet to have any success from any online application, while my hit rate when contacted by recruiters is relatively high - nothing to do with particular recruiters being good at gaging my wants or skills, simply they have the incentive to get this done, because only then they get paid.
My guess is either the official postings are a company policy requirement to give someone a promotion (get some external CVs in, do some biased comparison to justify why the person deserves a promotion - at least my experience from working in a bank) or the company can't be bothered to spend their own time recruiting & just outsources it to a recruiting company, forgetting they have their own listing open. Also, most if not all of those external platforms are quite bad.
I'm not arguing that tech giants shouldn't run the risk of becoming public utilities - after all, quite a lot of their success could be attributed to utilising public resources, either directly or indirectly (user data, monopolistic approach to business, lack of relevant regulation at the time they were in their explosive growth periods, etc).
I could even see it as a potential way to balance public and private interests - if you try to consolidate too much - you run the risk of losing your private status and becomes a mix of private/public company, where some of the protections afforded to private businesses no longer apply.
There have been examples of these things happening, notably how railway became so dominant around the world that governments intervened and nationalised them. There's no way of knowing how long the current tech giant status quo will last - will it get worse or will they get slapped down.
I know it's very American to think constitution applies universally, but unless Twitter becomes a government agency - they owe you nothing.
If a private entity de-platforms you, you will have no claim against them, unless you have a contract with them that's been violated (i.e. you pay for the services and they deny the said service).
If I stuff a sock in your mouth and tape it up, I'd be liable for the assault & battery, not for the first amendment violation.
If a government official stuffs a sock in your mouth and tape it up - you might have a chance to claim first amendment violation, but even then it might be a stretch :)
I did try to do it, currently not yet successfully.
Since I had interest in law, I started working on a LLB (a law degree that would be first step to be a lawyer in the UK) on the side, thinking I could pivot into a niche of legal tech (combining CS degree + law degree). At least that seemed like a potential possibility. While I'm quite happy with the skills I gained going through the law degree, it has yet to payoff when it comes moving to a more niche position.
Next goal is probably committing more time into Rust, since I at least found it enjoyable (at least when compared to Typescript...).
For me it's getting to the point of it feeling like a grind.
Yes, all things considered, my current pay is good. Looking around the market, it is on par with some more niche roles and around MAANG level here in London.
The closer I get to top pay possible for the skillset as an IC, the less I'm interested in yet another role doing exactly the same.
While I do not expect to go for very niche jobs, in part of them being quite heavily location specific, even things that seem dev adjacent do not feel very easy to get into.
As you mentioned, straight out uni funnels seems like one of the best ways to go into niche tech, but even few years back when I tried to go from senior to a junior role in a different space people were skeptical (at that point it was software engineering -> data engineering). I guess they do prefer someone they can train vs someone who comes with their own experience - be it good or bad.
While as someone living in London, I fully agree that Scotland should have sovereignty without the English BS, I do find it chuckle worthy the url they created for this cause:
"independence-modern-world-wealthier-happier-fairer-not-scotland".
I think their marketing team needs to do some work on that one and maybe a bolder call to action than "Why not Scotland" while they're at it :D
This is pretty much it.
If the consumer is not paying for it in some ways (for example in the UK, consumers can pay Which?[1] to access their reviews) - the companies are.
If the companies are the ones footing the bill, I see no way to have a fair system where a few richer players couldn't exploit the system or the review company itself charge companies as much as they can just for leaving them alone and not rigging the reviews against them.
It probably is the end game for any review website.
Your client usually dictates the business model to a degree.
At this point, TrustPilots business model is essentially reputation laundering.
If you pay them enough, they will use their mostly neutral reputation on the consumer side to launder your potentially shitty reputation to a more positive one.
It's not like the average consumer knows any better and I would not be that surprised that having a positive score on TrustPilot is not the decision maker for a customer, but having a very bad one - is a disqualifying factor. Hence the reputation laundering scheme...
People who call for Leet Code either never tried to hire actually high skill developers or fools themselves into thinking that they're the cool kid in town.
You might think it's better than any other alternative. I agree - it's been an amazing filter to filter out companies who are on average, quite crap to work for.
From my personal experience, they are overburdened with process to a degree that even if they hired the best devs out there, they wouldn't be able to deliver anything because of all the red tape.
The best jobs I had to date, I met the person leading the company/project/team, we had a chat, talked what tech we like, dislike, how we'd structure a product, what are the preferences to the process around everything. And that's the key thing - it was always a discussion, no Q&A. The key is that the candidate is not the only one who needs to know his stuff - so does the lead.
As a side effect, all of those jobs were way above the market. Again, personal experience, but higher up you go - less BS like "we need leetcode to hire" you get. Unless you're Facebook and you have a genuine problem of too many qualified engineers constantly applying, you should aim to only disqualify truly hopeless cases.
The company can't hide behind process and expect great hires. Early in my career, in a small city I was working in (in return, in the dev community you know about what other devs are doing), our company denied so many devs that within a year or two were among the top performers, just because of the leaderships insistence of a take home tests, Q&A interviews and gotcha style questions...
So please - do continue using leetcode, it makes filtering your company out so much easier and I don't need to go through bullshit stages to know that the leadership has no balls to make the hard calls when it comes to hiring & firing.