I think they call it “female-presenting”, so if it looks like female nipples to them, then they ban it.

Instagram is stupid anyway.

I’m pretty sure they laid off a lot of their QA team before and didn’t replace them since then.

I’d word it more like “Sorry I don’t feel comfortable discussing my personal life at work”, that way it takes the onus off of the person and keeps it neutral.

Maybe that’s just me though, I haven’t worked in an office in 4 years.

YouTube/Google and hiding data from the end-user, name a better duo.

UX is very difficult, unfortunately, especially for open-source projects where the contributors are usually programmers and not so much UX/product managers.

I think I’ve probably only ever been blacklisted once in my entire career, and it’s because I looked up the reviews of a company I applied to and they had some very concerning stuff so I just ghosted them completely and never answered their calls after we had already begun to play a bit of phone tag prior to that trying to arrange an interview.

In my defense, they took a good while to reply to my application and they never sent any emails just phone calls, which it’s like, come on I’m a developer you know I don’t want to sit on the phone all day like I’m a sales person or something, send an email to schedule an interview like every other company instead of just spamming phone calls lol

Agreed though, eventually they will forget, it just needs enough time, and maybe you’d not even want to work there.

Sounds like you’re doing well then. I do the same with contributing to FOSS (and I maintain a couple FOSS projects) and I teach younger devs at work, and have a blog (technically two), so I’m in the same boat.

Blacklists are heavily overrated and exaggerated, I’d say there’s no chance you’re on a blacklist. Hell, if you interview with them 3 years later, it’s entirely possible they have no clue who you are and end up hiring you - I’ve had literally that exact scenario happen. Tons of companies allow you to re-apply within 6 months of interviewing, let alone 12 months or longer.

The only way you’d end up on a blacklist is if you accidentally step on the owners dog during the interview or something like that.

Not being able to pass anything on - my knowledge and experience

I know this may sound like satire but you can write a blog and share your knowledge and experiences. It may seem weird at first, but it’s an actual option, and people could organically come across your blog, especially if you use the right keywords that they’re looking for.

I mean, interviews have always been hell for me (often with multiple rounds of leetcode) so there’s nothing new there for me lol

That’s about right. I’ve been using LLMs to automate a lot of cruft work from my dev job daily, it’s like having a knowledgeable intern who sometimes impresses you with their knowledge but need a lot of guidance.

I didn’t other than for testing, in fact I had to research and figure out ways to bypass ad blockers, to prevent social icons from being blocked etc. I even wrote that company a brand new admin website to replace their old one, they liked it so much that they laid me off a few months later even though they were already underpaying me because they wanted someone cheaper to maintain it, after announcing they had record-breaking year-over-year profits. I found a 30% higher paying job a few months later and been there since. lol

Sounds like a pretty shitty place to work for then lol

My first job I was using Windows, thankfully I was able to use Linux my next 3 jobs in a row. It really helps justify Linux when our production servers are always running Linux.

Part of being an adult is never getting enough sleep and almost always being tired.

Honestly I’d say the Internet isn’t safe, and it’s because of Google, fuck you Google. It’s not just the wine I’ve been drinking, it’s true dammit.

At one point I even fixed an issue following a forum post I made myself years ago.

I love when that happens lmao, it’s the best. Thank you past me.