that looks strange to me to say the least - a company A's leadership leases completely away the company A's IP to a company B while at the same time getting fat employment offers from the same company B. If it were in Russia i'd say it is a bribe/kickback while in US it looks suspiciously like a huge conflict of interests. How no regulatory agency looked into that...
Huge conflict of interest for who? It was a private company who only had a fiduciary responsibility to its investors and the employees themselves had no responsibilities to refuse a better offer from a competitor.
There was a whole stink in 2010 about all of the major tech companies agreeing to not poach other companies’ employees and suppressing wages.
>the employees themselves had no responsibilities to refuse a better offer from a competitor
actually they have such a responsibility - if the offer in any way connected (or may be perceived as such) with a deal in which the employee is representing its current employer. The same reason why the President can't take expensive gifts from foreign powers for example ...
>There was a whole stink in 2010 about all of the major tech companies agreeing to not poach other companies’ employees and suppressing wages.
I am well aware of anti poaching agreements between partners or consulting agencies and clients. I am currently working for a consulting company (full time) and in the past I was an employee at AWS ProServe.
The contract states you can’t solicit employees under that arrangement. But either side’s employees are free to proactively outreach.
I’m not referring to “consulting companies” that are basically doing staff augmentation.
It isn't about poaching. It is about how vigorously you'd be protecting the interests of your company A in a deal with company B when simultaneously negotiating your personal offer with the company B, especially if it is [even if just implicitly] packaged together i.e. "the offer happens only if the deal happens." You don't see a conflict of interests here?
Listen, I think its bullshit what happened to the Windsurf people. And I'm happy that the Figma people didnt get crammed down with some scam ass preference assplay.
But blaming Lina Khan for the crime orgy that started the minute she was forced out is silly.
Go stick that blade where it belongs. I'll help any way I can.
I don't have a lot of answers, but to echo what you're seeing, it seems a lot harder to get a foot in the door than 15 years ago when I was getting my first freelance jobs. This is compared to people I know searching now. It feels like for those basic starter jobs, there's a sea of agencies and individuals bidding less. I know it's a worrying time.
I'd suggest you at least get very familiar with AI tools like copilot and cursor. Get good at using them and leveraging them for efficiency. Also get a feel for their limitations. Within those, there may be opportunities. Beyond that I think as always, participate in professional networks - meet people in tech, contribute to open source - connections help you stand out when there's a whole globe of competition.
> But take it from me, someone who has volunteered for civic tech organizations and have participated in ground work for political campaigns. The most positive impact you could possibly make is money.
I don't really agree. Perhaps we're incredibly lucky as a civic tech non-profit, but our limiting factor generally isn't money. It's skilled people who can take responsibility and deliver. So if OP is an experienced developer who is willing to look a bit beyond just code, but still bring serious tech skill and experience to the table, I'd like to talk to them.
Why not mention the company you're working for? You're missing an opportunity here for others to see your post and find out about the positions you have open? Although I'm replying late, maybe there are others like me who open tabs and read them a few days later
Once you offer enough money you will attract the talent. And if you can't afford to offer competitive salaries, then you're back to your-problem-is-lack-of-money.
I kinda see these parts as part of (non-dev-technical) design and designers differ in the degree to which they own these
- visual design towards a design system - abstract system of "this kind of thing looks like this so that the user can see it's this kind of thing and it looks good"
- information architecture - actual things we have on the site or page or app or system, and how we organise them so that they make sense and match the user mental model
- ux design - the use of the above two to sure it both looks good, and people find stuff, and are able to use stuff
- copywriting - hopefully happens somewhere in there
I've just watched the linked video. It was pretty good; thanks for sharing.
My first impression is that Information Architecture feels like it blurs the line between UX and marketing, and a company with a non-tech/design marketing person could do well to involve them in IA work.
It feels like there's a lot of overlap with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_architecture for UI with what's a core activity when doing software architecture e.g. finding the right abstractions, schemas, object hierarchies, groupings and naming conventions that are going to be intuitive to other user/developers.
Indeed. I think it's important to bear in mind that it's ok for the abstractions to differ, and for the view to translate between the abstractions inside the system and the abstractions or concepts presented to the user. But it's certainly the same exercise.
If we see coding as an exercise in describing the system in a way the computer can execute but most importantly, other developers can understand and maintain, developers are simply another persona, and a card sort between developers would elicit the abstractions and names we should strongly consider using for things in the code. Same methods as information architecture for users.
