2021-02-14: Staff Engineer, Switching to Linux
2021-02-14
Staff Engineer: Will Larson
I have been reading “Staff Engineer” by Will Larson. ISBN: 978-1-73641-790-4. I have not finished it yet. From what I have read till now, I like that the author has put very clear views on the path of an SE to Staff Engineer and the various functions and working of a Staff Engineer. You can easily put yourself in the place and see if you will fit well in certain archetypes or if it even interests you.
There are stories of a number of people who are currently operating in this role but I haven’t read them yet. Hopefully, in the next post I can give a more detailed insights on the book.
Switching to Linux
I used to use Linux earlier until I got out of college and started working. I didn’t really like MacOS but I can certainly say it was because of the change from Ubuntu to MacOS and I was comfortably using Ubuntu for 3+ years back then.
Since 2016 I have been using MacOS. My 3 year old Macbook Air is just too stuffed and has only max of 10 GB of free storage available at any time. To be honest, I can fix it by clearing up some junk or straight up format and re-install MacOS. Although, I can’t increase RAM, capped at 8GB.
I have installed Manjaro on my 2nd machine which had only Windows which I have been using to play some games till now. Installation was pretty smooth, the only thing I backed up before the installation was my Minecraft world[1]. I haven’t faced any major issues yet, but I haven’t also used it a lot till now.
This is also a good time to properly manage my dotfiles and other data. I just have my dotfiles version controlled but I can see it’s not enough. I’ll probably keep using MacOS for another week or two before switching completely. Meanwhile, I’ll try to figure out all the logistics in the new system so I don’t get caught up in all that while I am working.
BTW I use arch
- I beat the Ender Dragon a few hours before writing this (see video below). Jump to 4:04 and 9:26 for some cool water bucket saves.