Technical/Non-technical skills:
* Off-grid energy production (Solar, etc.)
* Food production on a small scale
* Homesteading
* 3D printing
* And all interfaces of that with technology
Most people don't think about that. Once they realise things change, Brazil also uses Bitcoin a lot because of a lack of trust. Pix would be even more widely used if the government took longer to start using it as a weapon (as it has already done)
Pix has become virtually liquid cash here in Brazil. We use it for everything from tipping a waiter to buying an apartment or house in seconds.
Before the release, when I read about the system, I was skeptical, but after its release (approximately 5 years ago), it has worked seamlessly, and adoption is now nearly 100% across the economy.
I struggle to see how any open-source project would accept this kind os PRs, the tools seems ok for research, but not a good ideia to push PRs like that open source projects.
I never correlate my growth with the company I am working for; sometimes, you overgrow the company, and it is time to leave.
"Pays okay; 100% remote; very few meetings; low standards for productivity mean I have great work/life balance" seems like a perfect workplace.
What you need is probably a project outside of work to challenge you. I built my own company 13 years ago as a side project (I still run it up to this day as a side project) because I was a Mobile developer and Would like to keep doing Web development.
Today, I am having fun with my Open-source project https://github.com/mateusfreira/nun-db. When I have too many meetings or fight fewer coding challenges in my work, writing my own distributed database keeps me fresh and challenged. With it, I learned Rust and also distributed systems, which made me read books and papers that would never be needed for my normal work.
I see that as growing, and it has brought me great opportunities. Times these side projects become companies, and you make money; times, they bring job opportunities that you would not have otherwise.
You should leave a company when your growth is faster and more than the company can take in. Meanwhile, use the low pressure to go after other challenges personally; that is my way of dealing with it.
What is your stack? There are areas with more opportunities than others that may be worth considering a stack shift.
I have been in the market since 2006, and I have seen it go up and down; I've never been unemployed since, but I have close friends who run over one year without a job (In Brazil, we usually have financial crises here more often), at that time their option was to do freelancing for a while until they find another job.
I never felt "safe", having entered the market in 2006 and seeing very senior devs losing their jobs in 2008/2010; I founded a company in 2010 and run it up to this day as a side project (A SSAS for small business), of course, it takes time to build one of those (In my case it took over three years to get the first five customers, today we have more than 1k), and it is a counter sense to spend time building a business that will make you 2k UDS when in your work you can earn 5x that working on a company and having vocations. Still, it does pay off in times like this since I am not too worried if the marketing goes terribly; I can make a living with my side project.
I run my business for over 10 years and have experimented many different alternatives, for small business with no cash to burn this is probably the best advice one could gave.
Start with consultancy/freelancing reduces a lot the risks
TLRD:
There is no perfect set for small teams, but here is a try.
* $ Compensation
Paying 5% of the hours for the on-call time, being paid or taking time off, with time off that can be accumulated to be used for longer periods.
24 hours * 5% * 7 days = 8.4 hours.
* On-call shifts frequency and time to react requirements
With two people, one can be on call every other week and take two days off monthly to compensate. For example, one could take every other Friday or one Friday and one Monday off.
52 weeks / 2 (every other week) = 26 weeks on call an year.
Time off is fine for on-call Time but not for time in action; Time during outages is much more stressful than normal working hours. Offering time off in exchange for working in outages is not fair. Therefore, for those cases, I think paying for the normal working hours will be the right thing to do, of course, more time off is fine too. If the team grows to four people, one can be on call once a month and have a day off a month, too. The cost stays the same, but it delivers an easier-to-handle situation for the team
I am currently developing an open-source (MIT) database that can be directly accessed from the frontend (browser and apps) , that is distributed, and capable to deliver data in real-time. The primary goal is to provide support for any use-case that requires close proximity to users and, most importantly, it is entirely free to use and run by yourself if desired.
Feedback is always welcome, especially if you have a use-case in mind that you believe it may be suitable for but are unsure. I have already utilized it in many of my personal projects and for a few clients with a small number of users, but I am hopeful that it will soon be ready for larger-scale implementation.
Comments here, issues on GH or emails are welcome
TRLD version:
Mob programming is a great technique; in all the opportunities I have applied it, it has been very helpful. It can be expensive and you will need to have a strong and mature team to make it work. It works quite well in a remote environment, provided the team is willing to work with it. If you have not yet tried it, get your full team on a call, pick the hardest problem you have to solve, and start coding it and taking decisions just-in-time, and share your experience later; the results will speak for themselves. My only concern is how demanding it can be; if you try to do it for too many hours a day, too many days in a row, be careful not to burn yourself out in the process.