0xmattf

  Location: Florida
  Remote: Preferred 
  Willing to relocate: In a few months, absolutely
  Technologies: JavaScript & friends (Node/React, etc.), C#, MSSQL. 
  Website: mattkfay.com
  Email: [email protected]

Hey all. I was laid off on Monday after the company I was working at experienced a major decline in sales, so I'm available immediately.

I'm a full-stack developer who most recently spent 3.5 years at a data-driven marketing firm where I built internal software in JavaScript, C#, and SQL on a small team. I also ended up owning a lot of IT: Active Directory accounts, a phishing awareness guide for staff, troubleshooting, and coordinating with our data vendors. Over the last ~2 years, I have been self-studying penetration testing/security, which proved useful at my last role (managed to find and fix a few vulnerabilities in various codebases, including a file upload to XSS).

Looking for Node/React or .NET roles, especially anything touching application security.

> How are you all dealing with this?

I'm learning a very niche trade. It involves using my hands. Very artistic. Very, very difficult to master. I don't think AI will be able to do it, at least not until they have humanoid bodies and are able to move exactly like us.

The web is trash. I hate it now. Let the power grid collapse. These trillion dollar companies instantly become worthless.

This is true. I think Brian Krebs reported on a scam involving this. Some of those data deletion companies actually own the data companies...

> What I would love to know is who is selling my info.

Car dealerships. Heck, even the DMV. Sign up for Credit Karma? Enjoy credit card offers arriving to your house. It seems everyone is "in" on selling/sharing our data. If you ever read the terms of services, you'll usually see a "third party partners", or something like that, which mentions how they "share" your data.

Opt out should be the default, but it isn't.

Is there any way to check if your ID was compromised without going on some onion site?

I don't know if it even matters. I always assumed every bit of my information was available somewhere. Just curious.

I think IDScan should set something up so we can check if our data was compromised, at the least.

> I went through the stupid process of providing my government ID

I did this once in my life for my first ever Facebook account. I still could not proceed either, which made me even more annoyed. Now they have my ID stored somewhere. Will never, ever do that again.

I agree with you. I think most people never read into it too much, they just learn about it from some (misguided) social media reels and run with it from there.

There was a completely different Stoic community around 2012-2015. But, hey, I suppose that's beyond our control.

> Then take any shopping mall in Bangkok, that's an absolutely next level experience, clean, smells good, relaxing music. Mmm...

When I traveled to Thailand, I first stopped in Abu Dhabi. The bathrooms in the airport were amazing. I couldn't believe they had stalls that were basically personal bathrooms (whereas in the US, your feet are exposed, and anyone who wants to see you can simply peak through the many cracks, or even throw something on you from above). The bidet thing was a little weird at first, but had no choice but to use it.

Likewise, when I got to Thailand (Bangkok), I could not believe how clean the bathrooms were (with the personal room-style stall as well). These bathrooms were as clean as you'd find them in a clean-freaks home.

When I arrived back in the States (JFK NY), I needed to use the bathroom really bad, but upon entering the restroom... I just couldn't do it. Urine all over the floors and toilets. Even at the entrance. Graffiti everywhere. Absolutely disgusting.

It really changed my perspective. And let's not forget bidets... I'm mind-blown that people in the US use tissue paper to wipe their a*es. Yeah, I've done it for most of my life as well, but after using a bidet in multiple countries, you realize how tissue paper alone isn't effective. It honestly makes me angry that they're not in every public/private bathroom.

Why do we have trigger warnings for things of little importance, but not for this?

You know, I wasn't focusing on my tinnitus until seeing this on page one. Thanks, OP.

  Location: Florida, USA
  Remote: Preferred. 
  Willing to relocate: Under the right circumstances. 
  Technologies: JavaScript & Friends (Node, jQuery, React), C#, .NET, SQL/NoSQL, Python, Bash
  Email: [email protected]

Hello, I'm Matt, a Pennsylvania native now living in Florida. I've been programming for as long as I can remember, but have about ~10 years of professional experience. I've been studying security for awhile, and would honestly prefer a dev/sec position, if possible.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

I gave up. Like you, I've built many projects in the hopes they'd generate enough income for me to never have to work a job again. I had blogs, e-commerce shopify dropshipping stores, multiple SaaS projects, e-books published, monetized social media accounts, etc.

I remember waking up every morning excited to check the balances for everything. At most, maybe $10.00. That slowly brought me to depression. I was working 12+ hours per day on every thing, but had nothing to show for it. I did this for ~3 years (although I've been building things for 10+ years). I worked as a freelancer to earn real money as well.

Eventually, I just had enough. Got a job. Started letting domains fade away (I owned perhaps 50+). What a tiring lifestyle!

Nowadays, I will not build in the hopes of becoming rich. I'll build things I want to exist - things that I will use personally. Sure, I'll slap a price on it (as you can see on leetchess), but by no means am I trying to retire from the income.

So, maybe don't give up in the sense that you no longer build. But perhaps it's worth evaluating why you build.

Same. I was so fascinated by lower-level stuff (chips, assembly, etc.), but when I finally started to dig into it, AI came around and did what would take me forever to do myself in seconds. I thought pivoting from software dev to pentesting would be spark my motivation, but again, AI can do it quicker. I don't find this stuff rewarding anymore.

This made me think about the kinds of things I do find rewarding. OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, etc. are billion dollar companies. But what exactly are they? You cannot touch them. You can't smell them. They're not real in the sense that other things are, such as a painting or a statue. If the global power grid were to go down, the value of these companies would drop to 0. Of course, this is unlikely, but I think the point holds.

Nowadays, I want to build physical things; I do wish I went into a different engineering field.

My first experience with the police was just as bad. A friend and I were waiting on the porch of another friend (all like 14 years old). We were waiting for him to come home. He knew we were there waiting for him.

His neighbors yelled something to us out of their window. We went to see what they wanted, but they didn't say anything when we got near.

We went back to the porch and waited for maybe 10-15 minutes, but decided to leave as we felt really weird about those neighbors. As we started walking, a police officer pulled up screaming at us, telling us we were under arrest for throwing rocks at the windows of those neighbors. The police officer took us to the police station, put handcuffs on us, as well as shackled our feet to the floor, where we remained for like 2 hours. He made us write a statement, and then told our parents to come get us.

It was truly the most confusing thing I ever experienced. Angers me a bit today thinking about it.

Had this happened to any solo person, they'd surely be thrown in jail immediately with a heavy bond. Rules are for poor people.

> but my hair did thin out but only after I was lazier on my work outs.

How old are you?

Also, working out helps reduce stress. Does it seem more plausible that getting lazier on your workouts, rather than the creatine, increased stress in your life, thus the hair thinning?

I have never heard of creatine causing thinning hair.

> Because the moment you stop taking, wouldn’t you notice a big drop?

No. They're not steroids.

>I'm sorry, but if you're making over half a million in TC a year, you can have an emergency fund set aside

Seriously. It boggles my mind how people can earn this much money, yet face difficulties when they lose their job. I guess they're people who didn't grow up poor and/or are too hungry for material things.

There's very little I want or need in this world; if I were making $500k, I'd be able to somewhat retire within 2-3 years.

I've had a brilliant product built for a specific niche. I personally know a few business owners in the niche, so I reached out to them and offered it to them for free.

"That's awesome! I'll try it out."

Not a single person tried it out. I also emailed every other business owner within a 30 mile radius to give it a go, for free. Nothing.

This wasn't my first rodeo, either. I've built so many projects since 2015 in the hopes of having a SaaS business.

I've completely given up on "SaaS", especially in the current year, with the rise of LLMs and perhaps hundreds of thousands of new projects released daily. It's completely draining, and I've burned through so much money trying to "make it". Never again.

If I wanted to grow my company's LinkedIn following count, I would just post a few fake jobs.

When people apply for jobs on LinkedIn, there's a "Follow <company>" checkbox near the submit button that's checked by default. Candidates who are spamming applications most likely wont uncheck the box. Candidates who really want the job will probably leave it checked as well (looks good if the company decides to check them out).

I think this is the real problem. LinkedIn made it easy to get followers by posting jobs. Follower count looks good.

I remember when folks had to have skills to enter the "profession" of software developer. Nowadays all you need to be a "programmer" is a degree.

Ah, good point. I didn't look too deep. You're right, though. It looks pretty successful. Although looks can be deceiving.

I recently heard some advice from someone during a tech meetup. He said, in a Ukrainian accent - always have two careers. In the Ukraine, he was a police officer and an appsec developer. Now, in the US, he's an appsec developer, and a car mechanic.

For me, I'm a developer, but I used to paint houses and do other construction-type work (tiling, framing, etc.). I'm slowly building a business on the side, as I fear for the day I'm fired.

I'm writing this as advice to others that may find themselves in OP's position (I sure fear for it). Do not ever let yourself get comfortable at your job. Plot your way out. Build other skills that aren't anything like your job. Do not let your job become your identity.

Where on OP's profile did you see ProFullStack.com?

This reminds me of a mermaid "documentary"* I watched as a gullible 15 (?) year old. It aired on Animal Planet, if I'm not mistaken. I thought it was absolutely real. _Mermaids are real_. I used to tell everyone to watch it...

Years later, I found out it was completely fake; the end credits even tell you it's fake (I missed that). I had a hard time believing anything after that realization.

* - Mermaids: The Body Found