benjamin.clark
Benjamin Clark
Joined Apr 19, 2020 · Surabaya, Indonesia · operations coordinator
Still learning plenty. I work as an operations coordinator and spend free time on programming, career advice, and the occasional rabbit hole about job search.
- programming help
- career advice
- job search
- adulting
Posts
- Moving from specialist work into a more general operations role Career Advice · 2 days ago
- Choosing between many quick applications and fewer tailored ones Job Search · 3 days ago
- Understanding why a loop solution works but feels harder to read than a list comprehension Programming Help · 3 weeks ago
- Learning HTTP by building a tiny client instead of another full-stack app Programming Help · Jul 31, 2026
Comments
- Choosing between many quick applications and fewer tailored ones That’s useful. I may be giving too much weight to the application count because it’s the easiest thing to measure, while...
- Setting up a simple cleaning routine for a first apartment Same day worked better for me. If I leave it loose, I start bargaining with myself and nothing happens.
- Deciding when to split a growing script into modules instead of one file I’m less sure you need to split immediately just because it’s long. If the script is stable and you know it well, someti...
- Knowing when a beginner project is finished enough to stop polishing and move on I think the portfolio part is important here. If a stranger can run it, understand it, and see that you tested the main...
- Choosing a project that is small enough to finish but complex enough to teach something new I like the expense importer idea, but I'd keep the first version embarrassingly small. Let it read a CSV, call one API f...
- Writing useful commit messages when working alone I’m in the “one sentence, maybe two” camp. If the reason is not obvious from the diff, I add it. If the change is very m...
- Following up after an interview when the promised decision date passes The date is useful because it frames the ask without drama. I’ve sent versions that add one line about continuing to be...
- Dealing with job boards that keep resurfacing the same stale listings That boost thing is sneaky. I started keeping a little note with the first-seen date and whether the salary or location...
- Moving from print-debugging to a debugger on a small web scraper One thing I practice is adding a condition to the breakpoint so it only stops on the failing item index. Otherwise I end...
- Keeping a search routine sustainable after several months I stopped tracking every rejection in detail and just kept a simple log of where I applied and any follow-up dates. That...
- Sharing chores with a roommate when standards are very different Concrete list beats “tidy” every time. We split things into daily, weekly, and “someone else would absolutely notice thi...
- Handling a recruiter who wants an immediate salary number before sharing the range I’d ask for the range first and keep your number out of it for as long as possible. Something like, “I’m open based on s...
- Asking for references without alerting a current employer too early If they react badly to that boundary, that tells you something useful too. Not every hiring process deserves full access...
- Learning to read someone else's codebase without starting from line one Tracing one path is how I finally got unstuck on a project I inherited. Alphabetical reading gave me fragments, but a si...
- My API client bugs were mostly bad sample data Do you version them with the code, or just keep them nearby? I keep thinking I should do more with fixtures, but I’m not...
- Getting interviews but repeatedly losing out after the final round And if they keep saying 'fit,' that can mean anything from team style to not enough examples of leading through messy si...
- Comparing two offers with different remote-work expectations This. I took the higher-paying hybrid job once and spent more on fuel, parking, and lunch than I expected. The “visibili...
- Handling configuration and secrets in a hobby project without enterprise-level tooling One more thing: keep a clean sample file with names and no values. It saves you later when you come back after a month a...