About OTC CatchUp

Note OTC CatchUps are weekly informal sessions involving project showcases and technical discussions. They are held every Saturday from 10:30 PM IST. Join in!.
For all summaries, please visit catchup.ourtech.community/summary.

OTC CatchUp #92

Date: 13-08-2022

Duration: 7 hrs 20 mins

Topics Discussed

  • Ramyak Mehra shared that he is a part of Google Summer of Code (GSoC) 2022.

  • We talked about BitTorrent parser and ways in which it could be built.

  • Aditya Oberai shared his article How Can DevRel Enable Engineering?.

    • He also shared that he will discuss about serverless tech in a talk. (Event link)

    • We discussed some features of .NET MAUI, the successor of Xamarin.

  • We talked about Expo, a React Native library which allows updates to apps using it without requiring app stores.

    • Flutter had a similar feature, but it was dropped since it was difficult to maintain. (GitHub issue)

  • Darshan Rander talked about his dilemma of applying to companies off campus. In this case, one might not be able to gauge the work culture and if they will like working there.

    • Aditya Oberai suggested applying for internships or working on a contractual basis. Starting part time and then converting it into a full time opportunity can help in gauging the work culture.

  • We talked about the learning curve of a Developer in a company and how can one recognize where the curve gets flat.

    • When things start getting repetitive and redundant, that’s when the learning curve gets flat.

  • Aditya Oberai talked about how a mock design helps in clearly visualising a project and also increases efficiency.

  • Ayush Chauhan talked about how Tornado Cash was used for money laundering.

  • VLC Media Player is now banned in India.

    • India is banning services without proper justification which is inconvenient for many people.

  • Sreekaran Srinath talked about the differences in Indian OTT plans which can be purchased using VPN and used in other countries with similar content offerings at an ostensibly cheaper rate.

    • We discussed the Purchase Power Parity and how it affects the prices of OTT service plans and online courses.

  • Harsh Kapadia suggested Namaste JavaScript as a good resource for understanding JavaScript fundamentals.

  • Aditya Oberai shared Arpit Bhayani’s channel for learning about back end technologies.

  • Aditya Oberai and Harsh Kapadia talked about Dev Advocacy and how it affects taking decisions.

  • We talked about internships and how one can get them.

  • Harsh Kapadia asked whether jobs that involve a lot of innovation (like research positions) face massive layoffs before/during an economic recession.

    • It depends on the industry, company and how integral research is for the company.

      • A company whose core is research, will not let go of its core research department.

    • It also depends on the profitability of the company, the number of employees it has, its expenditure, funding, etc.

    • Thus, it is extremely important to do one’s due diligence before joining or applying to a company.

  • How does one research about a company?

    • Go through the company’s site to see what they do. Read blogs and articles to get a deeper understanding.

    • Go through employee reviews on sites like Glassdoor, Blind, etc.

    • Talk to ex-employees.

    • Ask the interviewer questions.

    • Get a legal overview of the offer letter and one should themselves read it thoroughly as well.

    • Look into the profitability, funding and Burn Rate of the company.

    • One has to be as informed as possible, because a complete assurance is not possible. It is a leap of faith to join a company, so one can only control what is in their hands, that is to be as informed as possible.

  • How should choose between a MNC corporate job vs a job at a startup?

    • This is a debate between risk and growth.

    • It mainly depends on one’s risk-taking capacity.

    • It is easier to experiment without repercussions at an earlier stage in one’s career and coming from a privileged background also helps.

    • Ideally one should look to maximize growth at earlier stages in their career.

  • How can one figure out whether they will grow at an organisation?

    • Check whether their product and audience is growing.

    • Joining in at a point at which the company or product is pivoting to a new direction is good, as a lot of changes take place, which teaches one a lot.

    • It is good if a company or product has started to scale up, because scaling up bring its own interesting problems.

    • Although it is good if the company has a lot of problems to solve as that implies a lot of growth, but the company’s stability has to be taken into account as well to ensure a certain level of job security. So, a balance between problems and company stability also has to be looked at.

      • This balance can be tipped on either side depending on one’s risk-taking capacity, career stage and monetary background.

  • Ayush Chauhan talked about Superteam DAO.

  • Darshan Rander shared a Tweet thread How do I add Material 3 custom colors and harmonize them in Flutter?.

Projects Showcased

  • Darshan Rander showcased the MVP of MusiShare, his Jetpack Compose Android app to solve the problem of sharing music between multiple music streaming platforms.

    • From the link of a song from a particular music-streaming service, the app can open the same song on another music-streaming service installed on the user’s phone.

    • Aditya Oberai suggested checking Shazam since it provides a similar service.

Attendees

  1. Aaditya Chinchkhedkar

  2. Aditya Oberai

  3. Ayush Chauhan

  4. Darshan Rander

  5. Harsh Kapadia

  6. Himanshu Sharma

  7. Jay Kaku

  8. Kaustubh Khavnekar

  9. Pranav Dani

  10. Pratham Rohra

  11. Ramyak Mehra

  12. Rishit Dagli

  13. Shubham Sah

  14. Siddharth Bhatia

  15. Siddharth Kaduskar

  16. Sreekaran Srinath

  17. Abhishek Kumar

  18. Dheer Bathija

  19. Krishana Dave

  20. Meer Kukreja

  21. Milan Chandiramani

  22. Moksh Dalu

  23. Yuvraj Ve

Meet Screenshot

Meet #92 screenshot
Note For all summaries, please visit catchup.ourtech.community/summary.

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