Unrealistic expectations Memes

Posts tagged with Unrealistic expectations

Linear Scaling 101

Linear Scaling 101
Behold, the mythical beast known as the Project Manager who genuinely believes that doubling the team size will halve the development time! Because obviously, building a C compiler is exactly like digging a ditch, right? Just throw more bodies at it and watch the magic happen! Spoiler alert: that's not how software development works. There's this little thing called Brooks' Law that states "adding more people to a late software project makes it later." Why? Because now those 32 agents need to coordinate, communicate, have meetings about meetings, onboard the new folks, and spend half their time explaining what the first 16 already built. But sure, let's pretend humans are perfectly parallelizable processes with zero overhead!

The Day That Never Comes

The Day That Never Comes
Oh honey, enterprises want AI that's deterministic, explainable, compliant, cheap, non-hallucinatory AND magical? That's like asking for a unicorn that does your taxes, never gets tired, costs nothing, and also grants wishes. Pick a lane, sweetheart! The corporate world is literally out here demanding AI be 100% predictable and never make stuff up while SIMULTANEOUSLY wanting it to be "magical" and solve problems no one's ever solved before. Like... do you understand how neural networks work? They're probabilistic by nature! You can't have your deterministic cake and eat your stochastic magic too! Meanwhile, the poor souls waiting for this mythical perfect AI are slowly decomposing in that field, checking their watches for eternity. Spoiler alert: they're gonna be skeletons before they get all those requirements in one package. The universe simply doesn't work that way, bestie.

Please Raise Your Hand If You Qualify

Please Raise Your Hand If You Qualify
Nothing says "we have no idea what we actually need" quite like a job posting that requires 4 years of experience with React 16+ when React 16 came out like 6 years ago. But sure, let me just pull out my time machine and get 5 years of experience with every technology that's existed for 3 years. They want a full-stack unicorn who's mastered Java EE, Spring, Angular, React, PHP, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Docker, AWS, and apparently has been using Git for 5 years like it's some kind of specialized skill. Brother, I've been using Git for 10 years and I still Google how to undo a commit. The real kicker? They probably want to pay you $75k for this "junior developer" position that requires the combined experience of an entire dev team. HR just copy-pasted every buzzword from the last decade into one listing and called it a day.

Timeframe Is Whack

Timeframe Is Whack
Project manager asks for an estimate. You know it'll take 3 months minimum, but you also know they want to hear "next week." So you do what any rational developer does: give them a range so absurdly wide it's basically useless. An hour to 11 months? Sure. Could be done by lunch, could be done when your kid graduates middle school. Both equally plausible depending on how many "quick changes" they throw in after you start. The PM will hear "an hour" and put it in the sprint. You'll be there in 11 months explaining why authentication "took longer than expected."

What Was Your First Project?

What Was Your First Project?
Every aspiring game dev starts with "I'm just gonna make a simple platformer" and somehow ends up planning a massively multiplayer open-world FPS with crafting mechanics, procedural generation, ray-traced graphics, and a blockchain economy. Then reality hits harder than a null pointer exception. The emo Spider-Man sitting in the rain captures that exact moment when you realize your first game won't be the next GTA meets Minecraft meets Cyberpunk. Instead, you'll be lucky if you can get a cube to move without clipping through the floor. The ambition-to-skill ratio is truly unmatched in the gamedev world. Pro tip: Start with Pong. Then maybe Snake. Then we'll talk about your ultrarealistic MMO.

HTML For Babies

HTML For Babies
When the job posting says "Entry-level position: 10 years experience required" you know they're expecting candidates who started coding in the womb. This baby gets it—gotta start learning HTML before you can even walk if you want to meet those absurd junior developer requirements. Nothing screams "reasonable expectations" quite like needing a decade of professional experience before your brain is fully developed. The tech hiring market is so wild that parents are probably adding "HTML for Babies" to their baby shower registries right next to the diapers. Start 'em young or they'll never land that $45k/year "senior" position at 22.

That Is What Every Developer's Story

That Is What Every Developer's Story
When your manager asks for "whatever you managed to finish," you know they've already accepted defeat. The bar is so low it's practically underground. The guy coding on a literal office chair strapped to a rickety cart in the middle of traffic is basically every developer trying to ship features with zero resources, impossible deadlines, and a tech stack held together by duct tape and prayer. The infrastructure is falling apart, there's no proper setup, but hey—at least you're moving forward, right? Peak project management: lowering expectations so much that simply surviving the sprint counts as a win. Ship it and pray the production servers don't catch fire. 🔥

Super SWE

Super SWE
So you're telling me this "Super SWE" role wants someone who's done something remarkable, ships features before breakfast, has "undeniable proof-of-talent," believes in manifesting physical engineering futures, AND has built exceptional UIs... but LinkedIn can't even generate a job match summary because there's not enough information? Classic. The job requirements read like a tech bro's fever dream written at 3 AM after watching too many startup documentaries. "Go from 0 → 1 on an idea before breakfast" – buddy, I can barely go from 0 → 1 cup of coffee before breakfast. And "manifesting the future of physical engineering"? What is this, a software job or a TED talk audition? Over 100 people clicked apply though. Either everyone's delusional about their qualifications or we're all just that desperate for remote work. Probably both.

I Am The IT Department

I Am The IT Department
Oh honey, you sweet summer child recruiter. You think you're hiring ONE person? Bless your heart. You've basically listed the skill requirements for an entire Fortune 500 company's tech division and slapped "Full Stack Developer" on it like it's a cute little job title. Backend? Check. Frontend? Check. Three different databases because apparently one wasn't enough trauma? Check. The ENTIRE AWS ecosystem? Sure, why not! Oh and while we're at it, throw in system administration, containerization, orchestration, AND test-driven development because clearly this mythical unicorn developer has 47 hours in their day. The punchline hits different because it's TRUE. This isn't a job posting—it's a cry for help disguised as a LinkedIn post. They're not looking for a developer; they're looking for someone to BE the entire IT infrastructure while probably offering "competitive salary" (translation: $65k and unlimited coffee).

The Senior Devs Expectations Vs The Junior Devs Resources

The Senior Devs Expectations Vs The Junior Devs Resources
Oh, you want me to build a scalable microservices architecture with real-time data processing and machine learning capabilities? Sure thing, boss! Let me just fire up this laptop from 2012 that takes 15 minutes to boot and has 4GB of RAM that's already crying from running Slack and Chrome simultaneously. Senior devs really out here expecting you to pilot a Boeing 787 Dreamliner while handing you a tricycle with a basket. "Just make it work" they say, as if sheer willpower can compile code faster on a potato. Meanwhile, they're sitting on their MacBook Pros with 64GB of RAM complaining about how "slow" their builds are. The audacity of expecting enterprise-level performance from hardware that struggles to run VS Code without sounding like it's about to achieve liftoff is truly unmatched. But hey, at least the tricycle has a basket for your crushed dreams and cold coffee!

8.2 Billion Wishlists

8.2 Billion Wishlists
Game dev discovers the ancient marketing algorithm: if everyone you know wishlists your game, and everyone THEY know does the same, you'll achieve exponential growth until the entire planet owns your indie platformer. It's foolproof math, really. Just need your mom, her book club, their extended families, and approximately 8.2 billion strangers to click one button. The cat's expression perfectly captures that moment when you realize your "viral marketing strategy" requires solving a recursive function where the base case is "literally everyone on Earth." Fun fact: Steam wishlists actually DO help with visibility in their algorithm, but the platform has around 120 million active users, not 8.2 billion. So you'd need to convince every human, including uncontacted tribes and newborns, to create Steam accounts first. Priorities.

Christmas Gift

Christmas Gift
Santa really said "BE REALISTIC" and then proceeded to ask the most DEVASTATING follow-up question in the history of Christmas wishes. Kid wants a dragon? Sure, let's talk specs! Bug-free, well-documented, AND readable code? In the SAME codebase? Might as well ask for a unicorn that poops gold while you're at it. The punchline hits different when you realize the kid's answer of "green" is probably the ONLY realistic requirement in this entire conversation. At least dragons come in green. Bug-free code? That's pure fantasy, my friend. Santa's out here teaching harsh life lessons about software development one Christmas at a time.