I have had a couple T14s without issue, did you remember to change the suspend mode in the bios to Linux?

My advice to learning test automation in this form is: don't

Look up the testing trophy, try to do everything using any tool but Selenium until you absolutely have to. You'll notice that you can come very far using integration tests, you'll also notice the tests are fast and reliable. Something selenium tests rarely are.

For frontend, look at testing-library or storybook with test runners. Former is more lightweight but a hassle to debug, latter is heavier but much more visual and easy to maintain. Both are not flaky and fast and easy to run in a ci pipeline.

Run your tests as close as possible to the logic, you'll get the quickest feedback.

Once you're done with all this, make a happy flow E2E test or two. And I'd use typescript instead of Java. Then you have some hope of a frontend dev wanting to help you maintain it. And playwright instead of selenium, simply more modern and thought out

I had an extreme, as nice as it was it kind of sucked on Linux due to all the dual gpu weirdness (working hdmi or battery longevity, pick one)

Has this changed recently? Because it used to be due to the wiring of hdmi though the external gpu

Tbh, these days WSL2 might be slightly better than macOS at being Linux. As it is Linux (in a very transparent vm) instead of posix or *nix

But for most dev work all three are good options. I've noticed that once you start deploying against stuff like kubernetes or, less so, doing docker stuff you run into limitations on Mac and wsl2. Just random weirdness, especially with new the m1 chips and say cockroachdb. At that point there's no substitute for the real thing :)

Feel like you only received half of, possible good, advice:

I used 'two years, up or out', in my career. Who cares if you work somewhere for a longer period of time as long you keep progressing in all the various metrics of career progression?

It's when things become stale that out is a good idea

You're the second person to mention no vcs, I've never seen a company like this and I was a professional job hopper for ten years (consultant, then freelance dev)

Are there still 'developers' out there using an ftp client to develop their php app directly on prod like its 2002? I simply can't think of a normal, workable project without some kind of vcs

Dont want to call anyone out, because most of the questions are good. It's the sheer quantity, I counted between 10 and 20 questions. An interview should be fun, don't stress me out please

Although I would say that one list is far too focused on financials, you're a dev, not an investor. Some other lists make me want to ask, 'who hurt you?'

Maybe it's because we're a small company focused on hard problems with unknown solutions with a bunch of intelligent and flexible, fast thinking people. We do all the various buzzwords, microservices, clusters, resilience, automated testing trophies, reproducible dev envs, machine vision, machine learning, various p=np problems, etc.

But if the lists are too detailed and rigid I might wonder if you're better off at a more standard company tackling standard problems in a standardized manner. If this comes of as derogatory. The reverse can also be said, that we're a bunch of incompetent cowboys. It's a style thing as well :) (slow is smooth, smooth is fast is a principle I like. We follow all the useful best practices when it comes to cicd, testing and code. I do not have the time for rework)

I enjoy not knowing what I'm doing, if you don't enjoy the cutting edge (and falling of said edge once in a while) you're not going to to enjoy working here :)

Edit: about your list in particular, they're good questions, just try to ask them conversationally instead of slapping a sheet on paper on the table and rattling them off. Except for the macOS thing. We're a Linux shop, noob ;)