Yes. It was a manufacturing facility and since the products were photosensitive the entire line operated in total darkness. It was two months before they turned the lights on and I could see what I was programming for.

This was the first place I saw standups. [Edit: this was the 1990s] They were run by and for the "meat", the people running the line. "Level 2" only got to speak if we were blocked, or to briefly describe any new investigations we would be undertaking.

Weirdly (maybe?) they didn't drug test. I thought of all the places I've worked, they would. But they didn't. They were firmly committed to the "no SPOFs" doctrine and had a "tap out" policy: if anyone felt you were distracted, they could "tap you out" for the day. It was no fault. I was there for six months and three or four times I was tapped out and (after the first time, because they asked what I did with my time off the first time) told to "go climb a rock". I tapped somebody out once, for what later gossip suggested was a family issue.

That sounds ... intense, to say the least.

It was a machine. At first it was kind of creepy to have the feeling that when you entered the building you were part of a machine. But after a couple of weeks it was addictive and I have never looked forward to going to work somewhere as much as I did while working there. Even climbing the rocks on my enforced days off gained a mental narrative that "I'm climbing this rock to be the best part of the machine I can be".

Sure most of the times I was tapped out I was distracted by personal thoughts. But one time I was just thinking about the problem. I protested "but I was thinking about the problem!" and they said "go think somewhere else!".

Yes, at a trading company, where important central systems had a multiweek testing process (unless the change was marked as urgent, in which case it was faster) with a dedicated team and a full replica environment which would replay historical functions 1:1 (or in some cases live), and every change needed to have an automated rollback process. Unsurprising since it directly affects the bottom line.

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

> every change needed to have an automated rollback process

How did you accomplish that?

We had a state management and deployment system through which all changes were effected that would automatically rollback changes if the smoke test failed, or if one of the ops staff found an issue.

I haven't worked there but I would presume that systems running nuclear reactors or ICBM launchers have a strong emphasis on QC.