Ask HN: Help a dev move to the Bay Area
Long version:
For the past two years, I've been working on Clutterme Inc., a Toronto-based startup with some moderate success. I've occasionally posted about it here. For a variety of reasons, my co-founder and I are closing up shop and heading our separate ways, and I would love to move to the Bay Area.
I am, unapologetically, a jack-of-all-trades. I pick up new languages or tools quickly, and I love learning new things, but if an old tool happens to be better, I'm happy to use it: best tool for the job. This does means that I am not, and will never be, a guru in any specific topic, but it also means that I will not bat an eyelash at a sudden change of direction or at investigating or learning a new technology. I pride myself on being pragmatic, and doing whatever it takes to get the job done and end up with a good product.
Some of the things I've made (short descriptions available at http://www.alexc.me):
- clutterme.com - WYSIWYG AJAX in-browser web page creation, made from scratch using Ruby on Rails, Prototype, and a lot of custom Javascript.
- Facebook applications - they currently have around 1 million installs, and were receiving 6 million page views at their peak. Written with PHP, FBML/FQL/FBJS, and MySQL (no frameworks).
- Some personal hobby projects with CakePHP and MySQL. Never as successful as the Facebook apps, but around 300,000 page views/month at their peak.
- Used a number of APIs - register.com, Paypal Website Payments Pro, Facebook, LyricFind. Right now playing with the Google Analytics API and Wordpress.
- iPhone applications - LyricFind and LyricFind Lite, currently at #4 (Canada) and #9 (US) in the free Music category of the app store. A couple more apps in various stages of completion or in app store approval limbo.
I've had a lot of fun working on a start-up, and I am definitely looking for a small, motivated team, that wants (and needs) to make things happen quickly.
I greatly respect the HN community, and I feel that a company whose people read HN is more likely to be a place I would enjoy working at - perhaps as an employer, you feel the same about me ;)
If any of this sounds like something you're looking for, please drop me a line at alex@clutterme.com. I am visiting the Bay Area for a couple of weeks, and I would be happy to set up any in-person (or phone) meetings.
(if anyone just wants to meet up and chat about random stuff, send me an email too! I had way too much fun at the HN Meetup last week, and I'm always happy to meet more people).