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Zaheer

4,985 karma · joined December 26, 2011

www.Zaheer.me https://twitter.com/ziggym0

## Current Co-Founder at https://www.Levels.fyi Helping people build better careers. Compare career levels & salaries across companies.

## Previously - Senior Eng @ AWS - Eng @ LinkedIn - Founder @ TagsForLikes.com - SEO for Instagram. over 7 Million users.

Contact: zaheer [at] zaheer [dot] me

submissionscomments
Zaheer··on Show HN: PaperMono, e-ink fridge magnet shopping list with mobile web page
Saw this device going around on X that has a mic / speaker so you can just dictate things: https://zectrix.com/en/

Ordered one but haven't tried it out yet. Sharing in case other folks are looking at devices.

Zaheer··on Among European Companies That Use a CDN, Nearly 9 in 10 Use Cloudflare
Has anyone used Cloudflare's enterprise bot packages and have first hand experience with AWS's equivalent offering? Would love to chat.
Zaheer··on GLM-5.3 Artificial Analysis Benchmarks
Is it worth using these models if I have a claude code subscription already? The appeal of lower cost is nice but I haven't gotten over the switching cost yet.
Zaheer··on Show HN: Isopolis – Isometric pixel map of SF
Similar take by Levels.fyi: https://www.levels.fyi/atlas
Zaheer··on Meta's AI models are powering the first wave of Genesis Mission projects
Their text output often includes more emojis and seems formatted better. Also their image models subjectively looks better than the rest.
Zaheer··on Meta's AI models are powering the first wave of Genesis Mission projects
This fits with my impression of the 'personality' of various models:

Meta: Perceptive (strong vision)

Gemini: Fastest

Claude: Smartest

OpenAI: Prettiest

Zaheer··on Don't become an engineering manager
This is exactly why we built https://www.levels.fyi

Too often people were getting down-leveled because they didn't know any better. The level comparisons we show on the homepage compare scope and responsibilities. People frequently think levels are based on compensation but compensation is the byproduct of it.

Zaheer··on [dead]
This really is a demonstration of Google's principle belief in Zero-trust security: https://cloud.google.com/learn/what-is-zero-trust?hl=en

(I think) they pioneered this area.

Zaheer··on Moving tables across PostgreSQL instances
I recently learned that on RDS you can import data from S3. Handy feature for accomplishing similar goal: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_...
Zaheer··on One year with Next.js App Router and why we're moving on
We deploy currently on AWS so that's not changing. It's just the framework that needs to be changed :)
Zaheer··on One year with Next.js App Router and why we're moving on
Appreciate it! We're still on nextjs. Will def put a blogpost together as we optimize / move away. Thankfully, AI makes large-scale mostly repetitive migrations like these much simpler.
Zaheer··on One year with Next.js App Router and why we're moving on
The biggest facepalm moment I had was when we switched Levels.fyi from gulp.js to next.js. Our pagespeed, hosting costs, etc all took a significant hit. We're experiencing the same issues as described in the post and weighing our options to transition as well. Avoid next.js / vercel at all costs.
Zaheer··on Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
Same. Terrible mistake. My mini overheats like crazy now.
Zaheer··on I only use Google Sheets
Related: How Levels.fyi scaled to millions of users with Google Sheets as a backend

https://www.levels.fyi/blog/scaling-to-millions-with-google-...

Zaheer··on Tldraw SDK 4.0
I was hopping between a few canvas tools recently. Primarily tldraw & excalidraw for some quick spec work. Was surprised to see that both don't have better support or even apps for iPad. Feels like a missed opportunity given how many people on iPad would want to use this sort of tool. I know the website still works but it's just a bit clunkier. Another feature request: shape detection.
Zaheer··on Republicans in Congress open probe into Wikipedia for alleged bias
Letter from congress here: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/08272...
Zaheer··on Areal, Are.na's new typeface
Never heard of Are.na but their aesthetic / interface reminds me a lot of Notion. Given its been around for longer, I wonder if they were inspiration for Notion.
Zaheer··on Food, housing, & health care costs are a source of major stress for many people
I find the produce prices often to be absurdly lower. These items are cheaper to begin with but if you're making fresh food consistently then it probably adds up. The biggest difference I've observed is that the asian grocery stores buy tier 2/3 produce rather than the big supermarkets that have perfect looking produce.
Zaheer··on New executive order puts all grants under political control
Related paulg tweet: https://x.com/paulg/status/1951996478555357530

"The Trump administration has suspended the funding of Terence Tao and the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics at UCLA."

Zaheer··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2025)
Levels.fyi | Backend & Frontend Engineer | Remote (India, Open to other countries) | Full-time | https://www.levels.fyi | $30-50k USD

Levels.fyi's mission is to help every professional build a better career through the most accurate insights and services. We're building the future of compensation & hiring by centering ourselves around professionals.

You'll be joining a close-knit team of 4 engineers to work across our product verticals. You'll have the opportunity to lead and own new projects / initiatives from idea to production end-to-end (architecture to deployment). We move fast and have come an incredibly long way on a tiny team. We're looking for a self-starter and resourceful engineer with strong communication skills and experience building things from scratch.

Backend: https://levelsfyi.notion.site/Backend-Software-Engineer-14f8... Frontend: https://levelsfyi.notion.site/Software-Engineer-Frontend-1e3...

Zaheer··on OpenAI dropped the price of o3 by 80%
I would wager most of their revenue is from the subscriptions - both consumer and business. That pricing is detached from the API pricing. The heavy emphasis on applications more recently is because they realize this as well.
Zaheer··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2025)
Levels.fyi | Backend & Frontend Engineer | Remote (India, Open to other countries) | Full-time | https://www.levels.fyi | $30-60k USD Levels.fyi's mission is to help every professional build a better career through the most accurate insights and services. We're building the future of compensation & hiring by centering ourselves around professionals.

You'll be joining a close-knit team of 4 engineers to work across our product verticals. You'll have the opportunity to lead and own new projects / initiatives from idea to production end-to-end (architecture to deployment). We move fast and have come an incredibly long way on a tiny team. We're looking for a self-starter and resourceful engineer with strong communication skills and experience building things from scratch.

Backend: https://levelsfyi.notion.site/Backend-Software-Engineer-14f8... Frontend: https://levelsfyi.notion.site/Software-Engineer-Frontend-1e3...

Zaheer··on MCP explained without hype or fluff
I found myself trying to explain MCP the other day. The simplest way I could put it for another developer:

MCP is a standardized set of API endpoints that makes it easier for LLM's to discover and operate with all the other regular APIs you have.

Zaheer··on HealthBench – An evaluation for AI systems and human health
Impressive how well Grok performs in these tests. Grok feels 'underrated' in terms of how much other models (gemini, llama, etc) are in the news.
Zaheer··on Ask HN: What are good high-information density UIs (screenshots, apps, sites)?
We think about information density a lot at Levels.fyi. I don't think we're perfect but we do have a fairly dense UX: https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer?countryId=254&cou...
Zaheer··on My new deadline: 20 years to give away virtually all my wealth
https://charityvest.org/ is a great modern DAF tool. I use it to get 1 single charity receipt at the end of the year and track my giving.
Zaheer··on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2025)
Levels.fyi | Backend & Frontend Engineer | Remote (India, Open to other countries) | Full-time | https://www.levels.fyi | $30-50k USD

Levels.fyi's mission is to help every professional build a better career through the most accurate insights and services. We're building the future of compensation & hiring by centering ourselves around professionals.

You'll be joining a close-knit team of 4 engineers to work across our product verticals. You'll have the opportunity to lead and own new projects / initiatives from idea to production end-to-end (architecture to deployment). We move fast and have come an incredibly long way on a tiny team. We're looking for a self-starter and resourceful engineer with strong communication skills and experience building things from scratch.

Backend: https://levelsfyi.notion.site/Backend-Software-Engineer-14f8... Frontend: https://levelsfyi.notion.site/Software-Engineer-Frontend-1e3...

Zaheer··on Notion Mail is out
Tried it out and has promise but for now it's not as polished. My fave email client right now is Mimestream: https://mimestream.com/
Zaheer··on NIH freezes all research grants to Columbia University
It's quite insane that protesting against the actions of a foreign government has more consequences than protesting against the American government.

The current administration is throwing everything it (theoretically) stands for (1st Amendment, America-first, etc) for another country.

Zaheer··on Google to buy Wiz for $32B
Great article on the genesis of Wiz:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2024/10/28/this-vc-b...

https://web.archive.org/web/20250312193110/https://www.forbe...

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