anuj_nm

Thanks for the great explanation of the evolution of telecom technologies.

However, I found the business case lacks substance. The author claims that an offline retail giant will have a higher chance of success when they try to go online because they own a telecom arm. There is no reasoning or justification provided.

This makes me thankful for Amazon's document-writing culture. Ambiguous words like very/could/should/few/large are avoided or at least qualified with a range. This helps us avoid ambiguity, regardless of the amount of context a reader has.

If you're living in Canada, you're spending money in CAD. I don't think its fair to convert Canadian salaries to USD to make the comparison. Still, $160K CAD is considerably less than $200K USD.

Mine was 2 months ago. I'm surprised how stale these questions are.

I was asked pretty much the same questions for an SRE position at Google. Note that I only found the recruiter phone screen to be this kind of 'pop quiz'. The engineering interviews were more detailed discussions with engineers.

I keep getting marketing emails from Udacity about their nanodegrees. Some of them sound pretty attractive (like the ones related to self-driving cars) and I've been tempted to take them. Glad to hear an actual review from someone :)

Adding to this, there's an informal course review site that gives you pretty good reviews from other students. It should give you some more context: https://omscentral.com/reviews

I only take 1-2 courses each semester. Which means it'll take me a total of 3 years to graduate. Right now I'm about a year in, with 3 courses under my belt. One of the courses I took was time-consuming and difficult- maybe 15-20 hours a week. The other two however have been relatively easy, where I've spent less than 10 hours a week on each.

I have an undergrad degree in Computer Engineering, and have been working in the field for 3 years. So I took 1st year and 2nd year Math courses during my undergrad, but I haven't really used them since.

Yes, I think it should be fine considering you have some work experience.

Once you're accepted though, you'll have to complete two foundational courses within a year (with a grade of at least B) in order to continue to be eligible. This applies to all new students.

From my own experience, some of the courses are pretty easy, so getting a B or higher isn't difficult.

Have you considered an online Master's degree in machine learning from Georgia Tech? Its offered through Udacity so its cheaper and more flexible, but you also get a full degree from Georgia Tech.

Full disclosure- I'm currently in that program and loving it.

I hadn't thought of it that way, thanks for bringing it up. Yes, I'll have to ask to see how its viewed culturally.

Maybe you can add some details about what stage your company is at (seed vs Series A/B/C), instead of identifying your company?

In the past year, I've had 3 colleagues quit their jobs at a Vancouver startup to work remotely for a US company (to get paid in USD). Tech salaries in Vancouver are too low for the cost of living.

Its especially discouraging to see an employer with offices in Seattle and Vancouver offer their Canadian employees salaries that are >30% lower than their American counterparts. I won't be surprised if Canadians working remotely becomes commonplace.

I like that they're allowing customers to build custom applications using their SDK. Also, targeting industries seems like a much better way to build this kind of technology than building a mass market consumer product.

My girlfriend lives this philosophy of minimalism, and I try to follow it as well. She's had to move at least once a year every year for the past 8 years, and she brings her stuff down to two suitcases each time (with no storage anywhere else).

I'm not as regular at it as she is, but I go through 'stuff cleansings' about once a year. I probably have 4 suitcases/boxes, along with some stuff stored at my parents's place in India.

Living minimally is very freeing. It allows you have to a low maintenance lifestyle, while giving you a sense of security. On the other hand, getting into any hobby becomes a trade ofd between buying and maintaining the equipment, or paying absurd amounts to rent it.

Exactly. I'm currently working as a software engineer here, and the average wage is significantly lower than what Seattle companies offer (even if you ignore the difference in exchange rate). This combined with the housing affordability crisis makes it easy to leave.

I went to UBC, Vancouver from my undergrad. A large part of my friends moved to the US (since the exchange rate works in your favor). Calgary and Toronto are also popular.

Next Draft is awesome! I've been reading it for almost 4 years, and its one of my primary sources of general news. He limits it to ten stories a day, and his curation is excellent. I find myself looking forward to clicking through it everyday.

Change Heroes | Vancouver, BC | http://changeheroes.com/ | Prefer ONSITE but REMOTE possible for the right candidate | CTO, Senior Backend Engineer

We're building the world's largest community of people taking action through giving. We scale person to person asks via video, thus helping charities fundraise better. Here's a dashboard showing our impact to date: http://dash.changeheroes.com/main.

We're currently hiring a CTO and a Senior Backend Engineer. Our stack is Java + Angular hosted on AWS. Our office is in Gastown in beautiful Vancouver, and we're hoping to find candidates that can be in the office, but if you're the perfect candidate, I'm sure we can work out a remote arrangement.

I couldn't find the CTO job posting, but I know we're hiring for that position. Here's the job posting for the senior backend engineer position: https://boards.greenhouse.io/changeheroes/jobs/125117

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at anuj [] changeheroes.com. Also, please mention in your application that you found us via hacker news.

Change Heroes isn't a non-profit, but a technology social enterprise for sure. We help charities fundraise better through video outreach + microgifts. So far we've helped fundraise over $2.86m, and we're just getting started.

Our charity partners love us since we give them an immediate ROI that's way better than traditional channels. Our users love us since we help them create real world impact that they can be immensely proud of.

Our team is made of devs, designers, PMs and non-profit veterans. I'd feel incomplete if I didn't shamelessly mention that we're hiring: https://boards.greenhouse.io/changeheroes/jobs/125117

I didn't realise that one city's market could be large enough to support that many. In Vancouver I've only seen 5-6 of them, and in Mumbai where this just started, I only know of one company running them. Yes, if you have >50, recycling won't be a problem.

I've tried a bunch of these in Vancouver, Seattle and Mumbai. Most of them have been incredible. If you're the kind of person who enjoys the rush of solving puzzles under a timer, you would love this. Also, one set of rooms in Vancouver hired set designers to build the rooms (making them very realistic), and hired actors to help run the business. The actors really add to the immersive experience since they pretend to be part of the puzzle. But yeah, I don't understand how scalable the financial model is, since the owners would have to keep recycling the rooms every few months.

Just tried this locally and on AWS at Change Heroes and its great! We've been looking to become more metrics driven as a company, and this might be the tool that makes it happen!

Thanks for building it and making it open source :)

I took Nando's ML courses at UBC 2 years ago. He's great at explaining complex concepts in digestible chunks. He's able to show how ML theories are modeled after natural processes well too (such as how speech recognition and image processing work using deep learning and neural nets).

I'm an engineer working for Change Heroes (www.changeheroes.com). Every Sunday night all I can think about is how excited I am to work on the product the next week. I've never felt this way before.

Change Heroes helps raise money for charities and non profits. Our impact includes 217 funded projects so far including schools, wells, and aid packages. Yes, as an engineer, you can make a huge impact on the world.

Thanks for bringing this up. Hate to see how unethical telecom companies across the world can be.

Thanks for the post! I'm part of the founding team for a startup in Vancouver and work out of Mumbai, so this is super useful for me.

Also, +1 for suggesting Cathay and T Mobile! Try Wind Mobile if you need a connection in Canada. They offer unlimited plans for both countries, so it works out really well.