aws_ls

Welcome to HN! I perhaps came to know of her via HN, when she won the Fields medal. Then about her tragic untimely death. Then couple of memory articles, at least once since 2017.

My experience has been good. For about an year I worked full time. And then later on, because of wanting to work on my own projects, switched to part time.

But, of course, any platform is not perfect, and mileage varies. One of the problems, I have seen other people face and say is difficulty in getting the first client. But in some of those cases, I also found, that their experience was in a narrow domain (e.g. Wordpress developer in one case). If a person is skilled in a breadth of technologies, then I think, its relatively easier to bag a client.

Also another valid criticism of it is, the selection process is very tedious. Personally, I like solving algorithmic problems (and had spent time learning and solving DP/etc based problems), so I didn't have much issue at that stage++. But often several good developers, don't find that stage to be useful. And I agree, as some friends I referred, struggled with that, and those people I had worked in the same team for long, and know them to be very good developers.

But despite some issues, I still think, it has value. As for me, it solves the problem of being in India and work for SV client, and get good rates. Also no commute. And use that time for exercise instead. Also of late, the ability to work part time, and work on my own projects.

Ask me any other question you have, I will try to answer it in a generic way (not ready to reveal my specific instance details)

++ Edit: I too had difficulty at the mock project stage. Where I found it too cumbersome. Especially the UI part, in React, and was almost ready to give up. It was also partly due to over-committing at that stage, and promising them a demo in 10-12 days, as I was eager to finish the process fast. May be in hind sight I should have taken 16-18 days. As I was not fresh with Reach and was learning on the job (as we all sometimes do)

I work for a Bay area Startup client via Toptal.

PS: I didn't mention the name earlier, to avoid being taken as marketing for a platform. Now that you asked... :)

> Although I'm not looking for the same salary as that of an US engineer, I'm looking for a pay something close to that amount. Is this the reality today?

You can get close to that money in two ways, in my knowledge and experience.

1) Work for a FANG company (Only Amazon, Google are there, but there are others which pay well e.g. VMWare comes to mind now).

2) You join a good netork for freelancers. I currently work for one, and I make the amount, which fits your description of 'near US salary'. Since cost of living is low, it does feel like a high paying job.

I do the following.

When consulting for clients:

  I use an email draft with subject:

    <client name> Tasks done for week ending 7/Feb/2020

       -- task 1

           -- task 1 detail 1

           -- task 1 detail 2

           ...

       -- task 2

           -- task2 detail 1

           ..

When working on own projects:

- I use a physical register

    - Date (at the top)

       - organized notes

       ...

       - random doodling/scribbling

Edit: On a Monday morning, I send that email to myself. So that that week's activities are always searchable by that week ending date. It helps me in my client reporting.

They may be using Linux as OS.

Docker and Kubernetes are not real world enough for you?

I have ported stuff from Java to Go, for my long running app, and very happy.

Also at a client place, over the past year, I developed stuff in Python and Go, where Java was traditionally chosen, and it led to faster execution times, and stable microservices.

Yep. At 2:03 in this video clip :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wzXqa_2KZ0

> But there are very few of them

On the contrary, I think, there are quite a few of them still. Just look at people who created Python, Emacs, Vi, Sublime Text, Charles Proxy, Nginx, Apache Httpd. And this is just scraping the surface of the useful software in the OSS.

May be percentage wise, they are less. But even a .1% of millions, still makes it in the 1000s. And lot of others who perhaps have the potential, but sadly never realize it.

When I started reading this, I thought, it may be a boast in disguise. But this article is very well written and seems utmost sincere.

I almost feel like sending this to a "10x Engineer" in my team. (Its in quotes, because I do believe in the 10x concept, minus the negative baggage which it is associated with, and as the article shows, also can be true.

Just looked up snuff films. Thanks.

Can't wait for the day, when we can create a dump file of our experience - equivalent of mp4, which has not just the sound and moving image but also other things like smell, temperature and other bodily sensations. Its almost like one of those Black Mirror episodes, in which you experience stuff, while just sitting on your sofa.

Pleasure industry should be one of the early adopters of this.

Yes, can attest to that. I had a BSNL connection, which would always inject some JavaScript/etc stuff for Http sites. With HTTPS sites they could not do anything. But I got rid of the connection anyway.

>Plan first. Act second. Evaluate third.

Bingo. Why not plan? Also why not day dream sometimes? Some of the best days I've had are also one of when I pause to take a stock. Once I just took a notebook (physical) and went to a park. It was the best planning day, helping me set future direction for next 6 months. Also Bill Gates is(/was) famous for taking reading/thinking retreats.

Also your whole comment also summarizes my take on the article.

I think, you are romanticizing a very painful aspect of life, to which there are no clear answers. As some where later in the thread, your argument is more about assigning virtue to need(because of not enough options).

Another place you mention daughter-in-law caring for the elders. Totally ignoring the sexist nature of that proposition. Also in reality that whole in-laws under the same roof, has its own set of complications. Often resulting in a very unhealthy dynamic. When children also get affected in the politics of the grown ups.

I think, this is a very complicated and painful problem. For that no universally good solution exists. Its a problem worth solving though, anywhere in the world.

I have felt it since long, that phone calls should be like emails. For example, the ring should include an (optional) recorded subject of the caller (of course, may be heard on demand, by the receiver of the call for privacy reasons). In fact anyone not in contact list, should be required to send a brief voice subject/purpose of calling, which may be limited to 10 seconds. Also we should be able to respond by pressing a 'Not interested' button.

This will take the problem of spam away.

I wish you all the best, and hope that you recover and a cure is found for what ails you. Thanks for writing this. Also sharing with us the gist of your lived experience (the moral):

>find a great doctor; don't go to the closest hospital, go to the best hospital you can find; become an expert on yourself and your disease; speak with doctors like advisors, not oracles; don't let other people tell you "what you should do", but listen to their stories and advice; reduce stress; stay active.

I joined a company which had already IPO'd, 1 year before I joined. And had had 14 years of its runway. They gave me some options, which would mature in 5 years. During that period, the stock exploded. Which the company founders, themselves never expected, else they would have given off much less to employees. Some other employees who had the stock matured, sold it.

They gave me stock options worth 300 $ but it increased 2000 times, in a span of 10 years. It increased so much, that I sold it eventually(to avoid all eggs in one basket). Got myself a house. Loan free. And started my own startup. Which I run till date.

Wise move. Better to sell if off, to avoid "all eggs in one basket" and have the basket fall.

20% earned in a probability friendly way, is much better than 100% in a low probability way (as very high chances would have been of it nearing 0%)

I think, the problem is just easy access to twitter. We have seen so many downfalls on Twitter, due to irresponsible tweeting, haven't we? I think, its just that.

Before the "pedo" tweet, I never felt, any problem with his tweeting. But now, this is the second big gaffe.

A twitter buffer feature, could have avoided both issues.

But at the same time, I won't like him to delete his account. Kind of enjoy his tweets - and knowing that they are his (sometimes raw) thoughts.

May be we just need to forgive more. If a person wants to recall a tweet. What they tweeted should not be held too much against them, perhaps.

Trapped, Icelandic TV series, is also very good. Also you may like 'The Fall' (a slightly different genre, but bone chilling)

Sometimes, I like to read the funny side of things. (Even though I many not agree with it.) Thanks for sharing. Hope it lives up.

I find this to be the best summary of the incident.

One aspect, which also needs to be considered, is the motive to write this now, i.e. the timing is clearly to take revenge on Sarah Jeong. Naomi would be very right in feeling wronged. But there is also an element of the politics which is being played with this article, in the context of getting back at Jeong, by her detractors.

Also, after reading the vice article[1] in question, I felt its largely supportive of Naomi. Minus the mention of 4chan harrassment, it may have sounded like a one sided puff piece. Rather they've made efforts to cover a lot about Shenzen, and the article is very educative about the Maker culture happening there.

[1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/3kjqdb/naomi-wu-s...

(Not OP) I think, it is worth a lot, just for the fact, that if you are the lazy partner/spouse in the house. Then you can make things easier for the one that does the bulk of the chores.

Your friend is a genius! Any idea, how much is it going to cost? And will they plan to sell it in India?

I worked for Infosys for over 10 years. This article gets all the key facts right, but doesn't capture the soul of Infosys or the Indian IT Industry.

I can offer so much on the topic, that it gets overwhelming as I type. So I am just writing my thoughts, some of them on the article and some based on the comments on this page.

- Not all engineers are of low quality. In my experience about 10% of them are as good as SV engineers.

- Infosys founder NRN is a socialist at heart. He pioneered sharing of wealth via stocks (ESOPs). And he did it so well, that all employees got it - drivers to janitors to sys admins to coders. So very unlike the shocking Amazon shop floor stories we hear.

- It has resulted in an ecosystem of Startups in India. Many of the ex-employees who benefitted from the Infosys shares, are doing their own startups (many of them product startups, as a result of getting bored with IT services). So it has acted like a YCombinator of sorts. There even was a ex-Infoscion startup group. And the best part is they can do their own angel funding. So no running for VCs atleast in the early stages.

- For the above reason, I revere him as much as may be a Gandhi or a MLK. The other two I read, only in a book. Very rarely do you get a chance to interact with truly great people IRL.

- Jugaad. This a word I hate with a vengeance. That's what gives a bad impression to Indians. And admittedly it happens a lot. Although Infosys founders, in how they ran their company, serve largely as a counter example. Minus of course some things like H1B visa issue. Just as a contrast read the story of Satyam (another IT company) whose founder Raju did wholesale jugaad and landed in jail in 2009, because the real estate leverage built on fake salaries of fictitous employees, his jugaad, failed.

- Product engineer skills. This is an area, where Infosys/others lack. And thats not only for aptitude or potential, but the culture. Because the Industry grew so fast - 100% YOY in early decades and 50% YOY in the last one - people were pushed to being managers & leads, after just two years of coding experience. And as such bulk of the work is very low quality coding.

- But the numbers in India are so big. Whether its the population of a billion+ or no. of engineers. That there is both quality and quantity. Just look at any coding site (HackerRank, TopCoder et al) and you will see Indian programmers dominating in numbers as well as few performing at a world class quality level.

- Regarding the bad experience, with Indian IT engineers. I wonder how many of them were with a company like Infosys and how many of them were with sites like UpWork/etc? Please note because of the overwhelming quantity of Indian engineers. Its not easy to find the quality engineers, which are also significant in number, but you have to be lucky or have to work hard. (Heck, may be there is a scope to do a TopTal like site, but just for India.)

After reading all the answers, have an observation. Not many startup founders have replied. Most are FAANG employees. Some similar roles in other product companies. One/two consultants. And one hedge fund guy.

Is it using some other localization technique to complement the GPS? GPS at best can give accuracy within 3 meters (if I remember right). To make it accurate, laser/radar beams are shot out to the landmarks, of which precise co-ordinates are known, and using them the pin point coordinates of Ego vehicle are determined.

I agree, another option is needed for a previous social network to die. Hope whatever is the next one is a federated one, that works like emails (SMTP) under the hood.

If the replacement is a federated social network, then there may be 2/3 large competing players for the interfacing part.

My dream is a cryptocurrency based social network, so that those running p2p nodes can also get paid. Also the end clients can compete with each other for the interface part - dumb/some-algo based (Facebook can also be one of the clients ;-))