1,835 karma · joined October 19, 2016
mail@bloomca.me
https://github.com/Bloomca https://blog.bloomca.me/posts
Complex tasks are incredibly hard to finish as a single ticket – with such granularity you might have opaque progress for couple days, and you hide a lot of details from everyone.
Unless you mean "tickets" as "user stories", they can be (although not always) treated like that.
E.g. "As a user, I want to be able to import the Excel reports that I get from company $XY, so that I don't have to manually enter the data, and save a lot of time that way" can transform into "As a user, I want data from $XY company in my system with minimal effort" during grooming or planning, but rarely during development (it is also possible, but it will break all your sprint commitments, and possibly other teams' commitments as well).
Now, regarding the broader context. It depends on the project – the larger it is, the harder it is to share it. In a small project it is very simple to describe in user story why is it needed, what is the end goal, and link to some epic. In the large projects, however, it is much more tricky, and while their example is a little bit too much, but sometimes it will literally hurt the project to share too much (not from security perspective, just from the amount of information). Sometimes there is too much info, and only PM/PO/BA know enough to judge, and sometimes such story is too big, and you end up with it being an epic, and "Implement a button" is a user story.
JIRA might work, and it works pretty well for many companies. From my experience, it is the best for middle sized companies – too much overhead for small companies, not detailed enough for too big companies.
Remote: only remote
Willing to relocate: no
Technologies: Node.js, JS (fullstack), Hapi.js, Express.js, koa.js, React, vanilla JS, SQL, Docker, a bit of Python (Django)
Résumé/CV: https://bloomca.me/resume.pdf
Email: seva.zaikov@gmail.com
I am a web developer, with main expertise in JavaScript (~5 years), mostly client-side, with small services in Node.js using hapi/express/koa. I am open for senior/lead FE positions, or fullstack. I also know a bit of Python/Django, so open for these opportunities as well.
I created several big applications from scratch, was involved in several major refactorings (mostly to React), and in general always involved/lead architectural efforts. I know how to configure webpack in depth, and can write a custom babel plugin, or just Node.js script if it solves some real problem, and not afraid to look into internals of some library.
I publish my ideas to GitHub – https://github.com/Bloomca, and also have a blog with ~150k total views, about JavaScript and software development – https://blog.bloomca.me/.
I look only for remote positions within US.
Not really sure about skiing, I guess snowboarding is more like that. Geek culture is a big one right now, with Star Wars, Harry Potter and all that stuff is on the rage – to like it is cool, and it might be an indication.
Of course, not everybody does it for these reasons, but there are plenty of "nomadic" people who like it only because it gives some benefits of social approval.
I personally write down all ideas and when I have time to implement them, choose what looks the most interesting (and feasible).
With this strategy, in the last couple months, I was able to implement:
https://2018.bloomca.me/en – just a website showing how bloated web is
https://real-local-food.com/ – project about local food
https://nameless-hamlet-12227.herokuapp.com/ – check your allergies application, built for a hackathon.
Now, you can notice they are not perfect, and by no means are finished, but before I was not able to produce that much.
edit: formatting
Language and programming fundaments have to be taught, and companies rarely have any decent processes around it, and it eats a lot of time from other developers. Domain knowledge can be gathered from literally anyone in the company, and also unless you are a senior, you don't need that much of understanding.
Moreover, you can do some tasks without knowing anything – fixing nasty bugs nobody has time for, automating some stuff. During doing that you can get some ideas what it is about. Another point is that person with experience already immersed into other/same domain in the past projects.
Big companies can hire more trying to get away from competition, but some people would go to startups anyway (especially recent graduates).
Of course, not everybody is like that, but some people are, and here is the danger.
Training is possible, but in our fast-moving industry everybody wants something tangible as soon as possible, and proper training takes too much time without any guarantees.
Also, you can get a position being a junior, by showing your good attitude, passion to learn, and, sadly, sometimes, desire to overwork – companies like that, because you can grow fast, and will surpass your salary really soon, so they will get a loyal middle developer for price of a junior.
tl;dr: too long to educate a regular person (not a brilliant, a lot of companies will accept these guys) and too big chance they will just leave after some time, without bringing much value.
Location: Florence, Oregon, US
Remote: only remote
Willing to relocate: no
Technologies: Node.js, JS (fullstack), Hapi.js, Express.js, koa.js, React, vanilla JS, SQL, Docker, a bit of Python, a bit of Go
Résumé/CV: https://bloomca.me/resume.pdf
Email: seva.zaikov@gmail.com
My main experience is on the front-end, however, I create services using Node.js (and constantly use Node.js in my day-to-day work) from time to time, in express, koa or hapi libraries; so I am thinking about doing more fullstack work, or even Node.js position.
I often work on architectural side of things, creating new services or projects from scratch, reorganizing existing codebase and rethinking approaches based on the domain model. I also have plenty of experience migrating to newer technologies (with both positive and negative outcome), so I am very careful about such decisions.
I publish my ideas to GitHub – https://github.com/Bloomca, and also have a blog with ~150k total views, about JavaScript and software development – https://blog.bloomca.me/.
p.s. I know a bit of other languages, like Python, Clojure or Go, and I strongly believe that language is just a tool, so I can imagine myself working in another language. Of course, I am not that proficient in them, but I can pick it up.
Location: small town in Oregon
Remote: yes, and only remote
Willing to relocate: no
Technologies: Node.js, JS frameworks (React, Angular, etc), SQL, Python
Résumé/CV: https://bloomca.me/resume.pdf
Email: seva.zaikov@gmail.com
I freelanced for about half an year, and in my more regular work we have WFH days, so I have some experience working remotely. I am looking for a small company where I can significantly contribute to the end result.
My most successfull project is probably my blog – https://blog.bloomca.me. I was on the front page of HN couple times, featured in JavaScript weekly and Nodeweekly, and in total have more than 130k views.
This. Unless you make a very generic project (and if you use React for that, probably you are doing something wrong), you bump into limitations of any CSS-framework sooner or later (later is especially painful, since it is impossible to fix without ugly workarounds).
So while it is possible to use it the same way as Turbolinks (or React), it is kind of between, which makes it is harder to justify.
However, it works perfect. So, if you read this, and you have it in your project, don't rush to replace with shiny new stuff.
I've worked with several CMS/translation systems, and while decoupling using API is great, and eliminates needs for excel spreadsheets, editors and translators still have no clue what is 1-to-1 relation between something in their new editor app and the actual application.
So, here I am trying to highlight these sections, so editors can quickly understand what different sections actually mean.
I would love to hear some feedback – whether it is about implementation or about idea per se!
It is a library for javascript, which allows you to write less verbose Redux code. I don't have any social media activity (like big number of followers, etc), and had 0 stars, until I've tried to put it on Show HN. It gave me around 100 stars and some momentum, which resulted in 100 stars more over couple of months.
However, it is still a pretty small project, and I can't say that it is used somewhere. I use for myself, as it solves exactly my problems, but don't really think somebody else uses it.
Is it unfair? It depends on your goal -- if you build something for yourself, it is okay (but some marketing definitely won't hurt), but if you really want to share, then I think you should dedicate time on marketing -- meetups, blogs, HN, reddit, etc.
Also, I can recommend spending some time playing with native DOM interface -- so you will understand what is event loop, how listeners are attached/detached, what is event delegation, how to traverse DOM (and what does it cost), and all that jazz.
Nowadays parts of functional programming are on the rise, so you might want to familiarize yourself with it a little bit -- https://github.com/MostlyAdequate/mostly-adequate-guide this is a good book, and fist 5-7 chapters are good enough to change your look at the programming.
This is a foundation, and without it it will be hard to write decent code in a fast and reliable manner. After that you can pick any library (whatever is needed for the jobs around you) or any framework, and try to solve your problem in it. There is not that much a benefit from just learning libraries, frameworks and tools per se, so I recommend to move gradually, and you will understand during your path what do you need better.
But this is not always the case. Very often when you realize that you need to change something, you already work, and you have some obligations, so you have to keep up your work no matter what, and you might have not that much of energy in the evenings. Also, relationships can take a lot of energy from you as well, or you might just (surprise!) have another hobby, and you don't want to sacrifice it.
So, that's all can be broken as "not enough motivated", but seriously, does everybody want to change their life to become a top programmer? And this is even without mentioning that not everybody can develop skills (and create good-enough self branding to present it) to be able to be hired by Google, or other big corps, which will pay for your relocation.
The last point I want to say that it is very hard to develop yourself without understanding how -- a lot of people don't read HN, they think that people working in Google, FB, etc are some semigods, and people around them seem to agree about that -- it is like another bubble, where nobody knows how to actually get into this SV one.
It is also hard to explain that you can pick up their framework (e.g. switch to Vue.js from React), many companies just say "no" unless you can provide strong experience. Some companies have better policies and they insist only on core knowledge and principles, but, unfortunately, I personally find them to be in a minority.
The repo is here https://github.com/Bloomca/vanilla-web-app, if you are interested.
What does it show, when you just have copied websites in your portfolio? And what is the problem to _almost_ copy (e.g. create a twitter clone, but allow to use only images, or some other limitation)?
So I believe that one should be inspired by existing solutions, but don't copy it blindly. Don't know nice colour scheme? Just go to bootstrap and copy their colours; or simply get it from a website, which design you like.
What matters, though, is the fact that it is some kind of an art – people master it, people enjoy when they are able to accomplish some tasks in an elegant way (coarse example is macro in vim).
I feel that executing the same code brings much more benefits over this overhead of rendering same thing twice.
Remote: No
Willing to relocate: Yes, inside Europe, preferably Germany
Technologies: Javascript/TypeScript, (React/Redux + Node.js – Express/Koa.js), but can pick up any frontend frameworks/libs. Basic knowledge of Ruby, Python, Go.
Github: https://github.com/Bloomca
Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vsevolod-zaikov-105166b4/
Email: seva.zaikov@gmail.com
I would like to point out, that I have Russian citizenship and don't have finished degree, so I would need sponsorship. I am a software developer with main expertise in front-end, architecting and creating from scratch big single-page applications; also writing middleware in Node.js. I am fine with full frontend engineer position, but won't mind against some responsibility in the backend part.
I've tried to keep the Redux spirit -- I completely agree about too much abstraction, so I tried to build something much more simple, more basic thing.
Can you please describe which parts of abstractions you personally think are too high here? I see it personally in `waitTiles` function to do SSR, and in `createEntities` (while it is a pretty simple function, it looks like a magic).
First of all, there are too many tools around. So, unless it will be really popular, it will be achievable only in couple of most-popuplar editors. Secondly, there are some things which this approach won't solve -- for instance, universal approach to caching and merging data in reducer (it can be done via some helper functions, but you still will have a lot of boilerplate).
And also, some things are just hard to do -- for instance, combining reducers with decent amount of granularity and complexity of maintaining it later. Also, here I provide a way to do prefetching for server-side rendering, which is another problem you'd have to solve.