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dignickon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (October 2026)

Location: Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, UK

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: C/C++, Zephyr RTOS, Nordic nRF Connect SDK (nRF52/53/54), Bluetooth LE, LTE-M, Swift/SwiftUI, Kotlin/Java, Python (FastAPI), TypeScript, PostgreSQL, AWS, MQTT

Résumé/CV: https://nickbrook.me/files/NickBrook-Oct26.pdf

Email: nick@nrbtech.io

Senior connected-product engineer with more than ten years of experience. I build the whole stack: device firmware, the companion app, and the cloud backend.

I look for contract and project work first, through my company NRB Tech. I would also consider a permanent role in connected hardware or climate tech.

Things I have built: - A field-updatable Zephyr firmware platform and apps for AirTurn's Bluetooth pedals, with an SDK that apps such as forScore and OnSong use - An LTE-M vehicle-security product (firmware, SwiftUI app, AWS/MQTT backend) with PKI and secure OTA updates - USB-MIDI and BLE firmware with signed, rollback-safe updates for guitar controllers - Wiggle, a home energy monitoring app (SwiftUI, FastAPI, PostgreSQL), now in beta testing

I care most about devices that last for years in the field: secure boot, OTA with rollback, power management, and diagnostics.

dignickon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2026)

Location: Holmfirth, UK

Remote: Yes (remote-first; UK/EU hours, happy to overlap US), or hybrid if nearby (Leeds/Manchester)

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Embedded C/C++, Zephyr RTOS, nRF Connect SDK (nRF5x, nRF9x), Bluetooth LE, LTE-M / NB-IoT (Quectel BG77), Wi-Fi, LoRa, secure boot, signed firmware, DFU (MCUboot), USB MIDI/DFU, MQTT, Protocol Buffers. iOS/macOS — Swift, SwiftUI, CoreBluetooth, AccessorySetupKit. Linux SBC fleets (Raspberry Pi, Yocto/Buildroot, Tailscale), Python, Node/TypeScript, AWS (EC2/S3/CodeDeploy), PostgreSQL, Redis, Mosquitto.

Résumé/CV: https://nickbrook.me/files/NickBrook-Jun26.pdf https://nrbtech.io and https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickbrook/

Email: nick@nrbtech.io

SEEKING FREELANCE WORK | Connected Product / Embedded & IoT Engineer

Hi, I'm Nick. I help startups and small teams ship connected products that stay reliable in the field for years, not just months. Through my consultancy (NRB Tech) I design, build, harden, and support production-ready IoT and embedded systems end to end — firmware, wireless connectivity, secure OTA, and the companion iOS/Android app to go with it.

Recent work: a Zephyr/nRF firmware platform, iOS/macOS/Android apps, and a developer SDK for Bluetooth pedals used by musicians worldwide (AirTurn); USB-MIDI guitar-pedal controllers with reliable OTA (Positive Grid); an LTE-M vehicle security platform with BLE coexistence, aggressive low-power management, and an AWS backend (KēZ); and a remote-managed Raspberry Pi fleet driving an outdoor interactive light installation (ROUTES).

I'm best for: BLE / Nordic / Zephyr firmware, cellular IoT with low-power constraints, secure boot + OTA, hardware-paired iOS apps, technical audits of an existing product, and long-term maintenance of shipped devices. MEng in Electronic Engineering and a CSSLP, so I can interface with and debug hardware — though I don't take PCB layout or RF design as deliverables.

I work around outcomes rather than timesheets, usually starting with a short audit or discovery phase so we both have clarity before a larger build. Drop me a line with a short description of your project and we can arrange a call.

dignickon PCB Edge USB C Connector Library

You can get retaining clips to hold it on. While these can be a bit fiddly, I’ve found them good enough for bench testing with no legs tag connect

https://www.tag-connect.com/product/tc2030-retaining-clip-bo...

dignickon To buy a Tesla Model 3, only to end up in hell

I bought a model Y in ‘22. I had some initial problems like a creaky back seat and the floor popping like a jam lid, but after a few service visits those were resolved and since it has been very reliable and even gained nice new features like matrix headlights which avoid oncoming vehicles. It’s a great car to drive.

However, when it received the holiday update with Apple Watch support, and I paired my watch, it started losing several % charge every day. I contacted service who told me to reset my password, which effectively disconnects all connected devices from your account. That solved it. Then I paired my watch again, same problem.

In the next update, Tesla fixed it. And in the next update, it automatically paired your watch without asking. Brave/risky of them, given the previous issues.

My biggest concern for this car now, other than getting abuse for owning a Tesla or the brakes rusting up [1], is Tesla releasing a software update that breaks something, possibly dangerously. With Musk’s recent behaviour I wouldn’t be surprised if talented engineers are leaving or considering it, perhaps excluding Musk’s favoured h1b employees…

[1] https://www.carscoops.com/2024/11/tesla-model-3-comes-bottom...

dignickon Ask HN: How are you using LLMs while coding or everyday work

I use o1, mainly to

- write well-defined and self-contained bash, python, powershell scripts to automate tasks

- give it an error (often from a build tool) and ask it to help fix it. Sometimes it figures it out, but if not then it gives me ideas, and sometimes this allows me to figure it out myself

- ask it how to achieve things at a high level (if I’m unfamiliar with a tool or problem domain). Sometimes this is to validate what I was already planning to do or find a better way to achieve the desired result (I tend to work solo on projects)

- text or code transformations

- writing regular expressions

- I use copilot to improve code writing speed. Sometimes it gets things wrong but overall I find it does speed things up, particularly for repetitive tasks (e.g switch statements with similar cases)

dignickon Why Britain doesn’t build

That’s what we’ve been doing for a while now - why hasn’t it worked? I guess we could deregulate and approve more building, but then we end up with a load of empty boxes of substandard/dangerous quality, with inadequate local resources, and a few very rich property developers. Sounds a foolish pursuit in the face of a climate crisis.

dignickon Why Britain doesn’t build

Housing stock is growing faster than population. There are other more complex issues behind our inflating housing market than just ‘not enough homes’, but nobody seems to want to talk about them: https://positivemoney.org/2023/01/more-than-building-new-hou...

dignickon Why Britain doesn’t build

We actually have excess housing in the UK: https://positivemoney.org/2023/01/more-than-building-new-hou...

dignickon The strange case of Britain’s demise

Like in the US, democracy in the United Kingdom is faltering. Our first past the post electoral system means the Tories can retain power with a third of the (active) electorate voting for them. Labour believes first past the post serves them well, but it doesn’t, because they would have been leading a coalition government in the last several elections under Proportional Representation. Instead it requires Labour to be a very broad house, meaning Starmer struggles to take strong positions on anything because he doesn’t want to lose votes from different groups (mainly from the centre right based on his recent statements). In a proportional voting system each party can be more focussed on having a distinct set of policies and beliefs, which can be debated openly with other parties without fear of alienating a large proportion of their base. It is clear that this is the core problem in the UK, Brexit was a symptom of this issue because people felt their vote actually counted and they wanted to protest against the neoliberal establishment. Now that the implications are becoming clear, a majority want to return to the EU. If Labour win the next election their position will be very fragile, and I’m unsure they will get more than one term.

dignickon Available Today: Windows Dev Kit 2023 a.k.a. Project Volterra

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/apps-on-arm-x8...

Yes, but not for drivers (so device manufacturers have to write drivers specifically for ARM)

dignickon More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

I’m a firm believer in distributed generation and storage, i.e. solar on the roof and battery on premises. This has the added benefits of reducing load on the grid and increasing resiliency. It should be required for all new buildings in regulations.

dignickon More invested in nuclear fusion in last 12 months than past decade

There are several problems with fission (probably fusion too) as I understand it:

1. Cost per MW compared to renewables (~$150 vs ~$40 and falling). Here in the UK the government is promising to subsidise this to make it viable.

2. Construction time - average is 10 years, we don’t have that long to wait.

3. Decommissioning is expensive and a long way in the future. Is that cost built into the cost per MW? How can we be sure the money will be protected, and will be enough to cover it?

4. Spent fuel. The project you mentioned isn’t complete yet, but even then it’s a huge liability to leave for future generations to manage indefinitely.

Meanwhile, renewables don’t have these problems and are available immediately. We should be building huge factories to produce wind and solar en masse.

Source for the figures: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-nuclearpower-idUSK...

dignickon How far behind a plane is its noise?

> Well yeah, that's a sudden sound. My point precisely.

But you are saying that isn’t like an aircraft - why?

> So why don't you hear from your observation point the airplane (or all airplanes for that matter) as it takes off, which is when it makes its first noise? And by all means, account for a few ms of light movement if that makes you happy.

That is attenuation! The aircraft is far enough away that all the energy from the sound is absorbed by the air and objects between observer and aircraft. Attenuation does not affect the speed the sound travels. But when the aircraft is closer to you, the attenuation is lower so you can hear the sound.

dignickon How far behind a plane is its noise?

Unfortunately, this is very wrong! Why does it have to be a sudden sound? The effect the article describes is the same as eg thunder, except an aircraft is continuously moving and emitting sound. The aircraft in the article is not heading directly towards the observer. It simply takes time for the sound produced at a given moment to reach the observer, but the light from the aircraft travels much faster, which is why the lag is observed. It is not ‘sound attenuation’ or ‘hearing threshold’.

dignickon UK healthcare is already being privatised, but not in the way you think

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.ft.com/content/dbf166ce-...

dignickon Swift 5.5 Released

“Swift 5.5 is a massive release”

Then shouldn’t it be Swift 6?

dignickon UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

Same. I struggle to find time to get through each edition, but I don't mind paying the subscription to support quality journalism.

dignickon UK court clears post office staff convicted due to ‘corrupt data’

As the post office is such an old organisation (350 years), it used to have its own armed guard, has its own investigations branch and conducts its own prosecutions. The police wouldn't get involved because the post office was considered to have jurisdiction. Taken from this, which is a great listen: https://soundcloud.com/privateeyenews/page-94-the-private-ey...

dignickon Just Be Rich

In this fictitious world I'm sure there would be other problems, perhaps some we can't foresee and might look like privilege to us today. We don't complain about "issues of the poor" from the past such as child labour (with some exceptions) today. Significant inequality will cause problems regardless of the baseline standard of living.

dignickon Just Be Rich

> If 90% of the population had a (sustainable) lifestyle of current dollar millionaires, and the remaining 10% had a (sustainable) lifestyle of dollar billionaires, there would be lots of inequality, but it wouldn't be problematic.

You are looking at this from a world where that isn’t the case. Money would be worth less in that scenario, and that 10% owns 99% of the wealth, which is still going to cause problems.

dignickon Can a Vegan Diet Be Healthy? A Literature Review

I think it’s important to note that due to soil deficiencies (because of intensive farming) and factory farming, 90% [1] of B12 supplements are given to livestock. Regardless of your diet it’s good to make sure you are getting everything you need and are not deficient in anything. I think veganism raises awareness of that fact. [1] https://baltimorepostexaminer.com/carnivores-need-vitamin-b1...

dignickon The battle for the soul of digital freedom taking place inside your printer

Same here. Another good quality of the HP instant ink printer I have is that the print head is built into the cartridge - so no more clogged up print heads, which always seemed to be the thing that failed in the previous inkjets I’ve had.

dignickon Analysis of SwissCovid app

>A big part of the contact tracing protocol (which was originally the DP3T protocol) is implemented by Apple-Google in a part of the system called GAEN. This part has no available source code although the law requires disclosure of the source code of all components of the system.

By the same logic, this would seem to require all of iOS and Android to be open source. Where does the "App" end and the underlying OS and libraries begin in this requirement?

dignickon UK virus-tracing app switches to Google-Apple model

> The UK "hack" for the bluetooth was quite clever from what I saw - in essence they implemented the "background discovery of an iPhone" feature.

I don't think the government deserves the credit they have received for this. The "hack" was well understood and documented before this App was created, and it has been implemented poorly [1]. [1] https://github.com/nhsx/COVID-19-app-Android-BETA/issues/10

dignickon Air pollution causes ‘huge’ reduction in intelligence: study

Perhaps IQs would have increased more without pollution?

dignickon The secret lives of Google raters

It seems that where companies are outsourcing jobs with a 'gig economy' model, they know these jobs will be automated in the near future and want to be able to easily replace humans with computers. Amazon has the same setup with delivery drivers here in the UK. If they expected these jobs to be long term, they would invest in them in-house.

dignickon New Zealand earthquake: Tsunami follows powerful tremor

Christchurch is actually not on the fault line, and it was a surprise when such a severe earthquake hit in 2011, so they weren't well prepared. All the susceptible buildings collapsed then, and new buildings are earthquake-proof.

dignickon Show HN: Bananalert

I won't be happy until the banana can wirelessly notify my Apple Watch that it is now ripe.

dignickon Show HN: This page exists only if someone is looking at it

Cool vid http://ephemeralp2p.durazo.us/a1ab6f2785e2df2f08f70168413e3a...

dignickon Apple Watch – What can you do with it?

You can do bi-directional notifications between host app and extension with MMWormhole, which uses CFNotificationCenter: https://github.com/mutualmobile/MMWormhole I think overall Apple has done a fantastic job of v1 of this product line, it's pretty polished. As an App developer who has been working on a watch App, while there is a lot you can't do I understand why you can't do it, it will come in time (native Apps later this year), and what is there right now is pretty good. Shameless plug, the App is currently in review: http://napkin.io