from Hacker News

Ask HN: How can I help you?

by shepik on 2/6/22, 5:59 PM with 42 comments

I always prioritized having broad skillset rather than focusing on a single thing, but i'm now having doubts about it.

I'd like to discover if my skills are useful by applying them to solve someone's challenges. If talking to me might help you - please drop me an email or schedule a call (the address is in the profile). Free & no strings attached.

About me:

- co-founder/ex-CTO/ex-CPO of a russian company with $15M arr

- people usually describe me as a "smart guy"

- had to solve a problem that required using nlp, so i organized data labelling team, finetuned BERT, and integrated it into a larger system

- know some finance. unit economy, operating costs, that sort of thing

- did a lot of a/b tests and conversion experiments

- bitmap indexes, fractal trees, k-d trees - i like indexes and trees

- developed software using python, golang, php, c++

- clickhouse user for 3 or 4 years. also, mongodb, vertica, presto

- did some custdev and qualitative interviews

- have some experience managing outbound sales reps; but still, i'm a builder/hacker, not a hustler

(I realize this post looks a bit like a sneaky "hire me" post - but i assure you, that is not my intention)

  • by kingkongjaffa on 2/6/22, 6:39 PM

    I’d like to be CTO / VP of engineering one day.

    How did you get to that point?

    What roles did you do before that to be able to step up into being taken seriously for that kind of role?

    I’m in the odd? Position of being more commercially experienced and less technically experienced than most (senior)/software engineers. Right now I fall into wanting to prove my chops technically and building new products/ mvp’s while also guiding devs on other projects.

    Obviously it’s a world of difference between a start up and a f500 company in terms of what a CTO would do so feel free to think CTO at startups <100 employees size etc.

  • by atlasunshrugged on 2/6/22, 6:47 PM

    Asking here in case others find it interesting. Can you share more about your experiences building in Russia, especially more unique challenges you faced (e.g. harder to literally get funds from foreign clients, regulatory environment, etc.). Are there things solved there that you are shocked you haven't seen elsewhere? What is your feeling about the current buildup of troops around Ukraine & what do Russian friends/family/colleagues feel about it?

  • by ignoramous on 2/6/22, 7:09 PM

    Mostly technical questions from me:

    1. Re: Presto/Clickhouse: Have you looked at dsq, pola.rs, DuckDB, Apache DataFusion, Clickhouse Local? If so, what's your opinion on where the (data science) ecosystem is moving towards (for example, ibis-project.org taking over Presto/Trino).

    2. Re: Bitmaps: What's the most compact way you know to store a bitmap-index in printable ASCII (b64 etc)? Puny code esque state machines are elegant (used in DNS), but is there anything else that's better?

    3. Re: Unit economics/Opex: Are you a believer in the cost effectiveness (both eng and monetary) of the overall Serverless storage and compute movement?

    4. Re: Russia: From the looks of it Russia (and Eastern Europe, in general) has fantastic yet untapped pool of talent, but then, how do you compete for talent with Yandex, Klarna, Spotify, UiPath, and others?

    5. Re: py/go: Choose one? ;)

    Thanks.

  • by convolvatron on 2/6/22, 7:11 PM

    is there a service for this? i mean i hate the fact that everything has to be an app, but i'm in a similar boat. i've been trying to get more out of life by engaging with other people (outside a commerical context), but its hard to keep jobs coming.

  • by dkv1 on 2/6/22, 6:33 PM

    not many come forward for helping. Thanks and appreciate your post.

  • by stanislavb on 2/6/22, 7:35 PM

    Hey mate, sounds good. Would you consider registering a profile at https://www.libhunt.com/devs? That way, your profile/pitch may reach even more people. Cheers!

  • by jacquesm on 2/6/22, 6:48 PM

    You should try coaching positions, plenty of start-ups are struggling with the things that you have already seen and know how to deal with.

    CTO's would likely love to know you have their back and that they can come to you to ask for 2nd opinion (or even 1st ;) ).

  • by dane-pgp on 2/6/22, 6:51 PM

    If you're not looking to get hired, and you are looking to help people using your software skills, does that mean you'd take suggestions for free software projects to work on?

  • by anm89 on 2/6/22, 6:46 PM

    I'm looking to raise ~$2 million to build a coliving space with the goal to grow to multiple spaces. I'm bringing half a million of my own money to the table.

    Have any connections?

  • by jlpom on 2/6/22, 9:20 PM

    Help me make synchronised sessions between PCs a reality: https://consistos.com

  • by ww520 on 2/6/22, 7:31 PM

    What's your thought on TreeMap (ordered by key)? What problems can be best solved by TreeMap? Why do people use HashMap instead of TreeMap?

  • by faangiq on 2/6/22, 7:39 PM

    You’re selling in a place where there are no buyers.

  • by joelhlim on 2/7/22, 7:56 PM

    What types of things have you seen the most successes in A/B testing? What did you do?

  • by hwers on 2/6/22, 6:45 PM

    Lovely initiative, even though I can't think of ideas at the moment (just wanted to applaud).

  • by ravish0007 on 2/7/22, 2:24 PM

    Where to find beginner friendly remote jobs? such a high barrier for entry level folks.

  • by agumonkey on 2/6/22, 7:03 PM

    some guy made https://old.reddit.com/r/software_mentors/ not long ago

    if you're looking for students I guess you can take a peak

  • by altdataseller on 2/6/22, 7:24 PM

    What are the risks of investing in a public Russian co (ie Yandex and Ozon and Semrush)

  • by bananamansion on 2/6/22, 7:18 PM

    can you expand on "did a lot of a/b tests and conversion experiments" any posts i can go to read more about?

  • by sydthrowaway on 2/6/22, 6:51 PM

    How to get promotions FAST

  • by kazishariar on 2/6/22, 7:50 PM

    Please use your knowledge of engineering to help this scenario:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30236248

    TY!

    (This series was started in part due to your title-tag from this very posting!)

  • by thescribbblr on 2/6/22, 7:33 PM

    I am looking for $100K for my NFT marketplace project. How can you help me?