instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
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Is this true? | elptacek: Likely this sounds petty and glib, but I have yet to meet a programmer who had the kind of administrative sense that makes a 'good server guy.' The politics surrounding change management and policy enforcement require technology administrators to have at least one foot firmly planted in reality. This doesn't keep server people from being proficient coders, but it suggests there's an upper limit. And, from personal experience, since I switched from full time admin to (mostly) full time programming, most days I couldn't tell you what day it is. It really feels like a personality shift due to less demand for administrivia and more demand for creativity. Four years ago, I knew the location of nearly every object in our home, all the bills were paid on time, all of my socks were matched up and we had a meal plan. Suffice to say, I've started wearing mismatched socks and the bills get paid when someone calls. Much to my delight, the world has not come to an end. Maybe I'll live longer, too. |
Is this true? | tptacek: I spent the first part of my career as a "server guy" (along with networks). I ran tech at a popular ISP in Chicago called EnterAct.I spent the next part of my career as a developer, first at a security company, then at a streaming multicast company I founded, then at a network managment company.I spent the next part of my career as an almost full-time security researcher for hire, with a pronounced focus on high-end enterprise technology (SAN, WAN compression, replication, database, storage).Looking at it from all three angles, I'd say: there's definitely something to this. Being a programmer gave me insight into how systems worked. Being a security researcher gave me even more insight (I had projects that were literally months spent reverse engineering equipment firmware and building protocol test suites).I'm confident that after all this "insight", I knew more about how, say, iSCSI worked than any SAN administrator in Chicago.So, how would I have done as a manager of a SAN array? Terribly!The things that actually matter in administration --- understanding the processes that need to be in place to make changes, understanding what kinds of changes will occur, understanding what's a typical kind of failure that will just take a couple hours to diagnose versus what kinds of problems mean that your vendor is putting engineers on an airplane --- those things you learn by being in the operational/engineering role.To excel in the operational/engineering role, you need to dedicate yourself to the things that matter for that role, and not allow yourself to get distracted by shiny things. Developers and researchers: prone to distraction by shiny things!What I don't think is true is that strong tech people are predisposed to one of these roles or the other. Could I be a strong ops/engineering person again? I think so. But I know I can't do it while I'm doing this job. |
Is this true? | wanderr: Programming is about problem solving. A good portion of system administration is also problem solving. I know several programmers who are excellent system administrators, and a couple of sysadmins who are OK programmers (but they don't really enjoy it). Personally I'm more interested in programming but I've definitely jumped into the sysadmin role on occasion to help solve problems the regular sysadmins were struggling with. |
Is this true? | orev: True. While many programmers seem to think they can also do server stuff, as a 15 year veteran "server guy", I can say that I've rarely, if ever, seen a programmer who makes a good server guy. The things you need to focus on are just too different.Programmers tend to focus on the very small details and seem to only look at the short term question of "if something is possible to accomplish". A server guy needs to think about the big-picture, with a focus on not only if something is possible, but the impact of a particular approach on the rest of the infrastructure and the long-term maintenance cost of any given action. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | jdrock: We use Google Checkout. Fees are comparable to PayPal.. documentation is much better. There are plenty of other 3rd party solutions, but GC and PP are probably the best two. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | kapitti: CheddarGetter.com |
Is this true? | Hoff: While a good server admin or a good programmer with (relevant) generalist skills and people skills can succeed as a CTO, you need a CTO that knows your market and your goals and your organization and your customers, and that can quickly determine what works and what doesn't.While a CTO is solving today's problems with today's shiny and with shiny duct tape, you also need a CTO that can identify and can hold both your short term and your broader and longer-term organizational goals in sharp focus. You need a CTO that establishes clear goals and measurements and trends, and a CTO that can then push, pull, poke, suggest, prod, cattle-prod or ego-stroke toward those organizational goals. And you need a CTO that adapts.If a server admin or a programmer has the requisite adaptability and people skills and technology skills and presentation skills and has an indefatigable focus on making your market, hire him. Or her. But you're not selecting for and not hiring for server admin or programming skills here.You want somebody with the technological skills of and the focus of the Borg. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | petercooper: http://chargify.com/ - the front page does a good job of selling it. It has a good API and they take care of almost everything - you just need to list the stuff you want to offer and either point people at a special Chargify page or pass info through the API. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | rufo: I've had very good experiences with Spreedly... you'll need to get a payment gateway, but they handle all the work of renewals, expiration dates, plan upgrading/downgrading, etc. They have a RESTful API so you can check status at any time, and will also ping a URL you specify when somebody's status changes so you can clear any cached data. They also do a pretty great job of support via their Get Satisfaction site and via e-mail. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | dryicerx: Simplest is probably http://cheddarGetter.com or http://spreedly.com or http://chargify.com (they store and abstract the payment gateway apis for you, and do recurrence, along with managing and handling the user data, and exposing a super simple api to your end). But the catch is they also charge a fee...The cheapest is to use a service like Paypale/FirstData/etc which are a bit more tricky to setup that the cheddary/spreedly but also offer recurrance charging. The catch is you'd have to keep track of the user data and management, and slighly more tricker to change providers . |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | jot: http://recurly.com is another similar option. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | jpcx01: Anyone know if there's similar services for non-recurring payments?I'm currently planning on using e-junkie but its kind of a piece of crap. Looking for a slicker integration similar to spreedly or chargify. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | rubyrescue: We're planning on using Spreedly on http://seoaholic.com, however, unrelated to Spreedly, which is easy to configure, getting the merchant account is the hard part.'From scratch' it has taken close to 60 days - creating a company (LLC), securing a bank account, having the bank verify your physical location (even though you don't have one - don't ask) - total about 20 days.Next, FirstData for the merchant account - talk to an account manager, then fill out a paper application, which leads to an online application via a relatively inflexible javascript-heavy website, then faxing supporting documentation, then applying for a state DBA license because the company name and the physical name don't match. Then, faxing personal bills with addresses that must match the physical address of the business address, even though there isn't one. All-in, this phase took about 20 days.Next, website edits - They didn't like the word 'forever' on the pricing page, because it was too open ended. This phase has taken about 10 days.We think we'll get it all done this week, at this point we're just waiting for an answer, but we had no idea how long it could take. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | zackattack: I used Amazon Payments for CustomerFind.com. It's really easy to use, but the documentation is kind of outdated. If you want I could tutor you, send me an email. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | mootothemax: If you want quick, easy and cheap, go with PayPal. They have a button generator tool that takes the hassle out of submitting html forms to them. There are plenty of libraries out there that will listen for their IPNs (instant payment notifications) so that you can update the user's subscription record on your site. And there are no start up costs, win! ;)That said, personally I'd start with PayPal, see if anyone gives you any money, and the moment users start paying switch to a proper merchant account and CC processor ;) |
How should I prepare for an interview? | mbenjaminsmith: You will probably have to be more specific about the role to get better feedback, but my general suggestions are:1) Confirm the day before and get the names of everyone you're going to meet2) Make sure you have all materials you're expected to bring, including several copies of your cv3) Read the website or other materials to prepare specific questions about the business and prepare questions and ask those questions (they should mostly be related to your role, but a few general should be ok)4) Arrive exactly 5 minutes before the start time5) Look people directly in the eye at all times6) Be yourself7) Tell the truth, especially when you're tempted to bend it8) Use language as if you already have the position like, 'I will report to ...', 'I will support ...'9) Treat everyone like a VIP, even the FedEx guy10) Smile |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | webwright: Great article comparing the assorted vendors you can use (with pros and cons):
http://www.untitledstartup.com/2010/02/accepting-payments-on... |
Is this true? | jpcx01: I mostly agree with that. Probably because I consider myself a good programmer and am perfectly fine to delegate all sysadmin stuff.I think the point is they are distinctly different skillsets. Programming is very different from setting up and maintaining systems. There's a tiny bit of crossover, but not all that much.Sysadmins do need a basic sense for coding, however they tend use different technologies than the one people generally use to write web applications (though maybe they'll release Bash on Rails sometime soon) |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | DanBlake: www.amember.com - Its a script you install to your server and gives you the ability to accept over 50+ gateways. Very nice and only a one time fee. |
Legal advice for Web developer | pinksoda: Take him to court before he can take you. This will give you the better position and he will probably get scared and settle. |
Is this true? | ww520: BS |
How should I prepare for an interview? | hga: I recommend checking out the site of Ask the Headhunter: http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/Specifically, start with this page on the "New Interview": http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/basics5.htmThe philosophy is very straightforward: show them you can do the job by doing the job. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | fossguy: The best cheapest and easiest one is Paypal. |
would you give us feedback about our saas directory ? | thibaut_barrere: A few months back we were looking for a place that would keep track of saas building-blocks that we find useful to build applications (we = Sébastien Gruhier and me).So we finally decided to build this little directory and put it online.We're working on adding more content to it as we go.Please note I'm aware other HNers are working on similar stuff! We just happened to work on this during the last couple of months, it was time we release it :)Any feedback will be most welcome! |
How should I prepare for an interview? | zackattack: The best thing you can do is just relax and be yourself. Seriously. If you are a good fit for the job, you'll be fine in the interview if you just act natural. If you aren't a good fit for the job, then I could give you 50 tips on how to micromanage the process and manipulate your way into it, but every day on the job will be extremely stressful and unpleasant. Not a life worth living. |
would you give us feedback about our saas directory ? | _pius: I love the design; I'll be watching it as you add more services. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | notnoop: A bit unrelated, but I found http://pivotallabs.com/talks/88-demystifying-online-billing to offer a good explanation for managing recurring payments and what to watch out for. |
would you give us feedback about our saas directory ? | stse: Implement the standard "community" things like rating, tags and comments. Make it sortable by paid/freemium. Create a "suggest a service" form to replace the email adress, and put up some contact information. I like the overall design, but maybe the logo "style" seems a bit out of place. |
would you give us feedback about our saas directory ? | jmonegro: shorten the width a little, I have to side scroll on my netbook. Annoying. Also, I can't open a link by middle-clicking it with my mouse. Annoying as well.Otherwise, pretty nice idea. |
How much to charge? | JayNeely: Freelance Switch has a collection of good articles on this:http://freelanceswitch.com/blog/explore/#2 |
System administrator (to be or not to be) | nailer: Started as a sysadmin 12 years ago. Money is great, better than a corporate programming job, and if you look at the role as a automation programmer role for infrastructure software you'll have a better time of it. Don't just fix it, make sure it never happens preemptively/again then prove that to whoever's paying your bonus.The downside is working with other people's shitty software, particular in the enterprise space where ticking boxes is more important than security or other features. There are 'SOX compliant' banking environments where the unchanged root password is stored in plain text on a file accessable by any client as a Windows drive. But they have a security policy exemption so it's OK.Personally I can't stand the legacy stuff - working on something that's being retired gives me the shits and the ancient userspace of the proprietary Unix sucks when compared to the modern ones - but if you want to learn Solaris (especially Solaris 8, the most widely deployed release - yes, there are more people talking about ZFS and dtrace than using either), you can make some extra pain money for dealing with it till it's gone.Re: proving your worth, I started as a knowledgable nerd helping the senior sysadmins, at somewhere where there was good comraderie - some of the people I met there became friends for life and by helping others rise up later in my career I did the same.Major growth areas: virtualization (you can make great bank very quickly in vmware, then transfer that into cloud skills learning xen or kvm & cloud deploy concepts in your own time), storage (but it's boring). Anyone with web reporting skills will will points with management, as will anyone who can produce and consume microsoft file formats (eg, reporting, someone sends me a spreadsheet with 390 static routes, you turn that into a routes file). Your manager wants something they can show their manager to prove they (ie you) are doing a good job. |
any successful start-ups started by non-technical founders? | cperciva: It's a bit of a stretch, but you could put Jeff Bezos into this category. He's obviously a very smart and generally technically-inclined guy, but I don't think he was ever particularly involved in the technical side of Amazon.com. |
Is this true? | jimfl: Programmers should be required to have been "server guys" because they would have a better appreciation for building in logging, management, and other troubleshooting aids. The sysadmin doesn't have the benefit of the debugger when something goes wrong in production. The more information you make available (on demand or as a matter of course) the fast production issues will be resolved. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | jlesk: There were even fewer options when I wanted to go this route 2 years ago, so I just went with a standard payment processor (BMT Micro) and charge one-time payments for users to pre-pay for time. e.g. $19.99 for 3 months or $59.99 for a year.If you want to get from zero to charging ASAP, this might be worth considering. You could probably be integrated in a day or so. They are mainly geared toward downloadable software vendors, but I just use the "serial code" field as an Activation Code that the user enters into their profile page.BMT Micro's royalty rate is around 10%, have awesome customer service, and just added a recurring option. The main downside is limited control over the template. I would also look into FastSpring since they are newer and seem to have more flexibility with the store configuration. |
Review my cloud storage service MyNetworkFolders | mrphoebs: link http://www.mynetworkfolders.com |
would you give us feedback about our saas directory ? | qeorge: A couple of UI things:1) Can you make it so I can click anywhere on the box instead of just the company title?2) Putting the item I selected at the top of the list is OK, but unexpected. I would expect these links to go to a profile page or directly to the website.Example: http://www.kingapi.com/billing?selected=cheddargetter3) Make real links to the website, instead of doing the Javascript redirect. Otherwise I can't open the links in a new tab or see the target in the status bar.Otherwise, the site is nice. I like the presentation and the list of services is high quality. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | lwalley: Hey, thanks to all who have mentioned Chargify. We definitely appreciate it!The issue of long-term viability is a valid one... I would ask the same thing when evaluating vendors, and, in fact, I used the same logic in choosing to join Chargify last Fall.I really like my co-founders' 6-year history running Grasshopper.com, and they architected things right - based on roughly 10 million telephony transactions that their existing system rates each month.And, for what it's worth, my first company is still selling Basic Stamp computers 23 years after we founded it, and Engine Yard is growing every month.I can speak for all 3 founders of Chargify when I say that we enjoy building utilitarian businesses that deliver good value over a long time.Thanks!--- Lance |
How much to charge? | mogston: IMO, it's largely based around the following highly subjective calculation:((value you will add to client's bottom line) +
(your relevant experience & portfolio) +
(speed and accuracy of delivery) +
(kudos)) *
(budget & urgency of project delivery) *
(industry)
= rate per hourYou can't really get to a figure from what i've said above, but i just wanted to illustrate a number of factors that can go into a rate that's attractive and workable to both parties.Age doesn't matter, but (relevant) experience does. |
would you give us feedback about our saas directory ? | techarch: I like the idea to have a place to catalog API-based solutions. It would be interesting to have folks vote for popular APIs. |
Is this true? | xelfer: I'm a Linux Syadmin. I build large student computer laboratories, build, configure, and maintain servers, with bits of desktop support thrown in there. I'm not a strong programmer. Sure, I've made a few iPhone applications and do a little bit of bash scripting, but I don't have the time in my job to maintain the skills that an excellent programmer would have. When I've spent a few weeks programming I get better, but when we don't have time to maintain that skill, I can lose it pretty quickly.I've worked with some amazing python programmers and without using it day in and out there's no way I could have the in depth knowledge of all the python libraries like they do, so compared to them I'm pretty useless. |
What is a startup exactly? | shanked: My definition is merely a company that is 'starting up'. It doesn't matter if it has created its own market via innovation or entered a mature market, I consider all new companies startups.All companies exist in volatile markets regardless of whether its a mature (many competitors) or new market (must generate demand for product). They all need to differentiate themselves from their competitors in some way in order to be successful, so all companies will have to innovate some aspect of their business. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | mogston: Does anyone have any experience with Amazon Payments? I Was considering them as a viable alternative to our existing PayPal solution. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | lunaru: Most of the responses here have been in response to whether or not there are apps out there that do this for you.However, if you want to go down the road of building this yourself, it's not really that involved. Take a look at ActiveMerchant if you're doing Rails. It helps you integrate with a good list of payment gateways. Then, sign up for that gateway + get a merchant account. This is probably the best way to get the lowest fees.For example, I believe CDGCommerce offers merchant accounts at $10/month with a free payment gateway. The typical $0.30 + 2.9% (or whatever your rate is, depending on risk, etc.) applies.Another path for this is Website Payments Pro via Paypal. With IPN you can easily sync your user subscription status with the latest payment information.Doing recurring billing via subscription fees, like all programming is handling corner cases. For this domain, the corner case is a combination of invalid credit card numbers, expired numbers, perpetual zero-balance but valid numbers, overzealous anti-fraud filters, overdrawn accounts, or even temporary credit card numbers. Which ever service or integration path you choose, make sure you're covering the these corner cases.Based on all this, my advice is to build in-house so you have the flexibility of changing policies on-the-fly with regards to how you handle those above cases. YMMV. |
How should I prepare for an interview? | keefe: Make sure you sleep well and eat well beforehand. If you are an gym rat like me, a workout is a good way to get the endorphins flowing. I think it's about getting your mind and body into a state where they can offer peak performance the next day. |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | keefe: There's all sorts of levels of skill in the market. You need to demonstrate your skills first - either an open source project or host an SVN with some example code. There is no harm in writing a place looking for a senior dev, they often have other openings. I hope you're already checking dice.com .... |
any successful start-ups started by non-technical founders? | SingAlong: Hmm... yes Sridhar Vembu of Zoho. He wasn't a single founder though. He also acted as their offshore marketing guy in the beginning.Atleast thats what I know from the recent Mixergy podcast |
What is Not a startup? | alex1: I think a "startup" is an innovative company that has existed for a short period of time. If it's software, it's probably still in beta. A startup is probably in early research and development stages. A startup is probably looking for some outside funding and the founders have some exit strategy in mind (Acquisition or IPO).A pillow store is none of the above things so it's most probably not considered a startup. A game development shop can be a startup if it meets some or all of these things. Web development firms can be startups when they make web applications for the public or businesses to use (like 37signals).Just my 2 cents. |
What is a startup exactly? | alex1: It looks like you asked the same question twice... but here is what I said in your other posting:I think a "startup" is an innovative company that has existed for a short period of time. If it's software, it's probably still in beta. A startup is probably in early research and development stages. A startup is probably looking for some outside funding and the founders have some exit strategy in mind (Acquisition or IPO).A pillow store is none of the above things so it's most probably not considered a startup. A game development shop can be a startup if it meets some or all of these things. Web development firms can be startups when they make web applications for the public or businesses to use (like 37signals).Just my 2 cents. |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | zackattack: The answer is persistence. Check Craigslist/eng/ in all major metro areas - chicago, nyc, sfbay, austin, lax, wdc. Email promising job ads daily. Post your resume on craigslist, especially in SFbay, weekly, and alternate with other metro areas. I would be shocked if you did not get at least a few promising leads after a few weeks of hitting up the craigslist rotation.in the meantime, code up something cool, and post it on HN. Then in your signature or whatever, mention that you're looking for work. |
How should I prepare for an interview? | trevelyan: bring a copy of your resume and any supporting materials to the interview even if you know they've seen it. saves people from printing it out, and shows you're organized. |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | aaronbrethorst: Spend some of your time building something real. Nothing demonstrates that you can perform like envisioning, building, and launching a product that real people are willing to pay real money to acquire.It doesn't have to be particularly big or complicated, either. Just proving that you can accomplish the aforementioned tasks will go a long way to getting you through the door. |
Durable Earphones Wanted | rms: These are the best sounding cheap headphones, but they aren't earbuds... http://www.amazon.com/Koss-KSC75-Portable-Stereophone-Headph...You might want to consider separating your music listening and sound-blocking, earplugs work pretty well in dorms. |
How do you handle battle between self-doubt and hope/persistence? | kirse: I noticed you didn't get much response on here, but my best advice is to not root yourself in the outcome of the startup so much.It's tough to do (especially since we entrepreneurs are such dreamers and visionaries), but try to focus on enjoying the day-to-day journey of building, discovery, and learning more than the end goals and emotional dreams you have for the startup.If your primary source of motivation for doing a startup is this grand vision of "success" that is propped up in your head (multi-million-dollar exits, Lamborghinis, boats, houses, etc), your day-to-day perception of your startup's "success" will be like a small boat in a large storm... tossed around by every wave of good or bad news. For me, I simply enjoy the challenge of building something, working hard, and "seeing where it goes". So keep your expectations reasonable.I worked hard on a startup for ~2 years, starting in college and for about a year while I held down a 40hr/week job. It was pretty clear that after multiple iterations and a splintered team that it wasn't going to succeed. I know near the end I took a good week off to mentally disengage and try to look at it from an objective perspective as possible. I talked it over with my co-founders and we ultimately decided it was time to pull the plug.Oddly enough, my first real business venture was a success, and my second one was a failure. To me, giving up was much harder than succeeding, because I'm not one to give up easily. I learned a lot from that failure though and am proud to admit to the people who ask that it was a failure, because it's an excellent story. |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | bluesmoon: Work on an opensource project that fits into your area of interest. Build up your expertise in all areas of development, especially your ability to work with a distributed team of developers. Learn debugging skills (they don't teach this in school).Support people (users and other developers) on mailing lists and forums related to the project you're working on as well as the areas of technology that you have some experience with (note, you don't have to be an expert, just interested). Work on your page rank, so that when someone searches for you on the web, they see several pages worth of problems that you helped someone fix. For this same reason (among others), never be rude or overly sarcastic on a forum. Be helpful, and if you can't be helpful, be attentive.In the course of doing all this, you'll sometimes come across people who work at companies looking for young hotshots (hint, that's you) or reliable developers (hint, that's also you) or an experienced programmer with an eye on customer satisfaction (yep, you again). Don't ask them for a job, but hint to them that given the right conditions, you may be open to a more permanent technical exchange.Now if you're active enough, you can get this all done in a couple of months. When I graduated from college, my resume already had two pages of projects that I'd played a primary role in. This helped. |
What is Not a startup? | tyrelb: At startup has these characteristics (only):1. Is a business that makes money.
2. See point 1. aboveEverything else is considered either art (as in artist) or hobby.Examples of non-startups:1. A iPhone developer with 1 app, no revenue
2. A web development shop with no customers - or no significant growth potential (that's a hobby). Especially if you work for someone else.
3. You make no money - this is a "non-profit organization" or "charity" - or a "research institute". You often have to do other jobs on the side to eat, live.Example of a startup:37 signals build software for internal purposes (eg: Basecamp). This would initially lead you to believe this is a not a startup, but then the started charging for it on a mass level, providing good for other people, etc. This is a startup. Once you mature the revenue, you are no longer a startup. |
How do you debug your rails applications? | dan_manges: I use unit tests and puts statements to debug most of the time. It can be faster than stepping through an actual debugger. |
Serious 2010's Ruby on Rails vs Django opinions? | dan_manges: I would recommend going with whichever language you're more proficient with. That way when you run into something that the framework can't handle for you, you'll be able to work through the problem more efficiently. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | proee: Check out http://www.cariboucms.com - it's great for recurring billing and managing members. Supports multiple gateways as well. |
Online Video Speed Dating through Facebook | mailarchis: There is this website which does something similar http://www.woome.com but am not sure if they have a FB App |
Is this true? | rssreader: I didn't read your question. Just came here to say that if you want me to read your post, you need to write something a little more descriptive in your submission title than "is this true", or "look at this", or any other such non-content. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | paraschopra: If you are based outside of US or Europe, 2checkout.com may be the best bet. I have researched this question to th death and it seems 2checkout may be the best one. With others you will need a US bank account. |
How should I prepare for an interview? | mbrubeck: I find it really useful to re-read some reference documentation for any tools or languages I'll be expected to know, and to solve some simple practice problems (e.g. actually write some basic functions). The purpose isn't to memorize the documentation, but to refresh my memory so that I don't have to fish around for basic syntax or rules. |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | mbrubeck: The big companies like Google and Amazon are hire lots of entry-level people, since they have the time and resources to train them. It's a decent way to get experience if you can get it. (My first "real" software engineering job was at Amazon.) The interviews are tough and there's a strong chance of getting rejected even if you're good; follow the other advice on this page and also study up on both CS theory (algorithms, complexity, networking, OS/architecture) and programming practice. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | timvanloan: Thanks for the mentions of Recurly, we built our subscription billing engine from the ground up to make it as simple and easy to deploy subscription as possible. The untitled startup did a great unbiased review of the various subscription billing options out there (which you can find here: http://www.untitledstartup.com/2010/02/accepting-payments-on...). They ended up choosing Recurly for their subscription billing.There are several items to consider when choosing a subscription billing option. Many have already been mentioned (cost, implementation time, the country you're doing business in) but you should also consider the size of each transaction you're doing.Will you be doing lots of small transactions? Fewer large transactions? The answer to that question will have a big impact on the fees you'll pay for the off the shelf solutions (as well as your merchant account/payment gateway).In addition to transaction fees, there are a number of other hidden challenges and "gotchas" to be aware of when billing online. You can see some of our suggestions on our blog here: http://blog.recurly.com/2010/01/lessons-learned-in-online-su...Recurly also supports the largest amount of international payment gateway (you can find the full list here: http://support.recurly.com/faqs/payment-gateways/payment-gat...Let us know if you have any other questions we can assist with, we're happy to help.
Thanks!
Tim |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | anonjon: Honestly, it helps to know someone who is looking to hire.Persistence/experience/credentials are important, but without a personal connection the job market (in any profession) is a crap-shoot.My girlfriend had a similar situation (she's not an engineer), she finally managed to get a job by doing an internship, all the while applying to a ton of jobs. (Of course all of them were looking for 5+ years experience and a masters).She was rejected a lot and it was demoralizing for her.But what paid off were the personal connections that she made during the internship and interviews (she made a good name for herself), eventually one of her acquaintances gave a colleague her resume (who then offered a job).I'm not really a people person, so I know that this can be a difficult road for us introverted folk, but I think the best thing to think about is 'where can I meet people who would be looking to hire someone like me'.Then go to those places, meet those people, and get them on your 'team'. Eventually you are a proven commodity and are able to get something. |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | jballanc: The other advice about doing something open source or building something you can sell is great and all, but it's March and you're a senior which means that you're probably looking to land something in the next 3-6 months, which isn't a lot of time.In that case, your answer is: network!I've seen so many qualified candidates get passed over for someone equally or even marginally less qualified because they had an inside line on the position. It's probably too late to do much networking at school (i.e. joining clubs, etc.), but the thick part of conference season is just getting started. Get a student rate to something while you still can (JavaOne seems to have been free for students in the past...not sure what Oracle plans for this year, though). I'm guessing that your 2 years experience has come from internships, so that would be a good place to start too. They might not have been your ideal place to work, but they'll give you a paycheck while you plan your next move.If you are going to work on an open source project, pick one that's sponsored by a big name company (i.e. not an academic project or start-up). No matter what the project leader asks you to help with, do it! If he says they need work on documentation or fleshing-out the test suite, don't complain. I know it's not sexy work, but when the project leader gets a req. to hire someone, he'll know that you're someone that can be counted on to get the job done.Finally, learn something new. I recently saw a very qualified developer get passed over for a job not because he didn't have the skills listed in the job offer, but because he didn't show an ability to work outside of his set of core competencies. Since you're new, nobody is going to hire you based on expertise. Your secret weapon will be the fact that you can learn whatever new skill or technology it is that the hiring manager needs next. In other words, you probably want to branch out from Java (it's a skill area flush with "experts" and hiring managers who are only looking for people who can spit out code quickly). |
What is Not a startup? | pg: A startup is a business designed to scale dramatically. That excludes most individual retail stores and service businesses. |
How much to charge? | python123: Those are on-campus jobs, which are often part of federal work-study program. They are meant to pay less than regular jobs. |
any successful start-ups started by non-technical founders? | jgamman: Sam Morgan - NZer who created an EBay type site for himself back in the day by hiring a coder to build it. Sold it a couple years ago for $750M or so. |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | dschobel: Anecdotally, the company for which I work (big financial research company, fortune 500) really likes people with 2-4 years of professional experience and has been having a hard time finding them.Talking to our HR people, the majority of programming candidates they see are either fresh out of school with zero professional experience, or they're consulting refugees (Avanade, IBM, etc) with 10 years of experience who are just going to bolt as soon as the consulting industry recovers.Honestly, two years of real world experience and willingness to take a junior position makes you kind of a commodity.Are you not getting to the interview stage? If that's the case, I would echo what the others say, check craigslist in bigger metro areas.If you're getting to the interview but not getting offers, well, that's another Ask HN in and of itself. |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | jrockway: Learn on your own and hang out in the social circles of other programmers.Help answer people's questions on SO or irc. Learn the other JVM langauges. Learn about tools that J2EE people like, such as Maven and Hudson. Learn algorithms. Present at conferences.Do this, and people will find you. Last time we needed to hire someone, I visited my favorite IRC channel, said "anyone want a job?", got a privmsg, and had the person interviewed in person and given an offer in just a few days. (A few because the weekend was in the middle.)What you want is a friend who will talk you up to the people making the hiring decisions. What you don't want is to be another boring resume in a 50-resume-deep stack. |
What is Not a startup? | twidlit: My definition of a startup is a company that exist in a new and fairly volatile vertical. Startups are primarily defined by an innovative product, service or business model with an emphasis on scalability. |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | bmalicoat: I was just in a similar boat (got an offer not too long ago!) and I think there are 2 important components:1) Show that you are passionate and driven, which it seems you already have with your experience. Other ways could be get an iPhone or Android app out on their respective marketplaces so you can provide hard numbers (# of downloads, $ made, etc.). Contributing to OSS is always a good way to spend your time as well, but only if you really care about the project.2) Make connections. This can be rough but a few things I've found can make it a lot easier. I've gotten a few really good leads through Twitter actually. Follow enough people from a company you'd like to work for and eventually one of them will mention something about openings. Another good avenue is going to technical talks (most universities hold a few of these a month, maybe more frequently). Go up and talk intelligently to the speaker and if they are accepting resumes definitely provide your best. The main thing is have someone inside the company turn in your resume for you. This informal referral or recommendation is huge. I read a statistic that only 1 in 20 online applications result in a face to face interview, those aren't great odds and being denied a lot is sure to affect your morale. Getting someone to turn in your resume is a sure-fire way to hear something back from the company. |
any successful start-ups started by non-technical founders? | startupcomment: I think what you are seeking is technology start-ups founded by non-technical founders -- not just start-ups in general. |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | shadowz: Take a look over here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1182653I posted the same question 10 days ago :P |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | lief79: First two jobs were networking, remainder were through recruiters or online ads (note, this is quite unusual). For reference sake, my first job was at a company I had interned with, and my second job was due to me ending up at my soon to be bosses house for a swing dance lesson the week after my resume had crossed his desk. When you are just starting, it's all about catching the right peoples attention from the hundreds to thousands of resumes that they see.Suggestions:Figure out where you want to look, and what the hot technologies are. In the Philly area, if you can demonstrate knowledge of Spring and Hibernate, you'll get far more offers then not anyone not having it.Network:
Join the local JUG, IEEE, etc. The more people you know, the better.Volunteer:
Something to add to your resume, and you'll get to know more people.Read:
Grab "What color is your parachute?" out of your local library. It's a great starting point for any job hunt.Most importantly, keep at it. Actively job hunt and program. Sitting around playing games and randomly commenting on the internet are far less likely to connect you with the people you need. Do something that you can add to your resume. |
Review my cloud storage service MyNetworkFolders | mailarchis: Hi,had some suggestions.1. Would be great if people can simply signin using open id instead of going through a registration process2. Also post sign up I cam across a weird page as in something related activation false and all was displayed3. Might wanna think about how you can convey the message with fewer text. e.g The defult panel talks about REST API but do you really need to mention it there. Am just guessing your target segment will include 80% non tech folks4. The same goes for tour. People are lazy and impatient to go through all the text. Instead try how you can convey the same info via pictures onlyAll the bestCheers |
Is this true? | thwarted: As someone who self-identifies as both a systems guy and a programmer, I'm continuously surprised by how many sysadmins don't read any C code and by how many programmers can't effectively configure Apache, to give two examples. I really don't think I'd be as effective at my job as I am if I didn't have both backgrounds, didn't do both regularly, and haven't held positions where I'm expected to do both. Often times, it becomes institutionalized to have the developers "throw their finished products over the wall" to the systems team. I've found this doesn't result in a good environment, rarely do the programmers know about the deployment environment, and systems people don't get a chance to provide input on issues of scalability and maintenance.One guy who was an early mentor of mine in systems work actually hates doing it, and prefers to program exclusively. I didn't know this when I was under him, I credited him with helping me get to where I am today but he'll hear none of it.I do think it's true that is is rare to find people who do work effectively in both domains, or even like to. There is a sort of closed mindedness on each side toward the other -- come on guys, we're all engineers! I've had technical and non-technical people alike be surprised at where I can contribute (a memorable one is someone in the accounting department at an old job who was forced to admin a machine back in the day being surprised that I could code, and more recent one is someone being surprised that I was able to successfully contribute to dealing with IE layout issues -- in both cases it's been like "but you're a systems guy, you can't do X", because they've only ever known me to be in that role "officially"). |
any successful start-ups started by non-technical founders? | adora: Gilt Groupe |
What's the most simple way to accept monthly subscription fees? | malbiniak: There was a pretty good comparison between the main ones mentioned here some time back. Worth checking into.http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=975301 |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | cherring: Get involved in Open Source. Contribute, it is a fantastic way to show that you can read other people's code, and collaborate with them. |
I will work for free ... | maxklein: What about PHP? I have something you will like, but initially, the project is PHP based. |
I will work for free ... | swombat: I don't think this is a good approach.As an employer, I wouldn't want to invest the time in getting someone up to speed with my systems if they have no "lock-in" that means they'll stay with me until they've paid off for that initial ramp-up period (which would cost me time). I particularly wouldn't want to do so for someone who already has a job at a software company - I'd clearly be a distant second (if not third or fourth) priority in that person's life.Next, about the profile - I suggest you pick a narrow specialty that you really want to work on (e.g. Ruby on Rails), and focus on that. I don't think many people, particularly start-ups, are interested in hiring a "C#, Java, RoR, Silverlight, Ajax" guy. That long list makes you look unfocused and implies that you probably suck at a lot of technologies rather than being very good at a few.My suggestion to you would be: pick one technology with a thriving OS community (e.g. RoR), and contribute open-source software. That's one way to work for free that will greatly enhance your value to potential employers. Start a blog, talk about your experiences with Rails, promote your open-source projects, etc. You'll soon find paid work coming your way. |
I will work for free ... | x10nd: Your 10 years is a waste of career, if you agree to work free of time, also its a waste, if you offering for the price of a soda |
I will work for free ... | shabda: [Hope this doesn't sound too harsh.]I few months back, we were hiring and Put up an ad on Monster. One of my reject criteria was "having more than 3 unconnected technologies". Even with >10 yrs exp, listing all the technologies you might be connected with doesnt look nice at all.Also no matter how desparate I am I would never,"I am willing to work for free on interesting projects", as that just leads to wrong people and wrong expectations, who dont value your work or time.Also if you want this ad to be effective, a newly created account with no credentials like a Github account, a blog or your site doesnt help. |
would you give us feedback about our saas directory ? | arethuza: Looks pretty good. However, I suspect your real challenge will be keeping the signal to noise ratio high. |
I will work for free ... | vaidhy: I do not see a way to contact you.. My email id is in my profile. Ping me and we can check it out. |
I will work for free ... | HaltingState: Send an email to HaltingState@gmail.comI have a friend who is working on some awesome iphone games and could use someone with experience with OOP design patterns. He would be willing to split revenue generated by the applications. Right now he is doing Objective-C development for the iphone (easy to pick up).The android platform is going to be a huge opportunity in a few years, but the iphone is still the largest app store market, so that is what he has been concentrating on. Mobile development is an awesome opportunity and a very good area to develop experience in. |
I will work for free ... | charliesome: LOL no thanks |
any successful start-ups started by non-technical founders? | pascalchristian: digg, Myspace |
I will work for free ... | erlanger: Why not just throw yourself into an open source project? Many pay down the road if you're successful enough, and you get to keep your dignity. More importantly, you'll know you aren't being exploited. |
What is Not a startup? | dnsworks: A start-up is any business that some douche-bag VC doesn't call a "lifestyle business". |
Is this true? | malbiniak: In general? No. No to tue, no to mostly true, no to BS. Programmers are not necessarily good coders, and sysadmins aren't necessarily good administrators. Instead of worry about that validity of the generalization, what do you want out of your CTO? What unfilled role in the team are you trying to fill? |
I will work for free ... | braindead_in: I am looking for someone to port our Skype recording plugin to MAC. Can definitely pay later on. |
would you give us feedback about our saas directory ? | Sujan: Get rid of the shadows on the screenshots, ahte it when sites aren't represented the way the really look.Add language or markets and filters for them. |
I will work for free ... | adrianscott: I don't think you should knock the guy for having experience with a lot of technologies and mentioning them. Like he mentions 3 languages, c#, Java, Ruby. (My resume has a lot more and I'm hiring, not job seeking.)What might help you a bit more in marketing yourself, swdev, is to mention a bit about some projects and/or accomplishments. hope this helps. |
How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? | ig1: Be willing to relocate. This is the single biggest factor. If you're not in a tech-hub you'll find it a lot harder to find employment as a developer at any level.Where abouts are you based at the moment ? |
would you give us feedback about our saas directory ? | adamzochowski: middle click / control click does not work.I do not know how others browse, but among my friends it is common to middle click when having a list of things to checkout. |
Are you trying to steal my contacts? | petenixey: Hi guys. The answer is no, definitely not. When we first built Clickpass there was no google authentication Ali, you could only authenticate as part of getting authorisation for a particular google service. Contacts seemed the most relevant so that's what we went with. Code dev has been frozen on the system since the acquisition so we've just left it te same way. We don't store or even access the contact data though. |
Domain Name Dilemma | russell: Easy. Do both. Domain names are cheap and you can have multiple pointing to the same site. Definitely you want your ccTLD because it fits your market, but if you can also find a good .com, take that too, particularly if you are doing international sales. |
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