Joe8Bit

I knew that the only way I'd learn is by doing it a lot in different contexts. Which led me to strategy consulting. Which led me to McKinsey, due to it being the preeminent player in that space.

I applied to a then nascent part of McKinsey (that is now very mature) called Digital McKinsey, as someone who could help clients build and transform engineering and product organisations. To be a CTO/VP Eng for hire, almost. Then I slowly moved more and more into the non-tech topics.

I was there for almost exactly four years. Learned all kinds of things, but most importantly how to communicate and structure my thinking in a way that works with people senior people from non-tech backgrounds.

Exited with two co-founders when our runway ran out. Sold our IP and assets for a modest amount to our main competitor.

I realised that (as CTO) the main area I couldn't contribute to was 'the business' of running a successful company. So I decided to remedy that, I joined McKinsey and left last year as an Associate Partner. I'm now the VP Engineering at a fast growing tech company (250+ people) and the impact I can have with technology is an order of magnitude greater than before because of the intervening experience

Interestingly, in the UK utilities are using GSM SIM cards in Smart Meters, and a mixture of SMS and data to monitor/send electricity usage.

Very valid point, but I'm wondering if 'assembly' does more to the US to avoid the tariffs on the C-series; does that mean there will be less economic benefit for Quebec? For example, by assembly jobs moving to the US.

They may gain in value of their acquired shares but they may also lose in terms of wider economic output for their province.

Of course you're right, and maybe I phrased it poorly, my intention was to highlight the jQuery eco-system as the main puller of folks from ExtJ e.g. jQueryUI and the 10,000's of jQuery plugins that replicated ExtJS/Sencha functionality several dozen times over (with various levels of quality).

It's interesting that in such an otherwise complete account of ExtJS that so little is made of the rise (and subsequent fall) of jQuery.

The author rightfully talks about some of the (terrible) decisions made by the frameworks owners, that pushed folks from the community; but (imo) the greater effect was the rise of jQuery, which embraced an open source model ExtJS scorned and built a staggeringly large community which pulled many folks from ExtJS.

It's a rather naive view, but Google Trends data from 2004 to now[0] tells a VERY good version of this story

[0]: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=jquery,E...

A pedantic correction: web extension and add-on authors mostly can in browsers that auto-update.

Chrome uses Blink (not WebKit), I beleive the parent was referring to Safari only.

Also the UK, the only place where it's common is in corporate cards. The classic green corporate Amex uses this model, for instance.

Yes. Not that I disagree with the other way of paying, but it needs to be handled differently:

* The 'pay someone to do X, which has Y value for us in return' is a very simple value proposition for even the most luddite of finance/legal folks to grok. The details are different, but you're essentially hiring a contractor.

* On the other hand, it's much less clear to those people what the value proposition is for paying for 'past work' or some amphorphus future work that it's difficult to quantify will have any value to the organization.

* That's why the above is much better framed as 'sponsorship' and put under PR/dev relations/talent/HR. They're the ones who can best track value from concepts like community engagement and enhancement, improved standing of the company etc

I really think there's an opportunity to make it easier for companies (large and small) to pay for work on open source projects. The complexities I see (as someone who has done it often):

* Knowing who (as an individual or an organization) you can give money to to reliably perform the work. So working out a way of managing this would be huge e.g. I want a feature added to Postgres, who the hell do I speak to? Are they reliable? Is their contribution likely to be accepted upstream?

* The tax/employment logistics can be painful, an intermediary could make that simpler. For large contributions you often have to support multiple people, and this becomes logistical complex VERY easily

* A lot of folks who make their living being supported to work on open source are scornful or outright malevolent towards the things that corps need (e.g. invoicing, statement of work, liability protection)

I don't recognise the 'different world' you describe. Practiced disciplined DR is a key part of modern software engineering at large and small companies across the startup/enterprise spectrum (in my experience). The popularity of tools like Netflix's Chaos Monkey/Gorilla/Kong server as testament to that.

That's not to say all companies do it (it seems GitLab didn't) but the tone of your comment doesn't reflect a lot of people's experiences.

My intuition tells me it's a combination of:

* They eventually will build one, but Indian consumers are (as of right now) less valuable to them (from an ad targeting perspective) than other geographies e.g. the economic/time/effort investment ROI is better elsewhere in the short term

* SE Asia (and their POPs there) have reasonable connectivity to India, so it might good enough for the time being

James Kyle (who created Babel) wrote a 'Super Tiny Compiler' that's a really great (low barrier to entry) place to start.

The inline docs are super well written, clear and extensive. It's also implemented in JabaScript.

It's an amazing learning tool and I really loved reading it!

https://github.com/thejameskyle/the-super-tiny-compiler

Easier in the sense they have less scale/capacity/capability to mitigate the attacks?

From the website of the company the article is about (http://what3words.com/) it seems they're targeting the use case of those without "adequate existing addressing".

So an as MVP accurately/deterministically identifying the location you live could be super valuable, going beyond that in the ways you described would be SUPER useful but maybe even this would be enough to add value!

Whether this is the right method of doing it is another question.

Be sure to be aware of country support.

HN is very US centric, but if you have plans for wide EU coverage for instance they can both pose challenges. When I looked recently Stripe was moving at a far more aggressive pace to comprehensive coverage in the region.

Neither have very good Asian/South American coverage.

However, with Braintree's Paypal integration it makes the above point moot (to a certain extent anyway).

Fantastic point, I'd never thought to put this into the context of NI before.

To emphasise what you've said, the root and brach reform that has happened in the RUC/policing in NI over the last decade (or more) can't be underestimated. Among the biggest factors, as I perceive them are both top down and bottom up:

* Engaging the civilian leadership of the effected Catholic/Republican communities in leadership and accountability positions (e.g. Sin Fein/Stormont)

* Making on the ground community relationships with the effected communities a huge priority, through: targeted engagement; community relations and frankly, demonstrating the RUC's value through active/effective community policing and crime reduction.

* The confrontation and acknowledgement of the previous injustices. Truth and reconciliation is key.

It's been a LONG and painful journey interlinked that isn't finished, but it really could serve as a great lesson to improving minority/police relationships in the US.

Some feedback:

* Make the price more readily apparent on the landing page

* Tracking the '6,400 sites, apps and games' is great, but it would be good if I could find out if the ones I care about in that list!

* Make the above the fold screenshot bigger, I tried squinting/zooming before I realised I could scroll down

* Can I determine which things are productive/neutral/distractive? As I wouldn't want to buy it if that was static

Looks good though!

Completely agree. London really needs to embrace 'up' as a viable building solution. Apparently, a lot of it has to do with some archaic laws surrounding building in London, the 'Protected Views' one is of particular note:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_view

Broadly speaking you're right, but in London in particular housing stock growth has been significant in the last 10 years but it has had consequently little effect on housing price deflation[0].

There are many theories as to why that is, but a personal pet one is that London is lacking in housing stock across the market and as such it is economically more viable to build at the middle and top end of the market where profits are higher than at the low end. When this is combined with a record low investment in local government social housing in London you get London's extreme housing market e.g. demand is high, but supply has all gravitated to the place where returns are highest

[0]: http://data.london.gov.uk/housingmarket/

In a theoretically perfect economic market you're right, but there is little if any evidence to suggest there is a causal link between economic displacement and wage growth. In fact wage growth at the low end has stagnated in London[0] despite the advancing economic displacement of it's low paid workers[1].

[0]: https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Economy%20Comm... [1]: http://www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/indicators/topics/lo...

I don't think many people would argue with the evolutionary nature of cities. I think what people would say, however, is that when cities change those with the least economic muscle tend to be the most adversely effected (e.g they lose their homes/tenancies when they can't afford to pay inflated rents).

Again, that in itself might not be a problem if there were other places to move that poor communities could afford and wouldn't detrimentally affect their lives.

I can speak from experience in London, poor communities have NO WHERE to move if an area is gentrified and they are forced out. Prices are city wide too high, gentrification has left no where 'cheap'. What that means is moving further from central London, which means moving further away from the main source of work and increasing expense of travel. Which all in turn means an even greater slip into poverty.

It goes hand in hand with an increased cost of living (e.g. the nicer things get the more expensive it is to live there) which in turn causes a displacement of people and communities who lived there before the gentrification happened. In many western countries there is also a strong correlation between the above displacement and it overly effecting minorities, who due to economic/political/social disenfranchisement have congregated communities in low cost areas.

If you are a member of the more affluent population who moves into a gentrified area, it's great, but if you're a part of the community who has lived there for a long time and you suddenly can't afford to any more, it's really not great at all (to it mildly).

So in a narrow sense 'gentrification' isn't a bad thing, however put in the wider context it can have very significant negative effects on poorer communities. Especially when combined with a lack of social/affordable housing.

Up front: I'm one of the people that leads engineering in EMEA at McKinsey Digital Labs (MDL). So please recognise my biases here! I also hope this isn't creepy, but was browsing HN and saw your post! :D

A couple of thoughts on your points, and I 100% think reaching out to the community here is the right thing to do and hopefully I can give you a (biased!) insider's perspective!

* You're absolutely right on the smart people. I've worked at big household name tech companies in the Bay, done startups and worked at VC's: I've never worked with a group of smarter or more capable people. If you're like me and enjoy being challenged, then MDL is a fantastic place for it.

* The crazy hours. That's a bit of a trope about McKinsey outside the Firm, people telling war stories that are often exaggerated. Do we work hard? Sure, is it any harder than I worked when working at BigTech™ in the valley? No. I am also in my 30's and it doesn't detrimentally impact my life.

To you questions:

* Learning - a big plus for me and the reason I joined. Have worked on more interesting tech problems and non-tech problems in my three years here than in my previous 10 elsewhere.

* Personal growth - obviously depends on what your goals are, but I would say it's a good fit. You can become a partner at the Firm as engineer, if that's your thing!

* Earning potential - very good.

I would say however, there is some travel. So bear that in mind.

If you want, reach out to me and I'd be happy to connect you with a couple of people in similar situations who can give you first hand experiences.

PS the 'up or out' thing is not in any way related to MDL. PPS edited for formatting

AFAIK 'points, stories, epics, workflow' are generic 'agile' terms rather than specific to one particular tool.

As a note: the above comments advice is probably specific to the US.

In the UK, for instance, terminating someone for reporting sexual harassment is a very good way of losing a lot of money at a subsequent Employee Tribunal and getting your company fined. There's a lot of great precedent for siding with the reporter, even if other flimsy reasons are given for their termination.

However, the point made is a correct one. An HR person has a duty not to you but to the company, so never assume they have your best interests at heart.

I somewhat agree. But more than that I don't this service is really comparable to a single dedicated EA. It feels more like TaskRabbit++.

The most valuable thing about having good EA is the relationship e.g. you often don't need to ask them to do things as they know you well enough to preempt the requests, they take initiative, which is always going to be lacking in a service like Magic+.

From the blog post the developer's to be based in the UK.

I can't speak for the author, but it may be for simplicity's sake.

Personally I would have still have gone Babel+* but a Babel transpilation pipeline adds a non-negligible level of complexity to a project, especially when it comes to debugging/performance optimisation.