martinraag

I've been working on an iOS app that aggregates cinema showtimes across chains and independent theaters in the UK.

I moved to London some years back, and was pleasantly surprised by the vibrant cinema scene, that seems to be in a steep decline in so many places. On any day of the week, one can find independent films, old and new classics, Q&A's with filmmakers etc. playing in one of the many theaters across the city. Staying on top of it all is a chore though, and I found myself missing out on screenings regularly, because I didn't check that one cinema's website on time.

This is also my first time building and releasing an independent app. The journey from research, backend development and learning SwiftUI has been a trip. Released on TestFlight a couple of weeks ago.

https://qino.app

  Location: London, UK
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No (possibly at a later date)
  Technologies: Python, JavaScript, Node.js, Swift, C#, Linux, Docker, Git, AWS, Google Cloud, PostgreSQL, React
  Resume: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-raag-391a2430/
  Email: martin.raag[at]gmail.com

I’m a software engineer with over 10 years of experience. I’m mostly focused on backend development, but have been involved in a variety of projects during my career, including distributed systems, test automation, web apps and data processing pipelines. I have 2 years management experience as the Head of Engineering at a post series-A startup.

Ideally, I’m looking to join a committed team working on interesting challenges full time, but am also open to consulting opportunities.

I use those GDRP screens for a little moment of mindfulness now to consider, whether I really want to read the article behind it. The answer has turned out to be almost always no and I don’t think I’ve missed much.

Streisand [https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand] automates the setup of several different VPN services on cloud providers.

I'm incredulous about the average person having enough knowledge about the possible pros and cons of these choices. Nor should they - that's what representative democracy is for. A popular referendum for a complex issue like this, is in my opinion, a very bad idea.

Free Will by Sam Harris had a great affect on how I view the people and by proxy the world around me.

He argues that anyones decisions are a direct result of the physical structure of their respective brain, which in turn is moulded by their genes and experience so far, rather than a by an unexplainable free will.

The book made me reconsider how people treat each other because of their beliefs and actions - from harbouring negative feelings towards somebody due to their opinions to locking up people for committing crimes.

At the very least it has helped me in personal relationships and encouraged me to try to understand where another persons opposing viewpoint is coming from rather than feel negativity or superiority towards them because I feel they are wrong.

True for audio, not video.

Whataboutism [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism] is not really a good defence of Facebook I think.

I've seen a similar situation play out at a startup and I can see your point. However, I think there's a difference between talking to potential customers about requirements they have vs. promising to deliver a solution for them on the spot.

IMO you don't have to, or rather shouldn't, close the sale when first reaching out to potential customers like this. The goal should be to simply validate the problem statement - if that's done with enough potential customers you should move on to the next part of planning and building the initial implementation.

To your point, new information might still surface at this point, which could lead to the project being dropped. Having not sold (promised a solution) to anyone at this point, the likelihood of unhappy clients is rather low.

All that said, I think calling this initial work "sales" might give the wrong impression here, as I would categorise it more as market research. Whoever is carrying this work out should be very aware of this and not actually close the sale on something they are uncertain can be delivered in a profitable manner.

Inspired by a blog post, which I think made rounds on HN as well, I customised my Touch Bar using a Mac app called BetterTouchTool.

Now I have shortcuts to my most used apps on the left, a Now Playing display connected to Spotify in the middle and audio controls (including a volume slider that you don't have to expand first to use) on the right.

This setup is always displayed, regardless of the app currently on the foreground. This means the controls are once again in a predictable place for my fingers and has made using the touch bar a much more pleasant experience.

That sounds very interesting. Would you happen to have any pointers (i.e. books, links etc.) for anyone interested in learning more?

I’m genuinely stumped that anyone would even think of doing that. It would cause a lot of headache for the end users, while I doubt it would even put a dent in Apples Support.

I can see that now and completely agree, but back then - much like the author of the original post, I was eating up the whole idea of being more than just an employee, of all of us being in it for a larger goal.

In fact, it took me another couple of years, and witnessing that the grass is no greener in the startup world, to finally come to this conclusion.

Even though I have come to terms with this, I have not really been able to completely adapt yet. Which is why, again much like the author, I have currently landed on working for myself. I do miss working on more ambitious projects with bigger teams, that a job like that enables, but for now, I have no interest in playing the game to achieve my career goals.

I know of someone (not in the same company) who was offered a one time large cash bonus to stay for at least 12 more months. He took the offer. Unfortunately I don't know where that has lead to in his relationship with the employer.

I too would be interested in knowing if that has actually worked out for anyone long term.

The article really resonated with me, as it's eerily similar to my own experience at Microsoft a couple of years back. Constant reorgs, resulting in projects being cancelled, resulting in lack of motivation, as months of your hard work are thrown out due to unclear decisions by the management.

I too was hoping for a senior level promotion. The last project I worked on, I was the only non-senior level developer in a team of 5. I went out of my way to ensure we released a well designed, built and tested system on time. At times I felt like I was committing more to the project than any of my more senior comrades. Come release time, I even saw one of the design decisions I had insisted on save us from down-time. All of this I was sure would lead me to the desired promotion.

Come performance review time, I was rated at the top performance tier, as I had the past couple of years. Unfortunately however, I was informed not enough time had passed since my last level increase, but I was sure to get it if I kept it up for another 1-2 years.

It's hard to describe the feeling of defeat I felt at that point. I resigned and left within the next few months. What I found most off putting, was when meeting my skip-manager (your managers manager) for the first time during my exit interview, all doors for a senior level promotion were suddenly open, to incentivise me to stay. Doesn't feel great when negotiations with your employer are comparable to those had with your cable provider.

More like 3 baskets. Estonians can also use a Mobile ID, where private keys, authentication and signature functions are stored on a special SIM card. More recently, an app based Smart ID was also introduced. If you're on one of those services, the certificate revocation doesn't really affect you.

Testlio [https://testlio.com/jobs/] | ONSITE - Tallinn, Estonia

Testlio is replacing the necessity for in-house QA engineers. We have a large community of expert testers which work together with your team on our QA platform. We will completely manage your QA. You give us your build, we get a team of testers, you receive a report showing all of your critical bugs.

We are looking for strong web (frontend, backend, full stack) and mobile (iOS, Android) software developers. Be part of a small engineering team where you can have real impact on the course of the product development.

Our current web stack is mostly PHP and Node. We're moving more towards a Node based backend, but believe in choosing the right tool for the job and are not religious about any one technology. All our new frontend code is being built with React.

On mobile we want to build apps to help our testers receive apps and instructions for testing, as well as reporting results without ever having to leave the device. This will include an SDK for our clients to integrate into their app to enable better reporting.

WhatsApp is over 4 years old with over 300 million (claimed) active users. I would expect them to have addressed security by this point. Especially after their previous blunders, I'd imagine hiring a security expert or having a third party audit their code being on the top of their list. Apparently not.

I think these news and concerns often don't make their way to a bulk of their users, who probably aren't very tech savvy. If they don't see any user defection as a result of these issues being uncovered, then I'm not surprised about their lax stance on security.