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snickyon This map is not upside down

Funny. I come from Poland and for us the East/West dichotomy always made sense: the West = Western Europe and US (think richer, more organized, pleasant to visit) vs the East = remains of USSR (poorer, corrupted, wild), the "proper Asian East" behind it and the most exotic "Far East" at the very end. Not very politically correct, but this was a cognitive construct most of us here had in their minds, at least until this decade.

snickyon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (September 2025)

    Senior Backend/Full Stack Engineer | Team Lead

    Location: Poland, Europe

    Remote: Yes (10 YoE working remotely, EST/PST timezones OK too)

    Willing to relocate: For the right opportunity

    Technologies:
    * Backend - Ruby on Rails (14 YoE), SQL, Redis, Sidekiq, Elasticsearch, Memcached, Heroku, AWS, K8s, Datadog
    * Frontend - Javascript (14 YoE), Typescript, React, Vue

    Skills:
    * designing and implementing web apps across the entire stack
    * high-traffic optimizations
    * security
    * payment processing architecture and financial integrations
    * leading remote teams
    * hiring

    Résumé/CV: https://cutt.ly/RrnaORcb

    Email: in the resume

Hi, I'm Mariusz. I have 14 years of experience building scalable apps using Ruby on Rails with startups from US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Taiwan. Most recently, I've been a part of a hybrid team working on a content creators platform at Playboy. I'm interested in both tech lead and senior/staff level individual contributor roles alike and I'm open to work with other tech stacks too, e.g. Elixir, Golang, Node.js or help out with ML integrations.

snickyon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (August 2025)

    Senior Backend/Full Stack Engineer | Team Lead

    Location: Poland, Europe

    Remote: Yes (10 YoE working remotely, EST/PST timezones OK too)

    Willing to relocate: For the right opportunity

    Technologies:
    * Backend - Ruby on Rails (14 YoE), SQL, Redis, Sidekiq, Elasticsearch, Memcached, Heroku, AWS, K8s, Datadog
    * Frontend - Javascript (14 YoE), Typescript, React, Vue

    Skills:
    * designing and implementing web apps across the entire stack
    * high-traffic optimizations
    * security
    * payment processing architecture and financial integrations
    * leading remote teams
    * hiring

    Résumé/CV: https://cutt.ly/RrnaORcb

    Email: in the resume

Hi, I'm Mariusz. I have 14 years of experience building scalable apps using Ruby on Rails with startups from US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Taiwan. Most recently, I've been a part of a hybrid team working on a content creators platform at Playboy. I'm interested in both tech lead and senior/staff level individual contributor roles alike and I'm open to work with other tech stacks too, e.g. Elixir, Golang, Node.js or help out with ML integrations.

snickyon Google Maps Reviews in Germany Are Basically Dead

This year I tend to ignore restaurants with rates lower than 4.7 as this usually means they are not really worth the money. I do the same evaluating places to stay on booking.com. If it's an apartment it has to be at least 9.5 and have more than 50 reviews. Otherwise the reviews could be just all fake. Good hotels usually start around 9.0 (I think people have higher expectations against hotels in general thus lower ratings).

I have to say re-building those internal scales takes a couple of brain cycles in my head every now and then, but I'm already used to those skewed ratings after checking IMDb reviews for years and learning that anything below 7.2 is a total crap and the rating above 8.0 usually marks a masterpiece.

snickyon iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras

This applies only if you assume that you are not willing to spend more on a phone with a better camera and a lot of people do. I have friends who decided to buy an iPhone over way cheaper Android phones in the past, because "the iPhone camera was so much better". Funny enough, the differences were obviously negligible when compared with any actual camera.

snickyon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (July 2025)

Senior Backend/Full Stack Engineer | Team Lead

Location: Poland, Europe

Remote: Yes (10 YoE working remotely, EST/PST timezones OK too)

Willing to relocate: For the right opportunity

Technologies:

* Backend - Ruby on Rails (14 YoE), SQL, Redis, Sidekiq, Elasticsearch, Memcached, Heroku, AWS, K8s, Datadog

* Frontend - Javascript (14 YoE), Typescript, React, Vue

Skills:

* designing and implementing web apps across the entire stack

* high-traffic optimizations

* security

* payment processing architecture and financial integrations

* leading remote teams

* hiring

Résumé/CV: https://cutt.ly/RrnaORcb

Email: in the resume

Hi, I'm Mariusz. I have 14 years of experience building scalable apps using Ruby on Rails with startups from US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Taiwan. Most recently, I've been a part of a hybrid team working on a content creators platform at Playboy. I'm interested in both tech lead and senior/staff level individual contributor roles alike and I'm open to work with other tech stacks too, e.g. Elixir, Golang, Node.js or help out with ML integrations.

snickyon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2025)

Senior Backend/Full Stack Engineer | Team Lead

Location: Poland, Europe

Remote: Yes (10 YoE working remotely, EST/PST timezones OK too)

Willing to relocate: For the right opportunity

Technologies:

* Backend - Ruby on Rails (14 YoE), SQL, Redis, Sidekiq, Elasticsearch, Memcached, Heroku, AWS, K8s, Datadog

* Frontend - Javascript (14 YoE), Typescript, React, Vue

Skills:

* designing and implementing web apps across the entire stack

* high-traffic optimizations

* security

* payment processing architecture and financial integrations

* leading remote teams

* hiring

Résumé/CV: https://cutt.ly/RrnaORcb

Email: in the resume

Hi, I'm Mariusz. I have 14 years of experience building scalable apps using Ruby on Rails with startups from US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Taiwan. Most recently, I've been a part of a hybrid team working on a content creators platform at Playboy. I'm interested in both tech lead and senior/staff level individual contributor roles alike and I'm open to work with other tech stacks too, e.g. Elixir, Golang, Node.js or help out with ML integrations.

snickyon Ask HN: Have you ever taken a career break or gap year to hack?

I've done it 7 years ago and don't regret it all. I was in my early 30s, had my own place to stay and no family, so it was easy, but you can do it no matter what as long as you have savings.

I spent that time working on a "startup" with friends, but we have quickly realized that we had no sale skills whatsoever and were just building an app for fun. It helped me to learn frontend programming, so it wasn't a wasted time. After that, when I finally decided to look for a job, I found one with a much better compensation than before, but that was a given considering I moved back from Asia to Europe.

Now with our project at work coming to an end, I'm thinking it's a great time to do it again. Everyone complains about the job market not being as hot as it was before, so it make sense to take some time off to stay with family, do some sports, gather thoughts and later prepare for interviews, learn new skills and maybe jump onto the AI train. The SE work may change a lot in the following years and it is a good idea to prepare for it well. I have a feeling I will need to learn more about math, ML, systems design and devops to stay in the game.

snickyon Did my coding lead to colleague's death?

If they are a troll or a scammer, how would they know about those code reviews? No way they could randomly come up with something so specific.

snickyon I quit Google to work for myself (2018)

Interesting, but I don't get it. Are you saying people aren't scared of having babies even though they can randomly give birth to an ant or an elephant?

snickyon Meta cancels high-end mixed reality headset after Apple Vision Pro struggles

The second part of your comment reminded me about that South Park episode where Cartman was "reviewing" restaurants on Yelp ...

snickyon Ask HN: What's a lucrative niche technical skill you can learn on your own?

What do your extensions do?

snickyon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (August 2024)

I'd be interested in reading what you can share on this topic too. What was the most enlighting / interesting read for you so far? Can you point to a single book or two?

snickyon Where is the most densely populated square kilometre in the UK? (2023)

Once I've heard that Mong Kok area was the most densely populated neighbourhood in the world.

snickyon Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

After the famine in 90s both the party and the people realized that the state can't really guarantee any food security so it's mostly taken care of by free market as anywhere else in the world now. Trading goods may not be entirely legal, but is widely accepted.

Check "North Korea Confidential" by Daniel Tudor and James Pearson from 2015.

snickyon Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2024)

Maybe the issue is that you are too talented / experienced / demanding to look for a job in this thread? Most offers here come from small startups or teams that are unable to pay $500/h or 1M in TC.

FWIW I've been hired three times by companies I found in these threads and spent more than seven years with them. Though I'm not a 10x developer by any means and keep my expectations at an average level too.

snickyon Ask HN: What was your best interview experience?

An interview for a backend dev position with a CTO where the only technical question I had to answer was "how would you design a messaging service?". Looking back I find those open-ended system design questions best. They allow you to show your expertise and understanding in various topics and the dynamics of a meeting where you discuss some architectural challenges makes you feel like a partner in the discussion rather than a student during an exam. It resembles real life work environment situations much better than solving riddles or answering some framework-specific questions. It's also two-sided - you may learn as much about the interviewer as they learn about you. Another thing is that it just takes 20-30 minutes and you're done.

snickyon Spain's plan to ban domestic flights where you can take a train in under 2.5 hrs

> It feels very, very hard to be faster than 2.5 hours with a plane to go pretty much anywhere

Unless you are already at the airport, transferring.

snickyon How to easily pay a single employee in another country

FWIW, as a EU-based contractor for an American company I can tell you that from my perspective the form of payment legally doesn't matter at all. I receive transfers from a European bank account registered with their EU subsidiary, but it's only because they happened to have one already. We could just use something simple like wise.com instead and I have already done it before.

snickyon Any Suggestions for a Password Manager?

https://bitwarden.com/

Free and open source

snickyon Show HN: Filmbox, physically accurate film emulation, now on Linux and Windows

Are you saying loading spinners will be the signature of our time?

snickyon Less gym time, same results: Why ‘lowering’ weights is all you need to do

Isn't the burden on that working body half 2x then?

snickyon Ask HN: Best board games of 2022?

Secret Hitler and Avalon are so intense they can literally break relationships or cause months-long disputes between friends. I love it :)

snickyon ChatGPT produces made-up nonexistent references

I'd argue this is proving we are getting closer to a human-like GAI. Try to imagine you force a student to answer questions on topics he doesn't know much about...

snickyon Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (December 2022)

Location: Poland / Taiwan

Remote: Yes (7 YoE working remotely, EST/PST timezones OK too)

Willing to relocate: Possibly

Technologies:

* Backend - Ruby on Rails (12 YoE), SQL, Redis, Sidekiq, Elasticsearch, Memcached, Heroku, AWS

* Frontend - Javascript (12 YoE), Typescript, Vue, Aurelia, SCSS

Skills:

* designing and implementing web apps across the entire stack

* handling high traffic

* security

* leading remote teams

* hiring

Résumé/CV: https://cutt.ly/m1F1Ukg

Email: in the resume

I have 12 years of experience building scalable apps using Ruby on Rails with startups from US, Canada, Europe, Australia and Taiwan. Most recently, I've been leading a remote dev team, but I'm interested in individual contributor positions alike. I'd love to work with other tech stacks too, e.g. Elixir, Golang, React, node.js or help out with ML.

snickyon Ask HN: What is example of good documentation in your opinion?

https://redis.io/docs

snickyon Meta fires a software engineer two days after he relocated from India to Canada

Do immigrants do this often? I mean sell their houses, cars and other belongings before moving abroad? It's a sincere question from someone who also considered emigrating for work at some point. I could never imagine getting rid of all my stuff before I actually sit down in the office with my new bosses and co-workers for a couple of months and have a taste of what it is like. I won't be buying any house or a car in the new place right away anyway. I could just rent both before I decide I want to stay there for good. Or am I talking from some sort of a privileged position of a person who has some savings to deal with situations like this ... or maybe I'm too conservative and that's why I never left?

snickyon Ask HN: Getting tired of complexity in web development

Sorry, but when I see "Web Scale" or "MongoDB" I can't help but recall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs

snickyon Ask HN: What's Your Biggest Regret?

It's not too late. Take your 10k and invest in one of hundreds of 1$ stocks right now. It's such a low risk proposition, isn't it?

I hope you get the irony.

snickyon Ask HN: What interesting problems are you working on?

It's all fun and games, but can't the auditors just challenge your "artistic production" by asking for the actual invoices proving any sort of income from it? I mean lots of costs and no related income is questionable AF. Or do you actually sell any of this "art"?