A fast-growing YC company! (S17) | Software Engineer (Full-Stack Web / Front-End / Back-End ) | Full-Time | ONSITE | SF Bay Area
Hi! I'm one of the engineers on the team :)
If you're interested in:
- Being an active participant in the decision-making process of a YC company rapidly capitalizing on an under-the-radar market opportunity
- Applying your technical skills to a meaningful domain outside of tech (while learning about industry insider nuances), that has real-world medical implications
- Being part of a small engineering team that not only measures daily active users but also physical products shipped, revenues, and real profits
- Being part of a small engineering team that ships not only software products but also physical products
- Watching how changes in your code physically impacts the operation of not just machines but the IRL work-flow of real people (specifically, pharmacists and technicians)
- Hands-on shipping of product, end-to-end! Everything from ideation --> coding --> customer delight (& wash-rinse-repeat)
then I'd love to hear from you!
Our stack: React, Node, GraphQL (+ Apollo), ES6, Raspberry Pi, AWS (RDS, ECS, CloudFront, EC2), Elasticsearch, Jenkins, Rails, Python, Linux (Ubuntu), Docker, and moar. Right tool for the job > dogma.
We have deliberately avoided press coverage around our traction, investors, and market because we have been focused on taking over the market as quickly as possible, but we will going public with what we're up to shortly in a few weeks! (I'm sorry there's no web site or company name to google for just yet--but I promise this isn't at all anywhere close to the pejorative "stealth" mode at work)
We're in the pharmacy (not pharmaceutical) space and I'm happy to elaborate more in private for serious inquiries.
We offer competitive Bay Area salary, stock equity, healthcare insurance, and other employee benefits.
When it comes to source code, yes. Are you able to view the entirety of the code running the systems that control your information and operations? The answer to that question cannot be a shade of gray.
RMS has been proven more correct with each year that passes. More and more of the technologists responsible for our most significant innovations have expressed concerns about the control that large firms have gained over their users. This control is only possible through "non-free" source code, and is a guaranteed consequence when we allow the practice of distributing closed-source systems.
rms and the GPL focus on distribution, yet the Internet has enabled large firms to gain control without distributing their software, or even while distributing FOSS software. Perhaps tomorrow Google open-sources the JS executed by google.com in their open source browser, and it makes no difference, because the important bits - what data they retain about users - are not distributed.
Software we never run on our devices may yet control us.
AGPL tries to solve some of these problems, but fundamentally any service which controls and operates on your data on a server you don't own cannot fundamentally be free. RMS calls such services SaaSS (Service as a Software Substitute).
So while distributed systems under AGPL still protect your freedom, AGPL of a SaaSS (like Google Docs) are non-free because you cannot change the software running on the server (and of course you shouldn't be able to -- because that would violate the freedom of the administrator). SaaSS is fundamentally incompatible with software freedom.
(And this is something that RMS has made clear arguments about. He cares more than just about distribution.)
I agree of, non-free + proprietary == bad, whereas the opposite == good, but it is not the only consideration. Many computer software can be good or bad regardless of such thing, but free software is still a better idea than nonfree software. If program has some problem (e.g. malware, or a feature doesn't work the way you want it to be, or whatever), you can hopefully to correct it! That is why free software is good and nonfree software isn't good.
But, it is correct, reality is not really so neatly categorized into binary outcomes with no shades of gray (and other colours).
He sees free software principles as being on the same level as internationally recognized human rights. Sure, there could be certain cases where a right is "overridden": judicial gag orders, imprisoning convicts, eminent domain. But those should be exceptional, require justification, and follow predetermined rules.
Since usually you can always add open parts to a system, the question is not if there are open parts, but if there are (substantial) closed parts.
> Linux with a video card.
Assuming you are speaking about a recent video card from AMD or Nvidia, then that system has substantial closed parts, which are unreviewable and unmodifiable by the user and/or owner of the device.
I don't think jayliew was doubting what the definition of open source is but rather whether software is good because its open source and bad because it's closed.
If someone thinks it is as black and white as this then it has clearly become ideological rather than rational.
This. I think when you have one lens through which you view the world, as opposed to having multiple lenses to pick from, which you swap out to apply the most beneficial lens from which to view the problem .. then this is no different than using the one hammer you have because all problems look like a nail.
I do think there are some software that in reality, for most people (including large swathes of non-technical people), work better in a for-profit model (which is usually closed source).
But there are some things that work better as open source.
I think it really depends on the fundamental problem (i.e. ends) the software (i.e. means) is trying to accomplish.
I personally do not think you can categorically say one is better than the other, because it really depends on the issue.
Why isn't there an open source Google search, that works better than Google?
If we can open source our encryption algorithms because that ostensibly makes it more secure overall, why can't we just open source all our algorithms for spam filtering, especially to the spammers themselves?
If you look at all the most vibrant communities online, are they closed source or open source? (Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, HN itself) ... vs. say, mailing lists, usenet, etc.
Also, he doesn't think all software is good just because it's foss; it can be bad for other reasons. But all non-foss software is bad, because it violates the rights of users.
I don't see the problem with being this consistent. If I say that all non-consensual sex is bad, am I an irrational ideologue too?
Ideological and rational are not in opposition all the time, but they're not congruent all the time either.
I don't fully agree that all non-foss are bad, or that all foss are good. You can find exceptions to the rule either way.
I think the helpful perspective is to take a step back and look at the whole system from a macro perspective. Based on traction, which do you think is "better". I think it really depends on the use-case.
There's a lot of shitty foss software out there, that is just plain unusable because developers like geeking out over code but UX + UI polish are non-technical problems and thus ignored.
That is a very simple variation of pump and dump scheme. Basically, the same old pump and dump, but the "pump" and "dump" are split, and are done in different countries:
1. A rich guy in China goes and makes a back room deal with a new wiz kid on the block with a promise to prop up his hot startup, thus initiating a "pump" part in a pump and dump. Usually the capital is injected through legal shells and one day funds to obscure the origin.
2. PR companies are hired to hype up the co as the next big thing since sliced bread
3. More back room deals are made with institutional players, to have them add more seemed legitimacy to the operation: investment funds, big name underwriters, 3rd tier American VCs, all kinds of other big name boys.
4. Then, a complex shell structure - VIE is built around the company in an offshore heaven country. That is to give the co. a material constitution outside of China's legal reach.
5. The co. goes for IPO in USA
6. The original Chinese rich guy dumps his stock of a VIE in USA, cash gets sent to his US account, completing the "dump" part of the scheme. Whatever happens next with the company, does no longer matter.
I don't have any experience with passing the SEC's muster for going public, but if this was a scam, attracting the SEC's scrutiny would not be in their interest, because it may trigger the interest of other agencies (FBI/CIA?)
Are there examples of when the SEC cleared a company to go public, that was really in hindsight an elaborate money laundering and/or pump-and-dump sham? Because it seems to me like that would be exactly why the SEC exists: to protect the avg non-sophisticated non-professional retail investor from such things.
I guess it's hard to tease apart a pure pump and dump from a money laundering operation from one another.
Am by no means an expert, but I believe it's something like:
Invest in company in china -> company builds in valuation (pump) -> company IPO in america -> sell ownership share in america for american dollars (dump)
I imagine there are rules to prevent this, but I also imagine that there are loopholes...
- An insider's perspective of, nay, being an active participant in the decision-making process of a YC company rapidly capitalizing on an under-the-radar market opportunity
- Applying your technical skills to a meaningful domain outside of tech (while learning about industry insider nuances), that has real-world medical implications that touches us all
- Being part of a small engineering team that not only measures daily active users but also physical products shipped, revenues, and real profits
- Being part of a small engineering team that ships not only software products but also physical products
- Watching how changes in your code physically impacts the operation of not just machines but the IRL work-flow of real people (specifically, pharmacists and technicians)
- Hands-on shipping of product, end-to-end! Everything from ideation --> coding --> customer delight (& wash-rinse-repeat)
Our stack: React, Node, GraphQL (+ Apollo), ES6, Raspberry Pi, AWS (RDS, ECS, CloudFront, EC2), Elasticsearch, Jenkins, Rails, Python, Linux (Ubuntu), Docker, and moar. Right tool for the job > dogma.
We have deliberately avoided press coverage around our traction, investors, and market because we have been focused on taking over the market as quickly as possible, but we will going public with what we're up to shortly in a few weeks! (I'm sorry there's no web site or company name to google for just yet--but I promise this isn't at all anywhere close to the pejorative "stealth" mode at work)
We're in the pharmacy (not pharmaceutical) space and I'm happy to elaborate more in private for serious inquiries.
We're looking for front end, back-end, full stack web, and strong generalist software engineers, for full time and internship positions. We offer competitive Bay Area salary, stock equity, healthcare insurance, and other employee benefits.
jay liew at jay liew dot com
p.s. A totally separate position we're also hiring for is in product management: we need 1 strong product person
Only a psychiatrist (an actual medical doctor) can prescribe medication.
A therapist is usually what people refer to as a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT), who does "talk therapy". They are typically NOT MDs, so they do NOT prescribe meds, because they can't.
I'm not from the US, so I'm not familiar with that system. Although I would have expected "therapist" to mean a psychiatrist in the context of attention control (as opposed to interpersonal relationships).
One way to think of the difference is: whereas one focuses on helping you feel better through mere conversation[1], the other focuses on achieving the same goal but through the use of chemicals.
They are not mutually exclusive, and everyone's thoughts and bodies are "wired" differently, so it's very common to have a combination of both solutions (talking & meds) to achieve the same goal.
I think too many people think "therapy" == meds 100%, and that is absolutely not true. Many people can benefit from just the "talk" therapy (no meds) and feel better about it.
[1] I say "mere" conversation in jest, but it is no less significant (IMHO), than that of a lawyer's output (mere words too, right?)
Interesting. What I like about this is that if you're subconsciously procrastinating by avoiding doing the thing you need to do (by say, justifying something else less dreadful to do), this is immediate feedback that will snap you back to reality to focus on the one thing.
Something long term, that you can use to onboard new employees. They can just look a the visual and reconstruct a mental map of how things are laid out at a high level, without this institutional knowledge having to be passed around verbally and subject to the quirks of human memory (and subject to individuals possessing this knowledge potentially leaving the team!)
I use whiteboarding too, but yeah, it's basically a snapshot / dump of institutional knowledge that resides in an individual's head. Updated my post to mention that I'm looking for something electronic / scalable
Depending upon the situation it can make sense to just take a picture of the whiteboard with a camera (or use a smartboard) and save that image somewhere. At that point the diagram isn't 'editable' per-say, but that can still be great solution.
I definitely prefer something editable. The use-case is if someone improves the system, then this visual diagram needs to be updated.
I want to avoid the situation where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Any person on the team doesn't have to go hunt down the person who knows the system, but can just look up the diagram at a high level and know where to start.
Hi! I'm one of the engineers on the team :)
If you're interested in:
- Being an active participant in the decision-making process of a YC company rapidly capitalizing on an under-the-radar market opportunity
- Applying your technical skills to a meaningful domain outside of tech (while learning about industry insider nuances), that has real-world medical implications
- Being part of a small engineering team that not only measures daily active users but also physical products shipped, revenues, and real profits
- Being part of a small engineering team that ships not only software products but also physical products
- Watching how changes in your code physically impacts the operation of not just machines but the IRL work-flow of real people (specifically, pharmacists and technicians)
- Hands-on shipping of product, end-to-end! Everything from ideation --> coding --> customer delight (& wash-rinse-repeat)
then I'd love to hear from you!
Our stack: React, Node, GraphQL (+ Apollo), ES6, Raspberry Pi, AWS (RDS, ECS, CloudFront, EC2), Elasticsearch, Jenkins, Rails, Python, Linux (Ubuntu), Docker, and moar. Right tool for the job > dogma.
We have deliberately avoided press coverage around our traction, investors, and market because we have been focused on taking over the market as quickly as possible, but we will going public with what we're up to shortly in a few weeks! (I'm sorry there's no web site or company name to google for just yet--but I promise this isn't at all anywhere close to the pejorative "stealth" mode at work)
We're in the pharmacy (not pharmaceutical) space and I'm happy to elaborate more in private for serious inquiries.
We offer competitive Bay Area salary, stock equity, healthcare insurance, and other employee benefits.
jay liew at jay liew dot com