bhollan

I've recently had an idea for a hardware startup, but I'm torn between assuming I'm wrong (because I've never launched before) and discussing the idea in a public forum (also spiralling with the thought of being 'scooped').

Do you "just have to know" the right people IRL to talk with who you trust not to steal your idea? Is there any chance of keeping my day job? How do you go from a seedling idea in your head that you can't prove wrong on your own and an actual business with a few co-founders/etc without giving away the idea?

I feel 100% qualified to do the job I'm interviewing for this week, but I'm mostly just looking for any tips on how to study for a non-coding interview w/ them. Any horror stories? I've checked Glassdoor (and googling) and coming up with mostly small odds/ends here and there. Any tips appreciated!

I've been asked to help with the construction and opening of a computer lab in Belize. The plan is to have it used by the remedial school that will host it[1], but also available for use by the public. The target audience/content is more literacy-oriented than tech-oriented (think GED, not SWE).

I'm sure this is not the first one of these in existence, so I'd love to hear any tips/tricks or recommendations/precautions (both for the "developing nation" side and general "public computer lab" side). My personal background is more EE/SWE than IT.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/groups/740055676147398/

Is there a way (yet?) to add a chat layer to a codebase? Basically a layer that would take it's best guess at the ERD and functions after reading the code, then be able to articulate about it and respond to questions?

One of my biggest struggles is "getting to know" a codebase when I first walk up to it. I'm trying my best to get better, but I have to balance that with actually producing deliverables. It would help radically if a teammate (or better yet, the author!) could spend a few hours with me answering questions, but who has that kind of time! So an LLM wading through a codebase and then being able to sufficiently answer my questions about how modules relate, "what's [thisFunction] for?" and "where's the file that [doesThing]?" and the like would be absolutely something I would pay for.

Anything out there already? Is this an unmet market need, now that we know the tech is up to the challenge?

So my dad got a computer engineering degree back in the punch card days and ran his own business as a "computer consultant" since the early 90s up until he went to prison for 14 years starting in 2007 and gets out next March (his crime was not computer-related). He mainly used MS Access to develop on-prem apps for small businesses. What [printed] materials can I send to him to update him to modern times before he gets out? I'm sure he can catch up after release, but he's obviously got a lot more time on his hands now, but no computing access.

Also, any ex-con-in-tech related advice is welcome.

I just got a job as the "rails guy" and "data guy" at a small educational app company. I'm interested in the best/worst, opinions, facts, recommendations, horror stories about JS DataViz packages. Bring it on.

It will be used with mostly vanilla JS, pulling data from an in-house (Rails?) API. My familiarity with dataviz is pretty extensive as far as years, but pretty sparse when it comes to JS. I have 2 degrees in Engineering, but <5 years in Web Dev (and <1 attempting data science). Right now the company/customers are super-impressed with just JQuery's datatables, so the bar isn't super high, but I just want to make sure I'm not "that guy" if I pick the worst thing by accident or something.

I've seen a sharp rise in companies that are 100% remote, but have a caveat that you have to be inside the United States. Full disclosure, I'm an American living in Mexico for the time being. I've had several companies stop the interview/hiring process as soon as they find out I'm outside the US. I've also seen hundreds of job postings say "remote, within the US".

I was even employed part-time with a company that knew I was in Mexico and was OK with it, but then they got bought and I was terminated within months. All my papers are in order, my US Passport is still good, my Mexican visa is fine, and I can't honestly think of a reason why they can't hire remote globally. Am I missing something? Is there a reason for this I don't understand? I have a US bank account, a US Passport, pay US taxes, and am a native English speaker. Is there a blind spot that I can't see? Is it just simple "policy" that people made a blanket decision without facts? Am I being unreasonable?

It seems like a reasonable thing to be upset over. It feels like discrimination, and it is. It's called Geographic Discrimination, and when you're talking about being a concierge for a hotel or a janitor or any other physical on-site job, that makes sense. But I don't understand why it should be legal to apply it to 100% remote jobs in 100% remote companies.

I've seen some really good tools over the years, but I feel like my scheduling abilities are somewhat lacking because of tooling. I have regular meetings with 6 different time zones spanning most of the globe and was wondering how others handle that.

How many people here have ACTUALLY gotten a job through the monthly post?

Provide what information you can (company, job title, post (if it's still alive)).