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title: "Journal 2025-04-19" tags: [job-search,

Journal 2025-04-19

Problems

  • P2P protocol for mass live stream content in decent quality (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43684286)

Notes

Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.

https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html

Font: https://rsms.me/inter/

Open-source definition: https://opensource.org/osd

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43693030 "My approach since I was in high school and started programming has always stayed the same. It's actually very rare to have to innovate, starting from scratch. So whatever problems I need to solve, my first step is always looking for information. And more often than not, the solution is right there.

I don't spend much time at the keyboard. Most of my time is spent perusing books, articles, blog posts, and source code. Or talking to a domain expert. That's what will gave me the system design/architecture for what I want to build. Once that's done, it's pretty much a straight line, or better a spiral iteratively building and testing, going deep only when things matters.

I much prefer to go from general/introductory materials to very specific/advanced ones that matters with sources I trust.

As for the code, it's starting small, get it to work well, and then start on the next iteration. And thanks to the kindness of people, there's so many opensource code from which to learn from. "

Job Search notes

JOB PLAN

Wisdom

  • HOW can we?
  • Easier to get a job when employed

Goals

  • FOCUS
  • Happy healthy dogs
  • Put out immediate fires
  • Big man job
    • Working on interesting stuff
    • Quality company
  • Quality clothes
  • Got a girl

Job Options

  • Freelance - Faster
  • Salaried

Avoid

  • "I can do anything" - unhelpful

People to connect with

  • Heather (Primary source) -> Secondary sources
  • Recruiter / From Pivotal Alumni
  • Sales people
    • Doug

How to meet people

  • IRL (In Real Life)
    • MM Group
  • Referrals
  • Digital
    • LinkedIn
    • HeckerNews
  • Find out Chief of Talent (LinkedIn) / Recruiter

Interview Process

  • "We'll be in touch in a week or two"
  • "Setup meeting with a few other people"

Job Application

  • Important Problems (LIST)
  • Interesting industries (LIST)
  • Potential Companies (LIST)
    • Quality leaders
  • Write CV/Resume
  • Share CV
  • Choose a company / Job to focus on
  • Personal pitch
    • I help (Persona) solve (Problems) so they can achieve (GOAL)
  • Resume, Cover Letter
  • Allocate X hours per week
  • Setup conversations
  • Salary expectations

Ideas

  • The Mom Test

Cover Letter

  • Passion
  • Talent

Companies to check out

  • Figma
  • Tuple
  • Berkshire Hathaway
  • Piano with Jonny
  • (Commcercial Django)
  • (Commercial Postgres)
  • CNC
    • Lunyee?
    • Tormach?

Documents

  • Resume - Jonathan Rogivue: Solution Engineer

Quotes & Feedback

  • "I know a guy - Jonathan's great, bring him in!"
  • "Worked with hi,, he's really cool"
  • "He's going to nail the job"

Resume

  • Problem, Solution, Outcome, Learnings

Lists

  • Industries
  • Companies
  • People

Tools

  • Code: Python, Java (Spring Boot) Linux, Docker, AWS, SQL, Terraform
  • Platforms: Linux, AWS (ECS, S3, CloudFront, Route53)
  • Web: Django, React
  • Special tech: Voice (ElevenLabs, PiperTTS); Documents (Pandoc)
  • APIs: Python requests & Beatiful Soup; Django DRF, FastAPI
  • 3D product design & manufacturing: Inkscape, FreeCAD
  • Tools: CNC router, CNC CO2 laser, Fiber laser
  • Data visualization: D3.JS, eCharts
  • Keeping eye on: Rust

Tech missions

  • Setup company cloud infrastructure (DNS / Email / AWS / Slack / Calendar / File share / Code repo / CICD / Website / Intranet / Knowledge-base)
  • Text to EBook
  • Text to Voice Audio

My favorite tools

  • Rsync
  • FFMpeg
  • Git
  • cron
  • say
  • mkdocs
  • nano

Ideas

  • STEM / STEAM
    • Science
    • Technology
    • Arts
    • Engineering
    • Math
  • Data visualization
  • CAD software
  • Tools, Architecture, Trends

Fun

  • Padel, piano, Drawing

Inspiration

  • Feynman - Curious guy

ART

  • Draw skulls
  • Sharind, highlights, understand geometry
  • Understand: Cheekbones, ear holes, eye socket
  • Perspective
  • Depth of field
  • FOCUS
  • Wooden model of body

Practices

  • Customer centric product development: Personas, Top Goals & Problems, frequent collaboration
  • Test-driven development (TDD)
  • Prioritized outcome backlog
  • Pair-programming
  • Ship-daily / + CI/CD + Security
  • Team Retrospective

Problems

  • Managing engineering data across complex product and program organizations
  • Data breaches
  • Lonliness & Isolation
  • Group chats
  • Share emotions
  • Emotional connection
  • Keep in contact on a regular basis
  • Privacy
  • Being social
  • Deaths in family, friends
  • Families spread out
  • I need money
    • How to get a trusted roommate?
  • Relationship breakups & divorces
  • Pets
    • Trusted dog watchers
    • Finding good vet
  • Living a life outside in nature
  • Dancing
  • Physical activity / Mental health
  • Engage in the community you live in, take on responsibility
    • How to find out about Community needs & events?
  • Learning the local language
  • Scheduling events
    • Example: Padel courts, people, schedules, weather, driving/rides, payment, skill levels
  • Charisma

Interesting areas

  • Community group sports
  • Hikes
  • Concerts
  • Volunteering
  • Late night cafes
  • Working with people on collaborative effort-intensive projects, working toward shared goals
  • School, Classes, Workshops
  • Libraries + Makerspaces
  • "36 New York Times questions" - Get to know you
  • Feelings wheel
  • Conversation cards

Research

  • Problem Solving: Research and recommend new technical solutions to address client needs, acting as a go-to resource for troubleshooting and guidance.

Demo

  • Demonstrate use & best practices
  • Deliver demonstrations to prospective and existing customers highlighting key strengths and differentiators of the solutions.
  • Deliver demonstrations to prospective and existing customers highlighting key strengths and differentiators of the solutions.

Discovery

  • Drive the technical discovery process, both pre-sales (primary focus) & post-sales, helping to uncover customer’s current pains and to align to their business objectives
  • Technical landscape
    • Competitive landscape
    • Differentiators
  • Deployment plans
  • Client Engagement: Participate in discovery calls to identify the customer’s technical landscape and determine plans for technical deployment.

Sales Support

  • Sales Support: Assist pre and post sales teams by addressing technical questions and objections, enhancing their presentations with your in-depth product knowledge.
  • Collaborate closely with the sales team

Evaluation

  • Develop a deep understanding of products, their capabilities, and their limitations.
  • Ensuring that solution meets key business objectives and technical requirements
  • Guide prospects through the evaluation process of (PRODUCT) ensuring that our solution meets key business objectives and technical requirements
  • Onboarding & Implementation: Support new and existing customers with onboarding, implementation, integration, configuration, and customization of our software solutions.

Work with Clients

  • Conduct trainings for onboarding new customers.
  • Prepare and deliver high impact presentations and technical demonstrations to impart the value of (PRODUCT)
  • Empower customers to understand and leverage the insights they get from (PRODUCT) across their whole organization
  • Develop a technical understanding of the competitive landscape and (PRODUCT) differentiators. Be the expert that can be pulled in to discuss differentiators and box out the competition in this competitive construction tech landscape
  • Relationship Management: Build and maintain strong relationships with customers throughout the sales process and beyond.
  • Work both remotely and visit project sites

Document / Write

  • Document techincal requirements, workflows
  • Documentation & Communication: Provide detailed documentation and clear communication to internal teams and clients, ensuring everyone is aligned.

Events

  • Represent externally, at conferences, road shows, customer events

Solution Engineer

  • Technical expert
  • Work directly with Sales
  • Work with technical support

Feedback

  • Assist the wider team (engineering, product, marketing) to design new features & message based on customer feedback and your industry experience
  • Document and deliver product feedback and new requirements from the field.
  • Serve as the technical liaison and collaborate with the engineering team to share knowledge and insight gained through customer engagements.
  • Seek out and apply knowledge of products, technologies, and businesses to build solutions to solve problems at scale.

Experience

  • 5+ years of experience in in a B2B customer-facing role as a sales engineer
  • Solid understanding and familiarity with modern scripting languages (e.g. Python, SQL) and/or popular programming languages (e.g. C/C++, Java).
  • Experience with data infrastructure - cloud applications and databases, ELT, warehouses, etc.
  • Experience in a client-facing role with a technical focus, within the SaaS industry (consulting, solution architecture, professional services, etc.); education technology experience highly preferred.
  • Strong background combining business acumen and technical expertise.
  • Experience successfully launching at least two products with cross-functional dependencies, either as an engineer or project manager.
    • Akamai
    • Pivotal Cloud Foundry
  • Experience working in a cloud environment (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.)
  • Experience working with REST API, HTML, CSS, JavaScript
  • Experience communicating technical concepts to non-technical, technical, and mixed audiences

Missions

  • Secure the internet and protect consumer data

Team

  • Supportive, driven colleagues who have your back and share your passion.
  • kind and talented team

Personality

  • Curiosity to learn and assimilate technical information quickly, with enthusiasm to share and teach others.
  • Ability to work with and communicate effectively at all levels, including executive, sales, product, engineering, and customer success.
  • A collaborative team player and fast learner who picks up new technologies quickly and thrives under pressure.
  • Positive attitude, strong work ethic, proficient project management skills, and ability to take an assignment and successfully execute in a given timeline.
  • Enjoy working with, supporting, and teaching customers.
  • Data-driven analytical approach
  • Love listening to customers, discussing strategy with colleagues, but also diving into the weeds

Skills

  • Excellent verbal and written communication skills; ability to create detailed documentation.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills.
  • Ability to build rapport with both internal teams and client stakeholders.
  • Savvy presentation and demonstration skills, fluidly translating complex technology concepts.
  • Strong technical and problem-solving skills, the ability to understand and troubleshoot systems and application flows, dive deep into complex problems & find their root cause.
  • Experience coding in an industry-standard language (e.g., Java, Python, C++, Objective-C, JavaScript)

Benefits

  • Health insurance, 401(k) matching, and an employee equity plan.
  • Flexible time off, paid holidays, paid parental leave, wellness days, and a paid year-end holiday break.

Education

  • Computer Science, Engineering

Terminology

  • B2B
  • CAD
  • ELT
  • Ontologies

Values

Salary

  • $180,000 Base + $80,000 Variable + a generous equity package, and benefits for the U.S. market.

To check out

  • Brilliant.org - "building the right thing" AND "building the thing right" while pursuing high standards of excellence for ourselves, our product, and our codebase. If you're energized by the prospect of doing the best work of your career
  • Sequoia
  • Supabase - open-source. Backend platform offering a Postgres database, vector extensions, auth, real-time functionality, storage, restful APIs, and edge functions.
  • Harvard
  • Amazon

To Apply

  • AirByte - https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4209345883/
    • Company handbook: https://handbook.airbyte.com/
  • https://www.sbe-vision.com/
    • https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4201035515/

Roles / Jobs I can do

  • CTO / Technical partner
  • Technical Project Manager
  • Solution/sales engineer
  • Software developer
  • Tech team leader