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Ask HN: What is your job role and what are the side projects you are working on?
27 points by aryamaan on June 13, 2016 | hide | past | favorite | 29 comments
The question in itself is self-explanatory. Please mention your normal day job role (backend developer, full stack engineer etc) and what are the side projects you are doing currently. This question is about having insight about what people are doing.


Java Developer / Linux Sysadmin.

* Android location sharing app - https://graticule.link/

* HN "Who's Hiring?" thread search frontend - https://hnjobs.emilburzo.com/

* DIY home monitoring - http://ambient.emilburzo.com/#overview

* SMS enabler for crippled Nexus 7 2013 LTE tablets - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.emilburzo....

* A webapp for browsing the top 1000 indebted companies from Romania - http://datoriistat.emilburzo.com/top1000 (it's in Romanian)

* A paragliding exam refresher/quiz (not online yet)


What are you using for monitoring individual rooms?


Right now I have the following on a breadboard (see [1] for the illustrated version)

* ATTiny84

* DHT22 temp/humidity sensor

* 433 MHz TX module

* 3 x AAA batteries

* LED used for signalling (like booting up)

Initially I was using an Arduino Nano, but I couldn't optimize it enough so that it can live only on batteries, so I went with the ATTiny which is pretty impressive.

My oldest sensor node has been running for over 6 months on the same batteries and it still has some juice left (3.9V currently, it should work until it gets below 3.7V)

After I've settled with a final design I'm planning to solder it on a perfboard.

The DHT22 sensor accuracy is my only issue left, specifically the humidity measurement part (see [2] for some extensive research by someone smarter than me).

Everything is on github[3] but it's pretty messy at the moment (hardcoded and such) because there's never enough time for everything.

[1] - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ambient-monitoring/node/ma...

[2] - http://www.kandrsmith.org/RJS/Misc/Hygrometers/calib_dht22.h...

[3] - https://github.com/ambient-monitoring


Senior software engineer @ Gogobot

In my day job I do 100% of Gogobot's Devops. I feel that statup stacks are too complicated to bootstrap on the cloud so I am working on the-startup-stack[1]

It's a framework to get things started, it's a toolset of other open source tools to consolidate everything under one roof with a set or production-ready bulletproof recipes.

I realize it's a mouthful, docs attached.

[1] http://docs.the-startup-stack.com/

I've been working on this during my spare time for a long time now. I have 3 startups already running on earlier versions of this and it's a work in progress.

Looking for contributors and early adopters.


I haven't looked at your docs more than 30 seconds yet, but I totally agree that it would be incredibly useful for there to exist a book/docs, set of tools, configurations, etc to get started more quickly and not have to reinvent the wheel. I think documentation is actually a major primary component of such an effort, so awesome to see you start with docs.


I spent 80% of the time on docs and I am making sure that every doc I write I follow like I have no idea what this project is about.

This means, going back with every step of the doc and making sure it is 100% reproducible and viable.

The most frustrating thing to me in the Devops world is missing documentation because the author thinks/assumes his readers know X or Y.

With these docs (and I would appreciate any feedback here or on Github) it's not the case, you can follow it as an engineer with no Devops background and you will be able to bootstrap the cluster.

It's still very much an effort and a WIP, but it's getting there.


Job Role:

Firmware developer with some scripting on the side. C, shell script, Python, ARM/Thumb ASM on occasion. Mostly C.

Side project(s):

Probabilistic programming in Haskell and Venture. This involves using Haskell and Python to do most of the coding. Writing a paper involving some information theoretic properties of certain probabilistic programs, which involved translating a bunch of estimators to get them working quickly on larger datasets.

Also eventually going to finish formalizing the correctness of my type-inference algorithm in Coq.

I eventually want to learn enough of how monad-bayes and Clash work to write a compiler that takes monad-bayes probabilistic programs down to hardware descriptions I can flash onto an FPGA and use it as an accelerator for probprog.


Data Engineer consultant - Working with Spark, Hadoop, HBase, Kafka, HIVE, scikit-learn, Yarn, LOTS of crappy legacy Java. Python

Startup 1: Media monitoring - Cassandra, Kafka, RabbitMQ, scikit-learn, nodejs, AngularJS, Python, Cython, Postgres, Spark, Hadoop

Startup 2: Forex Trading - Keras, TensorFlow, Kafka, Spark, RabbitMQ, nodejs, postgres, Pandas, celery, scikit-learn, iOS App, Flink


Do you have links to either? I'd love to contribute!


Backend developer.

Main side project is Tablesaw, a dataframe for "large" data (100M to 1B rows) in Java (https://github.com/lwhite1/tablesaw). Although, it might be better described as a personal, in-memory, column-oriented, data warehouse. :)


Sr. Product Manager/Architect in Fraud Risk Management

Tickerstorm.io - An algo trading platform in Java (pretty early still).

Difference from other platforms I've found: integrated machine learning phase which reuses the same data pipelines used by the algo when backtesting or trading live. Trying to reuse as many open source frameworks as possible to reduce the amount of new things a user has to learn. Based on Apache Storm, H2O machine learning, guava, Spring Framework etc. Not HF focused.

Most other platforms start off with you coding up your rules and allow you to back test those assumptions. However, this platform also incorporates the discovery phase of these rules rather than just assume you already have a set of rules.


Jobless student.

Current project: Going to HEB to buy detergent.


DBA (Postgres, Oracle, MySQL) https://rebrickable.com - A LEGO database that shows you which sets you can build from your existing collection, also includes thousands of fan-submitted designs.


Backend developer working with prop trading outfit.

Side project - a concurrent stock exchange written in Haskell. Could potentially be used as a component of a bitcoin exchange if I get time to fully flesh it out.


Job Role:

Senior Software Engineer - Working on a large-scale web app in Play Framework (Scala). I worked on various aspects (e.g. backend to frontend, incl. some DevOps).

Side Project(s):

Simpoel - A cross between Facebook groups and Meetup, based on Play Framework (Scala) + PostgreSQL on AWS, was in hibernation for almost a year... Now picking up steam again.

Diskusi - A Slack clone for learning Phoenix (Elixir) + Elm, just started.


Software Engineer @ big old enterprise company doing security work.

Side projects: None. I believe in having a life outside of programming. I don't touch code after 5PM. Currently training to run a half-marathon and getting more serious about powerlifting.


Senior BI/ETL Engineer working with DataStage and OBIEE.

Working on www.appsulagam.com : "Tamil language" content based mobile app discovery site. Learning Python, machine learning and text analysis for this project. Would appreciate any feedback/comments/help.


Nonprofit researcher with web design/management responsibilities

Side project: vertical farming startup and website: https://urbanverticalproject.wordpress.com/

Hydroponics installs


software engineer, backend stuff, mostly c++

side project: working on a crossword editor, intended as a complement to the (fantastic) open source app qxw [http://www.quinapalus.com/qxw.html]. qxw does one thing (grid filling) and does it well; v1 of my app will import a grid from qxw and deal with adding clues to it, and publishing it in a variety of formats. v2 will add support for importing a blank grid and clues in various popular formats, and letting you solve the crossword interactively. (i might add a web frontend somewhere around then too; right now it's a desktop app in F#/Gtk#/.NET)


Acoustical consultant - mainly to architects in new construction

Side project - building software tools for acoustics[1]

[1] https://10log.com


UI and UX Designer

Fixa: The baby of Uber and Angieslist

Dressed: On demand dress rental for girls in NYC(Currently Manhattan Only).

Symple: Airbnb for entertainment and services(DJs, bands, bartenders, photographers)

Qalendar: Saas startup focused on automating your life


Day job, iOS developer

Side project, currently I am building an app to try to teach myself a new language (not programming language).

Also some other stuff which are more or less on and off.


Non-standard CAE and mech / nuclear eng consultant. Side project - helping local kids set up a small data science shop at www.databot.it


Day Job: Senior Software Engineer

Side project: SaaS offering for service based small businesses, procedure and job instruction creation and management.


Firmware Engineer on a wearable product. C, Python2, ARM, FreeRTOS.

Side project: a "long serverless" crossword analysis website. Python3, AWS.


research and development general manager side project: working on sports disruption technology golang, js, redis, postgres, arduino, swift


full-stack web developer.

working on a meal planning tool to help people eat healthier and a collaborative music streaming app.

elixir - clojurescript - rethinkdb.


Meal planning tool - Nice. I would be very interested to use if it could also give food recipes based on stuffs available with me.


Interesting, do you have links?




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