davidajackson

Yes. Memorizing syntax is now obsolete. Frameworks are generally somewhat constrained, now they can be auto-generated to be exactly the UI you want. Only caveat would be saving tokens but tokens are cheap. RIP

Many here will be sad but there will be a day when writing code is seen as as antiquated as using a slide rule. It is coming.

That's a people problem, not an AI problem. People spend so much time debating overcomplicating early system design (API v.s. event driven, etc.). AI is pretty good at generating what you want if you tell it your LOE and resources.

I am going to play devil's advocate here and say that so many processes that can be automated with AI are still untouched.

I'm not making a statement about the quality of businesses funded, but rather the fact there is a lot of opportunity.

sorry, agent to agent protocol or agent to env

https://developers.googleblog.com/en/a2a-a-new-era-of-agent-...

Do you have a portfolio site of sample projects or case studies? Do you want us to critique that?

No doubt about the zero sum game in terms of a possible path in terms of wealth distribution. My question is what will be the function of the "sum part" as a society builds all technologies to 'completion' which is defined as when the utility of any new technology approaches zero because there is nothing 'valuable' or 'new to invent'.

A different argument is that as technology improves to infinity, wealth also becomes ubiquitous and potentially infinite. So even though no new technology is invented that is valuable, there is infinite wealth through abundance.

It seems to me that the primary driver of which world we end up in is whether humanity is able to become multi-planetary. Otherwise, resources become a constraint and instead of discovering new existing resources, humanity can only create value by inventing new technology.

These are not strong opinions.

Make it a game like the carol the robot class at stanford.

Can you explain why to png? why not to markdown?

That's cool. What's your motivation here? Just to build cool stuff, or is this a business? No agenda just wondering.

Honestly though... let's take Copilot as an example. if they're good with Copilot, why wouldn't you just hire them and let them be good with copilot? We all just need to accept that the value of memorizing syntax will trend to zero.

LlamaIndex docs, LangChain docs, Youtube vids on intro to neural networks, tutorials on RAG, cross encoders, etc. should keep you busy for 20-40 hours at least

Nice, whatever you do, just don't stop.

SEEKING WORK - REMOTE - PST

I am a seasoned engineer with deep experience building full stack AI applications. Whether you're building a tool for search, travel, exploring vector databases or RAG - I can architect the first version and get it to market for you.

I can also program smart contracts, write React Native apps, or work on backend and frontend projects. I've had one exit as an early fintech employee, so I have the experience/know how to iterate and launch quickly.

Feel free to shoot me a message at david @ callstop <dot> com and we can talk about your specific project and how I'd build it.

SEEKING WORK - Location: PST - Remote Consulting: Yes

I have a deep understanding of AI infra/architecture patterns if that is needed. I'm a seasoned senior engineer and have helped 3 YC companies launch & have worked on and at multiple startups, as well as big tech. I work for and consult for startups launching MVPs and new services, particularly with LLMs, React/RN and solidity. 6.5+ years of professional experience, especially in fintech + AI. Check out my submission history for just a few examples of products I've built.

  Willing to relocate: No

  Technologies: 6.5+ yrs professional experience; JS, React, React Native, Python, Node, AWS, Java, Heroku, Dynamo, Mongo, MySQL, Ethereum (Solidity), REST, Docker

  Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deejax/

  Email: david <@> callstop <d 0 t > com

You're probably better off analyzing how different models work with different RAG subjects/content. It will proxy the work you're trying to do of analyzing models trained on different datasets. Find an HF model trained on natural lang/web, one on code etc.

- I predict that we will see the tangible effects of AI eating into non-technical areas (insurance, content creation, chatbots via RAG + agents) more and more.

- We will continue to see price gouging in utilities and rent, driven by corporate greed.

- Tesla will continue to dominate the electric car market, and Rivian will also make it.

Chunking is one of those things that needs to be custom to the document being processed. As a general rule, try recursive chunking for most questions. Consider using multiple strategies in tandem. It has the nice advantage of incorporating both broad and specific context. However, even the document itself is not enough to design a chunking strategy. Consider an HTML document and the questions:

1. How does that webpage code work?

2. Summarize this website.

As you can see, you might benefit from pre-processing info different based on the intended result. One cares strongly about the tags, styling etc. while one only cares about the text and you could maybe just scrub the tags.

Also, consider chunks overlap and max chunk size and tune them based on different trials.

Check your chunk scores (cos similarity) against sample queries and make sure chunks texts are meaningful. "Is this how I would store info in my head?" might be a good way to start, if your chunks are garbage you will get garbage.

Consider visualizing your chunks in clusters to validate topic relevance.

Last thing a RAG is a multi-step arch., only one step being bad will turn the whole thing to garbage, put lots of debugging, eval steps in yours. Make sure its not the prompt step thats ruining it. Identify the weak points and triage accordingly.

SEEKING WORK - Location: PST - Remote Consulting: Yes

I'm a seasoned senior engineer and have helped 3 YC companies launch & have worked on and at multiple startups, as well as big tech. I work for and consult for startups launching MVPs and new services, particularly with LLMs, React/RN and solidity. 6.5+ years of professional experience, especially in fintech + AI. Check out my submission history for just a few examples of products I've built.

  Willing to relocate: No

  Technologies: 6.5+ yrs professional experience; JS, React, React Native, Python, Node, AWS, Java, Heroku, Dynamo, Mongo, MySQL, Ethereum (Solidity), REST, Docker

  Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deejax/

  Email: david <@> callstop <d 0 t > com

Flexible Finance | REMOTE (US) | Fast growing fintech

Flex (https://getflex.com/) is an early-stage, remote-first FinTech startup that is bringing flexible payments to recurring bills. Flex currently offers flexible payments on rent for certain tenants in the U.S. The company is scaling quickly, and there are engineering and product positions open currently. If you want to be part of a company growing rapidly with high potential upside (#65 on the App Store in Finance as of this moment), consider joining Flex. You can apply here through my engineering referral link: https://grnh.se/474304b85us

That's funny -- my grandfather wrote that other people were coming up to him.

My grandfather was a young writer living in Spain a long time ago. At one point he wrote that he saw Hemingway sitting and working in a cafe, but didn't go up to him since he didn't feel he had proven anything yet.

I've worked for 4 startups previously almost all very early stage. 1 was aqui-hired. It takes a lot of patience, a company might get totally nixed by black swan events like covid :)

Use the occasional feeling of inferiority to drive yourself to learn technical topics you don't know much about, maybe build something. As an aside, I would much rather work with people like you than inflexible engineers that are know-it-alls. Consider the humbleness a strength.

Flexible Finance | REMOTE (US) | Fast growing fintech

Flex (https://getflex.com/) is an early-stage, remote-first FinTech startup that is bringing flexible payments to recurring bills. Flex currently offers flexible payments on rent for certain tenants in the U.S. The company is scaling quickly, and there are multiple (3) engineering positions open currently. If you want to be part of a company growing rapidly with high potential upside (#44 on the App Store in Finance as of this moment), consider joining Flex. You can apply here through my engineering referral link: https://grnh.se/474304b85us

Some learnings from circa 6 years in startups, applicable to startups:

1. Only listen to people who have walked the walk. Many people with limited tech exp will try to advise you on how to build products/tell you what to do, don't listen to them unless they've done it successfully and it was they that did it -- not some other team they 'advised' or 'managed'.

2. Write stuff down. Promised a raise at X funding point? Write it down. Bring it up and don't let it go.

3. Avoid surrounding yourself with people who sound corporate unless you want to sound like that.

4. Be careful about hiring/working with big co folks for small companies/startups. They often bring politics etc. in and seem on average to be less creative. This is a sweeping generalization and a bit harsh, but basically if you want to be involved with startups, associate with people from startups. Build your network around that.

5. Be careful with first time founders, and see if you can get a gauge on their empathy. A good way to do this is invite them out to lunch and see how they treat the wait staff.

6. Build side projects and don't be afraid to look stupid/ask questions. That's how you get to be the best.

My advice is to be fine with coding challenges, just don't do non compensated take homes. Take homes trend toward being non-paid work; I've seen plenty that are asking for a frontend and a server and a DB, and it's just something I would charge for.

Well congrats. Barring any issues re: proving its your app, all users are real etc (2 big IFs!)..., then:

Are you tracking metrics? MAUs, DAUs? Anything like cohort retention (https://docs.holistics.io/docs/charts/cohort-retention)? Are you using DataDog or Amplitude? Additionally, you should post a screenshot of downloads from the Google Play store over time. It can help people here make a decision, since they can see how viral the product is or is not.

And finally, people will want to know, how much $ are you making. Will people pay for this, and WHAT are they paying for? To be connected like a dating app?

It's cool (if the users are actually real), but I feel like it doesn't have a clearly defined way of making money yet. But then again, lots of social apps don't...

What size is the company? For a big company, just prevent merge to main unless approved by another team member. Set up pairings, like Junior<-->Senior reviews. The junior reviewer will learn a low from the senior coding style.

For very small companies, ask yourself if you have time for code review. If you do, great -- but sometimes you are all just burning the midnight oil in those 1-5 person companies just to KTLO. Maybe do with less frequency if company is tiny and doesn't have PMF.

Flexible Finance | REMOTE (US) Flex (https://getflex.com/) is an early-stage, remote-first FinTech startup that is bringing flexible payments to recurring bills. Flex currently offers flexible payments on rent for certain tenants in the U.S. The company is scaling quickly, and there are multiple engineering positions open currently. If you want to be part of a company growing rapidly with high potential upside (strong team, huge market size), consider joining Flex. You can apply here through my engineering referral link: https://grnh.se/474304b85us