dvcoolarun

Open source alone can’t sustain companies long-term. Eventually everyone needs a bigger, safer home.

A few observations from the current tech + services market:

Service-led companies are doing relatively better right now. Lower costs, smaller teams, and a lot of “good enough” duct-tape solutions are shipping fast.

Fewer developers are needed to deliver the same output. Mature frameworks, cloud, and AI have quietly changed the baseline productivity.

And yet, these companies still struggle to hire and retain people. Not because talent doesn’t exist, but because they want people who are immediately useful, adaptable, and can operate in messy environments.

Retention is hard when work is rushed, ownership is limited, and growth paths are unclear. People leave as soon as they find slightly better clarity or stability.

On the economy: it doesn’t feel like a crash, more like a slow grind. Capital is cautious. Hiring is defensive. Every role needs justification.

In this environment, it’s a good time for “hackers” — not security hackers, but people who can glue systems together, work with constraints, ship fast, and move without perfect information.

Comfort-driven careers are struggling. Leverage-driven careers are compounding.

Curious to see how others are experiencing this shift.

I built this: https://github.com/dvcoolarun/web2pdf — a CLI tool for converting web pages to PDFs, recently open-sourced after adding several new features. (Might be useful!)

# -- Not related to the thread, but if anyone is looking to hire a developer or knows of opportunities, I was recently let go and am actively searching. Any leads or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

# Reference CV : https://docs.google.com/document/d/13yYXN_QM-JmGewx9DWC765pp...

Seeking Work | Remote/Onsite | Full-Time/Freelancer/Contractor

Location: Delhi, India

Remote: Yes/Flexible

Willing to relocate: Global

Summary: I have been working in the web development space for the last 7-8 years. I have experience building large-scale web applications using the React/Django Stack and have shipped multiple projects in the past. I have worked in multiple domains including E-commerce, Travel, Carbon Emission, Payment, and Automation, and have built SPA, Dashboards, Landing Pages, email templates, and Python automation scripts.

Technologies: Python/Django, Docker, Linux, React, TypeScript, JavaScript, Redux, HTML, CSS, SQL/Postgres/Sqlite

I am also happy and able to learn new languages, tools, and frameworks as necessary.

Email: dvcoolarun[at]gmail.com

Resume/CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y4eDhMVCYNNc8YplFVjn-k5JEjF...

GitHub: https://github.com/dvcoolarun

I built this: https://github.com/dvcoolarun/web2pdf which gained popularity and was adopted by hundreds of users.

A Python-based tool to convert web articles into PDF format, The project demonstrates expertise in Python development, web scraping, and document processing.

I am always looking for interesting and challenging projects and enjoy collaborating with smart individuals.

Feel free to contact me :)

I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this, but to everyone commenting here saying they’re hiring and asking people to send their CVs —

please have the basic decency to send a simple acknowledgement or revert after receiving them.

This has happened repeatedly over the past few months after sending dozens of emails from these threads, sometimes 10+ at a time. Not getting even a basic response feels extremely disheartening.

I know it’s a tough time for everyone searching for a job, and we all understand if things are slow —

but a small confirmation like “Received, we’ll check” or “Not hiring anymore” takes 5 seconds and makes a world of difference.

Let’s be kinder to each other. It’s been a very hard year

I believe it’s a bubble. Every app interface is becoming similar to ChatGPT, claiming they’ll “help you automate,” while drifting away from the app’s original purpose.

Most of this feels like people trying to get rich off VC money — and VCs trying to get rich off someone else’s money.

There was an article on HN a few days back about how companies like this are influencing the overall freedom of the web (I missed the source) and their own way of doing things. Other examples of influence I see similarly are of Vercel, like with enterprise. Even a few days back, we saw AWS.

https://github.com/dabeaz/concurrencylive

Sometimes not doing the ‘thing’ (in the sense of not jumping into a goal or project) is actually a deliberate, healthy choice — resting, recharging, being in a better mental/physical state. That’s not laziness or procrastination; it’s recovery or self-care.

Seeking Work | Remote/Onsite | Full-Time/Freelancer/Contractor Location: Delhi, India Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Python/Django, Docker, Linux, React, TypeScript, JavaScript, Redux, HTML, CSS, SQL/Postgres/Sqlite

I am also happy and able to learn new languages, tools, and frameworks as necessary.

Resume/CV: https://arun.tiiny.site/

Email: dvcoolarun[at]gmail.com

GitHub: https://github.com/dvcoolarun

Summary: I have been working in the web development space for the last 7-8 years. I have experience building large-scale web applications using the React/Django Stack and have shipped multiple projects in the past. I have worked in multiple domains including E-commerce, Travel, Carbon Emission, Payment, and Automation, and have built SPA, Dashboards, Landing Pages, email templates, and Python automation scripts.

I am always looking for interesting and challenging projects and enjoy collaborating with smart individuals.

Feel free to contact me :)

I built this: https://github.com/dvcoolarun/web2pdf — a CLI tool for converting web pages to PDFs, recently open-sourced after adding several new features. (Might be useful!)

Not related to the thread, but if anyone is looking to hire a developer or knows of opportunities, I was recently let go and am actively searching. Any leads or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Sample PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n7M1TKOptSsYiibrbvV_Yojx53T...

Two days ago, with the launch of OpenAI’s AgentKit, people were claiming that similar tools and startups would become obsolete.

I think the pie is big enough for everyone to benefit.

I haven’t tried these agent-and-connector-based approaches yet — where should someone start to get a good grasp of this kind of automation?

Google Docs and Sheets are still a great way to store data, and this ongoing AI boom will make many people rich while also bringing societal benefits.

Finding such opportunities and making them sustainably profitable is truly great.

If this happens, that's great, but humans still need to understand any amount of code.

A few years ago in India, I saw a presentation where people were attempting to write programming in their mother tongue.

One such effort I found on GitHub is https://github.com/betacraft/rubyvernac-marathi (for Marathi, an Indian dialect).

I built this: https://github.com/dvcoolarun/web2pdf — a CLI tool for converting web pages to PDFs, recently open-sourced after adding several new features. (Might be useful!)

Not related to the thread, but if anyone is looking to hire a developer or knows of opportunities, I was recently let go and am actively searching. Any leads or feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Sample PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n7M1TKOptSsYiibrbvV_Yojx53T...

Seeking Work | Remote/Onsite | Full-Time/Freelancer/Contractor Location: Delhi, India Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Python/Django, Docker, Linux, React, TypeScript, JavaScript, Redux, HTML, CSS, SQL/Postgres/Sqlite

I am also happy and able to learn new languages, tools, and frameworks as necessary.

Resume/CV: https://arun.tiiny.site/

Email: dvcoolarun[at]gmail.com

GitHub: https://github.com/dvcoolarun

Summary: I have been working in the web development space for the last 7-8 years. I have experience building large-scale web applications using the React/Django Stack and have shipped multiple projects in the past. I have worked in multiple domains including E-commerce, Travel, Carbon Emission, Payment, and Automation, and have built SPA, Dashboards, Landing Pages, email templates, and Python automation scripts.

I am always looking for interesting and challenging projects and enjoy collaborating with smart individuals.

Feel free to contact me :)

I’m hearing this argument from a lot of people. I think it’s more of a feeling that anyone can contribute, and now it’s a matter of taste and stamina—who persists and who fizzles out.

Probably also tied to changes in neuroplasticity, I guess. Humans are generally good at adopting new behaviors.

I recently learned that diff algorithms (beyond just code comparison) are used to detect database schema and configuration drift. I thought that was a pretty intriguing application!

I built this: https://github.com/dvcoolarun/web2pdf — a CLI tool for converting web pages to PDFs, open sourced after adding a bunch of new features.

If anyone’s looking to hire a dev or knows of opportunities, I was recently let go and am actively searching. Would appreciate any leads or feedback!

Sample PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n7M1TKOptSsYiibrbvV_Yojx53T...

I believe technical taste is a form of curiosity; it grows as you explore different paradigms and seek out good-quality software for your craft.

While many people program only for the salary, this lacks the obsession that good taste requires.

We can often recognize a person's taste by the content they share over their feeds.

I believe "stupid code" is useful for sticking concepts or quick prototypes together.

But for strategic decisions, having a well-researched document (a PRD or similar) helps as a starting point for iteration, and the approach you take will be influenced by your team's culture.

I believe types are a great way to encourage good practices with relatively little investment. They provide type-safety, act as living documentation, and add an extra layer of protection in production.

However, in a large codebase, consistency can become a challenge. Different developers often approach the same problem in different ways, leading to a mix of type patterns and styles, especially when there’s no clear standard or when the problem itself is complex.

With the rise of LLM-generated code, this issue becomes even more pronounced — code quality and craftsmanship can easily degrade if not guided by proper conventions.

I get the argument for using Postgres, but it's mostly about the convenience of the tool, specific constraints, and the bottlenecks it solves, especially with TTL and a cache interface already implemented.

And dealing with unlogged table contents are not crash-safe.

I believe Redis would have performed better with more allocated CPU.

I don’t think this is the world we were envisioning, where leading companies are suggesting content, tracking our history, and feeding us more socially optimized streams just to keep us hooked and give us dopamine hits.

What I’d prefer is something like dailyflow (I saw it on HN yesterday): a local LLM that tracks my history and how I’m spending my time, then gives me hints when I’m off track — more aligned with what I actually want to see and where I want to go.

It’s a challenge: you put the craftsmanship into a PR, but the reviewer might not share that dedication—they just want to give an LGTM bypass to clear their queue. That's why working at a company that truly values these practices is essential.

RC's funding ( partially from sponsors like Shopify, not just conferences ) was allegedly conditional on this takeover.

Arko registered the Bundler trademark to prevent this corporate capture and plans to give it to a new, truly community-governed organization.

The biggest risk is the loss of long-time maintainers and a resulting community split/forking of key infra. Total mess.

In their mind, I guess everyone is a strong leader, as they say everyone judges themselves by effort and others by results.

From a employee's perspective. I think you get a good idea, when working for a company, if your leader's vibes are off.

If they have a ego or can have a adult conversation or like to avoid it. Since life is not a 'silver lining'

You will meet some behaviours (which you can call toxic or not ) But times are changing, and people are less patient.

To me, talking to strangers is like not flexing that judgment muscle we keep on, while also gaining different perspectives and learning.

I believe giving a talk in a boring manner never helps; it should be influenced by humor, like learning from comedians and how they practice public speaking.

Seeking Work | Remote/Onsite | Full-Time/Freelancer/Contractor Location: Delhi, India Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: Yes

Technologies: Python/Django, Docker, Linux, React, TypeScript, JavaScript, Redux, HTML, CSS, SQL/Postgres/Sqlite

I am also happy and able to learn new languages, tools, and frameworks as necessary.

Resume/CV: https://dvcoolarun.github.io/about/

Email: dvcoolarun[at]gmail.com

GitHub: https://github.com/dvcoolarun

Summary: I have been working in the web development space for the last 7-8 years. I have experience building large-scale web applications using the React/Django Stack and have shipped multiple projects in the past. I have worked in multiple domains including E-commerce, Travel, Carbon Emission, Payment, and Automation, and have built SPA, Dashboards, Landing Pages, email templates, and Python automation scripts.

I am always looking for interesting and challenging projects and enjoy collaborating with smart individuals.

Feel free to contact me :)