samdalton

Vouch | Senior Software Engineer | Remote-first (USA) with in-person hubs (SF, Chicago, NY) | vouch.us/careers

Vouch is a tech-first insurance company working to craft the best insurance for startups and innovators. We’ve raised over $160M from Y-Combinator, Ribbit Capital, and others to build an insurance company that can keep up with the rapid change that characterizes the startup lifecycle. Our team is currently 200+ people and growing. The engineering team (currently ~50 people) moves fast, and we see each person as crucial to the success of the company.

We are hiring Senior Software Engineers for our Data, Platform, and Client Experience teams. Our team has a hybrid remote set up, with offices in SF and Chicago, or fully remote for all roles. We also have full pay transparency, check out our open roles: https://www.vouch.us/careers

I joined Vouch in 2022 to lead Platform Engineering. Our values: Put people first. Serve clients with integrity and excellence. Listen, challenge & grow. Face challenges head on and win as a team.

Feel free to ping me at sam.dalton@vouch.us and I'd be happy to talk to you about some of the exciting work we have going on.

Vouch | Various Engineering Roles | Canada / LatAm / US Remote, or San Francisco/Chicago | FTE | Visa ok

Vouch is building a modern insurance company that can keep up with the rapid change that characterizes the startup lifecycle. We're doing this by making insurance fast, responsive, and focused on our customer - startups. Our team is currently 175+ people and we're planning on doubling over the next year. The engineering team (currently ~50 people) moves fast, and we see each person as crucial to the success of the company. We've raised over $160M from YCombinator, Ribbit Capital, etc and partner closely with Silicon Valley Bank and other key players in the space.

We are hiring Engineers and Engineering Managers across our Data, Platform, Customer Experience, and Enablement teams. Our team has a hybrid remote set up, with offices in SF and Chicago, and many roles fully remote. Check out our open roles: https://www.vouch.us/careers

Feel free to ping me at sam.dalton@vouch.us and I'd be happy to share more about the systems we're building or route you to the right hiring manager.

I've been working with ScriptEd in San Francisco and it's also been awesome! It's really special to be a part of their program and see the impact they're having on local kids and community.

Another great and innovative app thrown into the dust from an acquisition. They actually made working with SQL a joy.

I managed to set one up last week with Wells Fargo. They wouldn't set up a credit account without a SSN, but I have check and savings. Granted, it was because I'm moving there next week, but the process only took an hour, and a few scanned documents.

Colour scheme is awesome!

I think its use is somewhat limited until there's search by genre however, when compared to last.fm events at least. With so many bands around it's hard to think of one to search to see if they've got any gigs on.

I have struggled for a while to get PeepOpen and MacVim working together. I can run :PeepOpen, and it will switch to the running peepopen application, but it doesn't load up with the project files. I've tried all sorts of .vimrc config settings that the internet has to offer, but none worked.

What's in your config for it?

Signed up!

They have a different writing style, although he did appear right out of the blue..

I've been with thiswebhost for a number of years now, and Jules has always been the one to answer support tickets, fix server issues, write blog posts, talk to people on twitter and facebook, etc. Running a shared hosting business in the way that they do can't be very easy, so I suppose it's not always feasible to hire full time customer service staff. The latest post addresses that, and explains mostly everything that went wrong with this ordeal.

Touché. It all seems rather petty, though. They can either both allow ads, or both ban ads, and the public probably doesn't care which scenario happens.

The first public web app I built does this : http://flataccounting.net/

I built it in mid 2008 to help the flat I was living in split bills. It worked well for us, as we were all geeks and were used to using web apps for everyday tasks.

I don't think anyone uses it, but it's been running for 3 years now.

This dialog appeared from the phone being locked. It could not be dismissed by either the home or lock button. The dismiss button shown, removed it, however.

The only apps running at the time were built in iPhone apps, such as safari, photos and mail.

$confusion = ['pro' : 'readable', 'contra' : 'unreadable']

-edit- beaten to the punch on that one!

The Coffeescript ? operator is certainly quite handy. I suppose it's explicit nature is what helps, as information on the error you're trying to mask is built into the syntax. With @ in PHP however, you simply don't know what it's trying to stop, and what undesirable affects it may cause, which I think is the main objection to it.

It shouldn't be ok to write code that is known to throw an error, and handle it by suppressing that error. Silently failing code is just a bug waiting to happen.

It's also making the interpreter do unnecessary error handling work when a simple "if ($_GET['foobar'])" would suffice.

Changing data formats all the time is usually not worth any of the effort involved. XML to JSON seemed to take long enough, and now that we've got a lightweight, internationally accepted, easy to read by humans and computers alike, data interchange format, I think we'd like to keep it for a while.

Many rejections later, but still amped and loving it. They may have already picked a social commerce startup last intake, but they'll wish they took this one instead ;) There's simply nothing else to do but go forwards.

While not strictly a CS book, "Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter definitely has strong roots in the area. It's not a text book, nor anything even close, however, there is a reasonable amount of mathematics and programming language design which make it educational as well as inspirational (particularly formal logic systems, around which the premise of the book is built).

The book is somewhat life changing, in the questions that it asks. You might find yourself thinking about things differently, such as what it is to be conscious, can we ever achieve artificial intelligence, is there such a thing as fate, how was J.S. Bach able to produce such stunning compositions, etc.

It's quite heavy going however, but there's a slightly more succinct, terse version which he wrote a few years ago, called "I Am a Strange Loop". This book takes the point he was trying to make in the first book, and expands on it while adding clarification. It does lack a lot of story that the original contained, so it's not a complete replacement however.

While I think of it, there's also Operating System Concepts by Silberschatz, Gagne and Galvin - http://www.amazon.com/Operating-System-Concepts-Windows-Upda.... It's an extremely detailed look at how operating systems work, down to the lowest level, and it explains a large number of things that we interact with on a daily basis.

I first read GEB 2 years ago and was similarly mind-blown. I found that it didn't answer any questions, but it did ask a lot. I would consider essential reading for anyone studying AI, and indeed for anyone with a curious mind.

I'm also in the middle of I Am a Strange Loop, and it feels very familiar. Hofstadter's wit and skill with words comes through strongly, and the technical depth of thought is equally as compelling.

With regards to approaching the book, I found it enjoyable and helpful to stop every few pages and think about some of the concepts that are posed. Don't consider it a book on AI, or computing, or Bach, or Escher, or Godel, or quirky narratives. Instead, just go with it and follow along with the story. It takes a while, but once you've finished, you'll want to read it again.

If you're enjoying the project, and think it can go somewhere, then don't give up. It's the hard times that flush out those who aren't committed.

As for being lonely, try jumping on Twitter. There will be hundreds of people in your local area on it who will most likely be very friendly. I've met at least 50 people in real life who I would never have known were it not for twitter, and have even made a couple of friends overseas. Meetup.com is another great resource for finding like-minded people.

The major difference between the iOS store and the upcoming Mac App Store will be the volume of available apps. The Mac App Store will likely result in a larger volume of available apps than there are today, but compared to the sheer numbers on the iOS store, it will still be a small amount. This will perhaps make it easier for newcomers, but as Davide says, it's down to the quality of your app and making something that people actually want to have.

There's a chance to make money in either store, but it won't be achieved by making a better version of an existing app, it will be by making something that no one's seen before.

http://fairtradeauckland.org/

Fair trade is an industry that places emphasis on the producers of goods, rather than the distributors of them. A group of people in Auckland, New Zealand, are donating their time and resources to try and convert Auckland to be a fair trade city. With a population of over 1M people, this would make a significant difference to the lives of many producers in developing areas.

I've been managing social media and IT for the group, but we've yet to find a good design for our branding. The website above is a temporary page with some basic information, however as you can see it's nothing flash.

The entire project is coming from community efforts, so this would fit us perfectly, and if we're successful in our goal, many people around the world will benefit.