So a little backstory, I have worked in Logistics and warehousing, albeit as a senior dev on robotics solutions and its needed implementations.
What you don't want to do is hire a team inhouse if your pain timeline needs fixing in < 1 Financial Year.
As someone mentioned. Senior freelancers preferably with some domain exposure.
Don't think of this as a software problem, but a house rennovation project!
Here is the playbook we have recommended and executed for many clients,
- Hire a documentation guy. Start writing/drawing out all business processes your current third party system serves. Use BPMN if possible.
- Sit down with a senior dev to draw a High Level Design of this system. And find subsystems or funcitons which you can live with, vs things which absolutely need retrofit/rewrite.
- See how you can define a scope of work where what's good keeps running, and a new smaller better subsystem starts taking over functions you need replacement.
- rinse repeat.
---
Strategically speaking,
Hiring is a bit painful. Depends on geography. Retaining someone beyond 3-5 years is difficult. People churn out of boredom as the work gets repetitive and they don't get to flex their tech stack itch.
Money wise, is the third-party company a potential acquihire target?
If its small, why not take it over and inhouse the team.
You would get the "catered to us" part sorted and you can still sell to other customers if you so desire. This has its own risk-reward. But I will let you be the judge of it.
And in anycase, get an independent technical consultant to cover your blind side.
I have grappled with the same conundrum.
Here are my takes on documentation writing.
First is the X axis of type of document we are called on to write.
1. There is personal writing. books included.
2. Personal Blogging and Dev Rel publishing.
3. Then there is developer tool documentation. [code snippets, sdks, libraries]
4. Then there is product documentation. [images, steps, how tos]
Then there is Y axis of tools.
1. markdown and with it Z axis of mkdocs, hugo, KMSs like obsidian <name everything markdown here>
2. rst
3. org?
3. wysiswg editors or anything custom.
I find
- markdown both ubiquitous and somewhat approachable. for most beginners.
with obsidian/logseq/... it can also work for non tech writers too.
its also more widely supported. [Github i am looking at you]
- dev rel/dev tools docs with sphinx and rst is absolutely godsend! also a vibrant ecosystem.
- product docs with mkdocs x markdown if its a consumer facing docs with lots of images and need for customizing. rst if its a developer product.
> If your company is paying for commercial software that includes kernel drivers or kernel modules, you can make eBPF a requirement.
Windows soon, may still be atleast a year ahead. Would that be a fair statement? atleast being the operating keyword here.
Specifically in the context of network security software, for eBPF programs to be portable across windows/linux, we would need MSFT to add a lot more hooks and expose internal kernel stucts. Hopefully via a common libbpf definition.
Otherwise, I fear, having two versions of the same product, across two OSs would mean more secuirty and quality issues.
I guess the point I am trying to make is, we would get there, but we are more than a few years away.
I would love to see something like cilium on vanilla windows for a Software defined Company Wide network. We can then start building enterprise network secutiry into it. Baby steps!
---
btw, your talks and blog posts about bpftools is godsent!
Technologies: Python,Golang, Cpp. ML[NLP + GenAI], ROS, Linux [Kernel + Networking + eBPF], k8s+docker [as a PaaS operator]. Worked fullstack but these are my preferred tools for deep work.
Engagement: Fulltime or Contract [if you have a welldefined need which I can help with]
---
I'm Shaishav (@wiresurfer) and I am seeking out my next challenge. I am on a career break after working for the last 15 years, so I am putting this out here to let serendipity do its thing.
A bit about me:
>15 years of experience in the industry. Microsoft Research -> startup -> Head of Technology for a GigaWatt scale Wind+Solar Renewable Energy Firm -> Cloud PaaS +Industrial Robotics for a Series B+ Japanese Robotics Firm.
I have put on many hats over the years. I can setup business units, run product, or build out engineering teams + products
Thrive in deep tech environments. Healthcare/SpaceTech/Modern Datacentre stacks excite me. AI/ML/Renewable, Industrial Iot, Logistics and Robotics are things I can help on day 0.
Now that's one tricky rabbit hole. If you are planning on buying a camera, the deliberation seems to be a part of the shopping process.
Post buying though, the differences seem either very important, or don't matter at all. Depends on how serious you want to get with the cameras.
did you chance upon @MentourPilot on youtube and his breakdown of the MH370 investigation + recent update?
If not, I am afraid you may have another hour to spend, but its very likely you have already seen this.
So, I was looking at some performance issues which seemed to be stemming from linux networking stack. We eBPF with docker/k8s a fair bit as a PaaS, and I ended up getting into the weeds with linux sys/procfs and kernel tracing.
One thing led to another and after quickly dispatching the perf issue, I was supposed to be on a planned week long holiday which turned into a deep dive into linux kernel + networking.
Intermediate step
- I feel pretty confident with the gory details of the kernel code now. can possibly build a custom kernel, boot qemu with both a simple C+assembly bare metal kernel, or the self compiled kernel. I feels like the clouds have cleared and I can see the sun.
- Incidentally the kernel source code is pretty well documented, but one thing which is missing is a much smaller list of files which are most important. true pareto here. 20% files carry the weight. You also need to know the subsystem you want to touch. Chances are that subsystem is much lesser number of files.
Finally
- Got to reading about kernel packet handling. at the L2/L3/L7 level. from nic hardware to userspace.
Turns out that eBPF [hello old friend!] has a networking avataar called XDP which is pretty recent [<5 years] way of doing high performance networking on the linux kernel.
Along the way, got to know about network performance optimizations specially in modern multicore systems in the kernel like RPS/RSS/aRFS, DPDK/fd.io/VPP.
And now I feel the itch to apply this to some of our networks.
Particularly, baremetal servers on equinix metal + aws ec2 + azure can be peered with either VPP/Bird to make a p2p connection which is a factor more performant than the vpc interconnect/gateways which are provided off the shelf.
I might extend the holiday by a few days. and I would love to talk to people who have hands on experience with any of this. Its hard to contain my excitement tbh.
out of curiosity, if the blog post itself an org-mode output?
if yes then :
1. What tools did you use for the images?
2. That's a neat sidebar. custom ya-snippets?
3. Would love to take a leaf out of your dotfiles/.emacsd
Thanks. The blog is generated by Hugo from org using ox-hugo[1]. The sidebar is part of the Hugo Cactus theme[2], which I modified a bit for my use.
The "flow charts" were made in Inkscape. No custom (ya)snippets are in use. (My Emacs configuration is linked to on the home page of the blog, but there isn't anything particularly interesting about it.)
If you do find out how the page is translated from org to the html/css we see, could you please let me know? I agree about the page, I think it looks great.
Location: Bangalore, India
Remote: Remote only
Willing to relocate: Maybe. Depends.
Technologies: python/golang/kubernetes | ROS & ROS2 robotics | ML
Overview:
Open to Projects/Consulting Work for now.
I am seeking out interesting projects/people to work with.
Robotics, Space tech and Energy/Industrial IoT are areas where I may add value
Most recently, running a 35+ eng team for a Cloud Robotics Platform. As a Platform Operator/Architect, run a 24x7 cloud k8s platform for ROS.
Simulation + Connected Robots. ROS communication, CI/CD, Metrics Collection and Remote Debug tooling.
Before this, I was the architect and tech founder for an
Industrial IoT Saas product. From prototype to market, built a platform for Energy Optimisation across three verticals.
- Renewable Energy [Wind farm optimisation, predictive maintenance]
- Industrial automation [Factory Management Systems, Building Management System, Energy Efficiency Programs]
- Rooftop solar Monitoring
Early background is in ML research specialising in semantic hashing at a FAANG company. Built services with <30ms resp time, 10Mil req/sec back in 2013-2015
Have been in hands-on product and team building roles since 2015. Both as a two time founder and as an Engineering Manger.
Email: kr.shaishav@gmail.com
Mention "From HN:" in the subject for easier tracking.
I've been burnt out with the current state of work.
I work for a japanese cloud robotics company and have been witness to a great long term idea being plagued by bad management and strategy.
To manage my headspace, have been doing the following
1. Writing.
Realising the value of communication for teams, have been writing up a lot of my learning into a series of documents which talk strategy and decision frameworks for CXOs.
I share with a close-knit group of startup founders and product managers in Bangalore. The problems seems pervasive in Indian startups in their growth stage after their series a. specially with the funding spree and the need for hyper-growth.
So talking to peers and collating knowledge has been the only way to stay sane :)
2. Gardening and hydroponics. Health in general, but the issue of getting good produce for a clean diet has always been a neglected aspect of my life. My wife and I decided we wanted to spend some time disconnected from devices. Gardening just happened and we haven't looked back since.
Its become a routine thing and there is satisfaction in plucking your produce and tending to it.
3. Reviving some of the projects I had worked on in the past but got shelved and opensourcing them.
- Low cost IoT WiFi connected 4 node Energy Monitor + Switch. This was a PCB design + firmware + plus the Backend + Frontend+Analysis service + ML models to detect anomalies as well as predict usage.
- A self hosted algolia alternative for User Docs.
Sure.
So a lot of what you want to grow depends on the weather prevailing in your area. If you have warm and humid climate with atleast 60% sunlight days. you should be able to grow about anything.
Top 3 suggestions
1. start small. preferably with herbs. Their time to harvest is low and as with anything, you need iterations and immediate gratification to keep you going.
If this is your first time gardening, then i would say, go with plain gardening and graduate to hydroponics with the healthy plants from your first produce
coriander, cilantro, lettuce are good first candidates.
2. There are hydroponic starter kits with plumbing pipes, and minimum hardware. If you want to hit the ground running, then go for these. Otherwise, DIY is possible.
3. Use grow lights if you have variability in sunlight in your area.
What you don't want to do is hire a team inhouse if your pain timeline needs fixing in < 1 Financial Year.
As someone mentioned. Senior freelancers preferably with some domain exposure.
Don't think of this as a software problem, but a house rennovation project!
Here is the playbook we have recommended and executed for many clients,
- Hire a documentation guy. Start writing/drawing out all business processes your current third party system serves. Use BPMN if possible.
- Sit down with a senior dev to draw a High Level Design of this system. And find subsystems or funcitons which you can live with, vs things which absolutely need retrofit/rewrite.
- See how you can define a scope of work where what's good keeps running, and a new smaller better subsystem starts taking over functions you need replacement.
- rinse repeat.
--- Strategically speaking, Hiring is a bit painful. Depends on geography. Retaining someone beyond 3-5 years is difficult. People churn out of boredom as the work gets repetitive and they don't get to flex their tech stack itch.
Money wise, is the third-party company a potential acquihire target? If its small, why not take it over and inhouse the team. You would get the "catered to us" part sorted and you can still sell to other customers if you so desire. This has its own risk-reward. But I will let you be the judge of it.
And in anycase, get an independent technical consultant to cover your blind side.