The times are a-changing; what's relevant now is figuring out the most efficient uses of AI, and keeping up with how that evolves month to month. Big opportunities there for people who can stay flexible.

1. As others pointed out, we feed all the same research turns to a smaller model, so we pay the uncached price for all of them.

2. During research, the model typically reads more code than is relevant, to figure out what is relevant and what is not. If that's the expensive part, we keep paying for those turns with the most expensive model?

3. There is no quality comparison of the resulting code. Same plan != same code, and AI tokens during the initial implementation phase isn't the only cost attributable to the task.

I do the opposite:

1. Outsource research to a subagent, or several parallel subagents. Let them output the relevant code paths only. Using gpt-5.6-terra-high on Codex and sonnet on Claude. Merge results into a single per-task research file. This saves tokens and context window of the bigger model, and avoids re-researching after compactions and in subagents.

2. Use the smartest agent (Sol xhigh ultra / Fable max) for both planning and execution. Tell it to use the research file where possible.

3. Switch to dumber agents for verbose substeps, e.g. gpt-5.6-luna-medium / sonnet is enough to drive browser use.

Sadly, got no numbers to back this approach.

PS: Of course, different task complexities and codebase complexities demand different approaches. The most expensive part is actually the code review step, which they don't mention/have at all. We should come up with some sort of complexity grading, so that discussions like this can be contextualized.

I stopped using it right after graduating high school (where it was required), never used in drafts after elementary school, and only ever used normal print letters in the university (and also included TeX commands because I was typesetting lecture notes later and was figuring out the optimal command set on the fly).

Why JWT is bad: it's a cargo cult solving a non-existent issue in a more complicated way than necessary. An HTTPOnly session cookie containing just a random ID is shorter and easier to handle.

Why JWT is also bad: a typical way to use it exposes too much attack surface. Almost every JWT library has way too much functionality, supports multiple algorithms, and many people are too sloppy with their dependencies, so you probably haven't read every line of code that runs in your auth.

How to use JWT safely:

1. Have a use case that cannot be easier solved with just a random session identifier. For example, one party creates tokens and another unrelated party verifies them. If same party issues and validates tokens, you better have a super high load, unique use case -- but then you're senior enough to not take random advice from strangers.

2. Write your own JWT handling code. It's literally a few lines of code to create tokens and a few dozen to validate. Only implement the exact algorithms and claims you use.

3. In a typical scenario, JWT should still carry something like a user ID which you should immediately verify against a database. Stateless sessions doesn't mean no DB lookups on validation. If you DO authenticate based on the token alone, the token should be super short lived (seconds or single digit minutes).

We're a fast-growing custom & private loyalty platform powering programs for household-name brands. Small, fully-remote team across the US and Europe.

We want a detail-obsessed, autonomous mid-to-senior engineer (~5–10 yrs) to investigate customer problems, drive integrations end to end, and own the specs that make them work.

You will use AI to its fullest, but will keep a very close eye on whatever that AI produces. As such, this role is less about coding, and more about figuring out what to build, how that best fits into the system, and why things are as they are, debugging edge cases, anticipating failure modes, talking to people, and plain old debugging.

Tech-wise, we're running on Golang, and using custom database engine on top of local key-value stores, colocating the storage and compute on dedicated hardware servers, and reading data directly from mmap'ed pages of the database. Ever came across HN saying that one can run Twitter on a single machine these days? We're doing that in production. Zero lines of React, few third-party dependencies carefully vetted, every line of JavaScript manually written, and we render HTML server-side like it's 2005.

You: detail-oriented to a fault, self-motivated about investigation/debugging work, comfortable spoken English for client calls, available 9am to noon in New York time.

We are straightforward, driven, personal, and a little messy. We all care, and we expect you to care too.

Details + how to apply: https://jobs.bubblehouse.com/integration-engineer/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48026755

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Bubblehouse is a fast-growing custom loyalty platform, tripling the revenue each year. Headquartered in NYC, the entire team is fully remote and spread across the globe. We power loyalty programs for brands like American Girl and Old Spice.

We’re expanding our lean team of extremely experienced developers. Companies are switching from other platforms thanks to the customizations and flexibility that we offer, enabled by our pace and technical excellence, which we intend to keep for years to come.

We run on Golang and use custom data storage on top of local key-value stores, colocating the storage and compute on dedicated hardware servers, and reading data directly from mmap’ed pages of the database. Ever came across HN saying that one can run Twitter on a single machine these days? We’re doing that in production.

Zero lines of React, almost zero third-party dependencies (carefully vetted), every line of JavaScript manually written with respect and understanding of the web platform. We render HTML server-side like it’s 2005.

Looking for:

1. Top to bottom understanding of the software stack, from the modern-ish web platform to CPU caches.

2. Thinking and problem solving outside the box. (We don’t _always_ go for unconventional solutions, but we do it often enough to require a person who can do justice considering the entire problem space at every step.)

3. Demonstrated ability and hunger to learn new things quickly. (Every month we’re doing things we have never done before.)

4. Broad experience across multiple programming paradigms, platforms and software stacks.

5. Demonstrated care for the software craftsmanship (which can take many forms).

6. Great spoken English, and ability to communicate 9am to noon in New York time zone.

We give you a literally fast-paced environment (with features delivered in days) where you need to solve very challenging problems with practical advanced technology, take on entrenched market leaders, and help entrepreneurs across small and large businesses delight their fans.

Send a plain text cover letter to andrey+hiring@bubblehouse.com. Help us see how you stand out. Summarize your experience. Link to 1–5 impressive things you’ve built and proud of, link to where we can see some of your code, include your portfolio/CV, describe the platforms and stacks you’re an expert in. How did you start programming? What are you most passionate about in technology? What are the most interesting or weird things you’ve done? What are your strongest held professional opinions? Please make your email easy to read, we’ll appreciate that.

(If you have applied before, no need to re-apply, we’ll reach out.)

Bubblehouse is a fast-growing custom loyalty platform, tripling the revenue each year. Headquartered in NYC, the entire team is fully remote and spread across the globe. We power loyalty programs for brands like American Girl and Old Spice.

We’re expanding our lean team of extremely experienced developers. Companies are switching from other platforms thanks to the customizations and flexibility that we offer, enabled by our pace and technical excellence, which we intend to keep for years to come.

We run on Golang and use custom data storage on top of local key-value stores, colocating the storage and compute on dedicated hardware servers, and reading data directly from mmap’ed pages of the database. Ever came across HN saying that one can run Twitter on a single machine these days? We’re doing that in production.

Zero lines of React, almost zero third-party dependencies (carefully vetted), every line of JavaScript manually written with respect and understanding of the web platform. We render HTML server-side like it’s 2005.

Looking for:

1. Top to bottom understanding of the software stack, from the modern-ish web platform to CPU caches.

2. Thinking and problem solving outside the box. (We don’t _always_ go for unconventional solutions, but we do it often enough to require a person who can do justice considering the entire problem space at every step.)

3. Demonstrated ability and hunger to learn new things quickly. (Every month we’re doing things we have never done before.)

4. Broad experience across multiple programming paradigms, platforms and software stacks.

5. Demonstrated care for the software craftsmanship (which can take many forms).

6. Great spoken English, and ability to communicate 9am to noon in New York time zone.

We give you a literally fast-paced environment (with features delivered in days) where you need to solve very challenging problems with practical advanced technology, take on entrenched market leaders, and help entrepreneurs across small and large businesses delight their fans.

Send a plain text cover letter to andrey+hiring@bubblehouse.com. Help us see how you stand out. Summarize your experience. Link to 1–5 impressive things you’ve built and proud of, link to where we can see some of your code, include your portfolio/CV, describe the platforms and stacks you’re an expert in. How did you start programming? What are you most passionate about in technology? What are the most interesting or weird things you’ve done? What are your strongest held professional opinions? Please make your email easy to read, we’ll appreciate that.

(If you have applied before, no need to re-apply, we’ll reach out.)

What you should be imagining instead is a document database entirely built around Lite³-encoded documents, using something like rollback journals instead of MVCC.

We're doing something similar in my company, storing zero-serialization immutable [1] docs in a key-value store (which are read via mmap with zero copying disk-to-usage) and using a mutable [2] overlay patch format for updates. In our analytics use cases, compact storage is very important, in-place mutability is irrelevant (again because of Copy-on-Write at the key-value store level), and the key advantage is zero serialization overhead.

What I'm saying is that Lite³ is a very timely and forward-looking format, but the merging of immutable and mutable formats into one carries tradeoffs that you probably want to discuss, and the discussion into the appropriate use cases is very much worth having.

[1] https://github.com/andreyvit/edb/blob/main/kvo/immutable.go [2] https://github.com/andreyvit/edb/blob/main/kvo/mutable.go

Bubblehouse is a fast-growing custom loyalty platform, tripling the revenue each year. Headquartered in NYC, the entire team is fully remote and spread across the globe. We power loyalty programs for brands like American Girl and Old Spice.

We’re expanding our lean team of extremely experienced developers. Companies are switching from other platforms thanks to the customizations and flexibility that we offer, enabled by our pace and technical excellence, which we intend to keep for years to come.

We run on Golang and use custom data storage on top of local key-value stores, colocating the storage and compute on dedicated hardware servers, and reading data directly from mmap’ed pages of the database. Ever came across HN saying that one can run Twitter on a single machine these days? We’re doing that in production.

Zero lines of React, almost zero third-party dependencies (carefully vetted), every line of JavaScript manually written with respect and understanding of the web platform. We render HTML server-side like it’s 2005.

Looking for:

1. Top to bottom understanding of the software stack, from the modern-ish web platform to CPU caches.

2. Thinking and problem solving outside the box. (We don’t _always_ go for unconventional solutions, but we do it often enough to require a person who can do justice considering the entire problem space at every step.)

3. Demonstrated ability and hunger to learn new things quickly. (Every month we’re doing things we have never done before.)

4. Broad experience across multiple programming paradigms, platforms and software stacks.

5. Demonstrated care for the software craftsmanship (which can take many forms).

6. Great spoken English, and ability to communicate 9am to noon in New York time zone.

We give you a literally fast-paced environment (with features delivered in days) where you need to solve very challenging problems with practical advanced technology, take on entrenched market leaders, and help entrepreneurs across small and large businesses delight their fans.

Send a plain text cover letter to andrey+hiring@bubblehouse.com. Help us see how you stand out. Summarize your experience. Link to 1–5 impressive things you’ve built and proud of, link to where we can see some of your code, include your portfolio/CV, describe the platforms and stacks you’re an expert in. How did you start programming? What are you most passionate about in technology? What are the most interesting or weird things you’ve done? What are your strongest held professional opinions? Please make your email easy to read, we’ll appreciate that.

(If you have applied before, no need to re-apply, we’ll reach out.)

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45415972

Points: 8

# Comments: 0

Bubblehouse is a fast-growing custom and private loyalty platform. Headquartered in NYC, the entire team is fully remote and spread across US and Europe. We power loyalty programs for large brands, including household names.

We’re again expanding our lean team of extremely experienced developers. Companies are switching from other platforms thanks to the customizations and flexibility that we offer, enabled by our pace and technical excellence, which we intend to keep for years to come.

Tech-wise, we’re running on Golang, and using custom data storage on top of local key-value stores, colocating the storage and compute on dedicated hardware servers, and reading data directly from mmap’ed pages of the database. Ever came across HN saying that one can run Twitter on a single machine these days? We’re doing that in production.

Zero lines of React, almost zero third-party dependencies (carefully vetted), every line of JavaScript manually written with respect and understanding of the web platform. We render HTML server-side like it’s 2005.

Looking for:

1. Top to bottom understanding of the software stack, from the modern-ish web platform to CPU caches.

2. Thinking and problem solving outside the box. (We don’t _always_ go for unconventional solutions, but we do it often enough to require a person who can do justice considering the entire problem space at every step.)

3. Demonstrated ability and hunger to learn new things quickly. (Every month we’re doing things we have never done before.)

4. Broad experience across multiple programming paradigms, platforms and software stacks.

5. Demonstrated care for the software craftsmanship (which can take many forms).

6. Great spoken English, and ability to communicate 9am to noon in New York time zone.

We give you a literally fast-paced environment (with features delivered in days) where you need to solve very challenging problems with practical advanced technology, take on entrenched market leaders, and help entrepreneurs across small and large businesses delight their fans.

Send a plain text cover letter to andrey+hiring@bubblehouse.com. Help us see how you stand out. Summarize your experience. Link to 1–5 impressive things you’ve built and proud of, link to where we can see some of your code, include your portfolio/CV, describe the platforms and stacks you’re an expert in. How did you start programming? What are you most passionate about in technology? What are the most interesting or weird things you’ve done? What are your strongest held professional opinions? Please make your email easy to read, we’ll appreciate that.

(If you have applied before, no need to re-apply, we’ll reach out.)

Bubblehouse provides a white-glove, custom loyalty platform tailored for e-commerce brands — from small enthusiast shops to large enterprises (for example, we're powering loyalty for one of Mattel's brands). We're fast, lean, and love solving niche loyalty challenges.

We need a reliable Magento/PHP freelancer to tackle occasional Magento 2 tasks related to our Magento integration and problem solving for clients. You’ll be our go-to person for ongoing development and problem-solving related to our Magento integration module.

The ideal candidate:

- Has solid hands-on experience with Magento 2 internals (custom modules, observers, integrations).

- Writes clean, modern PHP, uses Composer & Git confidently.

- Knows how to diagnose tricky Magento issues.

- Can overlap partially with our team between 9 am – noon New York time for quick check-ins while actively engaged on our tasks.

- Can self-direct, communicate clearly, and invoice cleanly.

Work style:

- Fully remote, async-first. Occasional calls only as needed, we hate unnecessary calls.

- Compact, friendly, no-nonsense team.

- Quick task turnarounds, minimal bureaucracy.

Interested? Fill out this form to apply: https://bubblehouse.typeform.com/to/wsGgLyb2