Yello! I'm Ian, co-founder and CTO at Giftster. Giftster is an online two-way wishlist service tailored for families and friend groups. Founded in 2008, we have over 3 million members and counting. We are looking for a Senior Fullstack Python/Django Developer to join our web dev team.

In this role, you’ll take ownership of both building and running Giftster’s core systems. This includes our backend services, web platform, and mobile API—all of which power millions of wishlist interactions.

We’re looking for someone who can contribute across the full stack and is equally comfortable shipping new features and ensuring the system operates smoothly in production. Strong experience with Python is essential and Django experience is preferred.

You’ll collaborate with product and design to refine requirements, implement new functionality, improve existing features, and resolve issues. Just as importantly, you’ll help ensure that what we ship remains stable, performant, and reliable for our users.

Core Technologies:

Python, Django, Django REST Framework, Javascript (Vue), CSS (Tailwind), HTMX, Docker, Git, Google Cloud Platform (Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, etc), Cloudflare

We are looking to add to our local team, so while work is remote, all applicants must be local to the Twin Cities MN Greater Metro area. Sorry!

Apply here:

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4405362533/

Thanks for checking us out!

Have you shared it on the Love2D forums yet?

Would it work well for a use case like say, debugging behavior on collision? Like say I fall through a platform, rewind, change a variable, play forwards, fall through, rewind again, etc?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9726832

Points: 5

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9152923

Points: 1

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Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7159416

Points: 6

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This is literally going to ruin someones picnic.

Any chance of defining a custom selection key other than ctrl? On my Macbook air, holding the control key with my pinky or thumb while I type is really awkward. Shift would seem more natural, as the pinky finger is already used to using this as a modifier, no?

Are you just manually updating the page by hand when people add jobs? Kinda concierge style. I would actually respect that all the more.

People talk a big game on MVP, but it's cool to come across where someone actually gets it.

How did you get your initial inventory? Just manually sifting through HN posts? I think getting new and quality inventory will be the biggest challenge, that's harder than getting job seekers.

You've basically created a less crappy and niche focused indeed.com:

http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=&l=Remote

I'm not sure if indeed.com spiders automatically or what, but I'm guessing you could emulate their approach to getting job openings.

Another option is to try to actively partner with headhunters who often have a source of inventory you wouldn't normally see on job boards.

As for the UI, ignore the haters. The simplicity reminds me of Startupers (http://www.startupers.com/) which is doing just fine.

Two suggestions which I think would be really awesome.

!. The hard part of exercising though is getting your butt to the gym. What if you could sign up for a daily email that keeps you at it, challenging you to take it to the next level, tracks your progress, sets goals and reminds you to make them, etc.

2. It's really abstract to just hit key commands without seeing them actually do something. What if you made small animated gifs for each action your are emulating, maybe even with a full fake editor background? This way, your brain would be tricked further that you are actually performing the action represented by the keyboard shortcut.

To me, this is the difference between a good town for bootstrapping and a good town for creating a startup. As it stands, this article seems more like an argument for why Berlin is a great place to bootstrap a company. Which is also great, but different.

I thought long and hard about the "Should I learn Django or Turbogears" question 3 or four years ago, and went with Django. Back then, Django was not yet the "default" answer.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3885348

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Platform is: Bootstrap, Django, Pinax. Hosting it on webfaction.

And if there are any bakers out there or you are interested, I highly recommend this book by authors here in Minneapolis:

http://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Bread-Five-Minutes-Revolutioni...

They have a no-knead bread method that is appeals to the hacker mindset; heavily optimized and efficient.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3818133

Points: 8

# Comments: 2

All my hobbies are too nerdy, and therefor over-served btw. Except one: sailing. Maybe I should take a harder look at that.

So if the time investment is a wash, then it's really a question of what converts better, not based on bulk. I have a feeling calls will...but I don't have the personal data to prove it yet.

It's interesting you had bad experience with calls though. Were you selling something? Maybe that's the difference.

Part of the trick is I don't even have a demographic or problem statement. I'm trolling for ideas with my lure in the water, sailing in circles. Consequently, 50% response rate would be a miracle. But maybe not for cold calls, we'll see.

Also, the whole buy some adwords and do a landing page thing worked for you? I have had zero luck with this approach. How niche was your idea? It seems like a rare combination where 1) The adwords are affordable, and 2) There is enough search traffic to generate real data.

Polite Version: Dear %fill:FirstName%,

First off, sorry for this out of the blue email. I found your name %fill:FoundYourNameSource%, and was hoping you might be able to help me.

My name is Ian Fitzpatrick, I'm the founder of a small software company in Saint Paul. I'm investigating ideas for my next software product, and I'm interested in creating an application that serves your industry.

I see that you're a %fill:JobRole% at %fill:CompanyName%. Are there any parts of your job that you feel are a hassle, repetitive, or error-prone -- where if you had the right software at work, your life might be a little easier? That's the kind of thing I'm super interested in hearing about.

If you have just 20 minutes available any time this week, I'd love the meet and pick your brain. I'm honestly just trying to learn, and hopefully create a product that makes your life a little easier.

Impolite Version:

Hi %fill:FirstName%,

I’m a software developer investigating some projects ideas in the %fill:IndustryName%. I’d like to understand the problems and successes you've had at %fill:CompanyName% a bit better. I’m not trying to sell you anything, I would just like to hear your thoughts on a few things related to the industry.

Do you have 20 minutes available to meet at some point in the next week? I'd like to conduct an informal interview with you.

I'm a fan of your posts and listened to the the interview you gave (eh the link escapes me) and found it super interesting.

After listening to your interview, one thing that I thought of was the advantage you had in at least starting with an industry that you know exists. You can speak their lingo already, you may have some theories on their problems, etc.

But what if you are starting from scratch? In my case, I'm going totally blue sky and just contacting random industries. I contacted farm inspectors, CNC milling companies, elevator repair companies, OSHA consultants, and other random companies. And how honest would you be about your approach, and your ignorance of their industry?

So far I've taken the approach of being as honest and authentic as possible. Perhaps to a fault, I should probably fake up some confidence.

Another thought I had, I think you may have mentioned this in the podcast interview, is in addition to "making it about them" is to offer something of value in return. I have a background in IT support and consulting. So one thing I was thinking to offer was a free IT assessment of their network. Maybe even include an attached invoice with the amounts zero'd out.

I know that the cold email approach is inferior to calling, but I wanted to dip my toe before I took the plunge into cold calls. For what it's worth the one on-site interview I got just lead to a second interview with a different company last week. So I wouldn't say these emails are totally worthless.

Also, what's your workflow for finding cold prospects? I found the most time consuming task was just creating a spreadsheet of contacts, and googling for companies. Maybe I should go to a business library and work with a librarian or something.