Hacker News: jadowdl

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2026)"

jadowdl — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 04:51:03 +0000

We are a people-first, boutique tech agency creating on-demand teams and software solutions for long-standing clients. These clients trust us to practice engineering excellence as though we were members of their own staff. Our leadership team is ex-Fortune 100 with software engineering backgrounds: we’re still coding. Notable recent projects include a gigantic ERP migration for Anduril Industries, and a skunkworks with Surge Labs helping to develop some of the frontier LLM models themselves (yes, seriously). This is a remote-first agency, but some projects involve onsite work.

I’m the founder and CEO, and I’m trying to do what I call “enlightened business”. I take responsibility for both staff and clients, and I look for people who approach their work with a similar sense of ownership. Applicants must meet a high bar - I personally review every hire. In return you’ll get:

  * Flexibility and a low-bureaucracy environment
  * Clients that won’t treat the vendor like “the B Team”
  * The chance to act as a code architect, not just implement tickets
  * Exposure to a wide variety of industries and modern challenges
  * Me as your personal champion and advocate

Feel free to submit, even if you already did in the past.

We’re currently especially seeking:

Back-end, Front-end, and Full-Stack Software Engineers, Tiers 3 and 4 (Typescript/Javascript, React, NextJS; Ruby on Rails; Python; DevOps, and third-party API integrations)

Tier 3 roles are typically 5-10 years experience with $150-$180K total comp.

Tier 4 roles are 11-20 years experience, $215-$260K total comp.

Higher tiers exist, and we always welcome exceptional applications.

Though not yet universal, many of our clients are now demanding senior/staff engineers with success using modern agentic approaches. Be ready to explain where current models work well and where they do not.

Please apply using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/s69DsUnx2SFBxaur6

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2026)"

jadowdl — Tue, 12 May 2026 23:13:18 +0000

Update here, May 13, we're still taking submissions. I have done at least a quick scan personally through all the resumes that were submitted in the Google Form through May 11 (or, tried at least -- _several_ of you have permissions issues on the link you sent, esp. if Google Docs are involved), and am trying to tie resumes that were emailed in back to form submissions for some of you. Please note that I am one of the few _not_ using an LLM/agent to help me process these things; I am going through them by hand, the old fashioned way, and in some cases poking at githubs, passion sites, and linkedin, as I go along -- because I often don't know what's good or bad until I'm in the raw data. I have only called two people so far for an initial interview, and have approximately 5 additional heads earmarked for imminent initial contact, and will continue running down my to-hit list despite only having a few hours a week to review submissions and run interviews. Some feedback (since most other firms aren't doing this?), despite nearly 150 submissions so far in May, the vast majority seem to be low-quality AI generated/submitted, and separately, just not a fit for our Tier 3 and especially our Tier 4 roles. If you can list "senior" or "staff" engineer on resume, at a company I have heard of and can verify, and were making at least $200k a year there (possibly much more) total comp, I really would love for you to throw your hat in my ring. For a little more anchoring against the T4 position -- I'm hoping to see career high-watermark of at least Google L4 / Microsoft 63 / Amazon SDE2 level.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2026)"

jadowdl — Tue, 12 May 2026 22:54:29 +0000

I mean, feel free to throw your name in our system by submitting, but yeah, the vast majority of our work is directly for our clients, and right now in May 2026, most of our clients are states side and most like at least _the idea_ that they could fly somebody on our staff out for an onsite with them if needed. That said, we have had (and in one case still have) international clients, and sometimes local clients don't mind timezone issues as much if they get good talent for money; things are always in flux in the market.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2026)"

jadowdl — Mon, 04 May 2026 21:35:11 +0000

You're more than welcome to apply, and we'll have a record of your resume/cv and interest if you do. And, we do engage talent from abroad, and even have a client in Europe (Norway). But, just to set expectations, we're strongly focused on filling in-USA roles at the moment.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2026)"

jadowdl — Sat, 02 May 2026 02:17:45 +0000

We are a people-first, boutique tech agency creating on-demand teams and software solutions for long-standing clients, who trust us to practice engineering excellence as though we were members of their own staff. Our leadership team is ex-Fortune 100, with software engineering backgrounds and who are still coding. Notable recent projects include internal tools for Anduril, and the original buildout (both auction site and operations infrastructure) of Voltage Park. This is a remote-first agency, but some projects involve onsite work.

Applicants must meet a high bar - I personally review every hire. In return you’ll get:

  * Flexibility and a low-bureaucracy environment
  * Clients that won’t treat the vendor like “the B Team”
  * The chance to act as a code architect, not just implement tickets
  * Exposure to a wide variety of industries and modern challenges
  * Me as your personal champion and advocate

Feel free to submit, even if you already did in the past.

We’re currently especially seeking:

Back-end, Front-end, and Full-Stack Software Engineers, Tiers 3 and 4 (Typescript/Javascript, React, NextJS; Ruby on Rails; Python; DevOps, and third-party API integrations)

Our Tier 3 ("mid-tier") roles are typically 5-10 years experience with $150-$180K total annual comp.

Our Tier 4 ("senior") roles are 11-20 years experience, $215-$260K total annual comp.

(Higher tiers exist, and we always welcome exceptional applications.)

Please apply using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/7yv5jhybsGRNDx3o9

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2026)"

jadowdl — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 04:06:03 +0000

I’m the founder, trying to do “enlightened business.” We are a people-first, fully-remote (but some clients offer onsite…), boutique indie tech agency – building a team of talented, high integrity, and community-minded individuals, first, then building businesses around them, second. Our leadership staff are ex-Fortune 100; everybody touches code. Notable recent projects: internal tools for Anduril, and voltagepark.com.

We’re currently especially seeking:

Full-Stack Software Engineers (Typescript/Javascript, React, NextJS, Ruby on Rails; Python; Devops, and third-party API integrations)

(Check back soon; more roles for at least QA Engineers, ML/AI, and DevOps posting later in March.)

Please apply using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/Bv5zVjQDjgaLWqSp7. Applicants who submit before March 15 will typically receive a reply by March 22. Tier3 roles are typically 5-10 y/o/e with $150-$180k annual total comp. Tier4 roles are 11-20 y/o/e, $215-$260k annual total comp. Higher tiers exist, and we welcome exceptional applications.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (January 2026)"

jadowdl — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 06:04:53 +0000

I’m the founder, trying to do “enlightened business.” We are a people-first, fully-remote, boutique indie tech agency – building a team of talented, high integrity, and community-minded individuals first, then building businesses around them. Our leadership staff are ex-Fortune 100; everybody touches code. Notable recent projects: internal tools for Anduril, and the auction system for voltagepark.com.

We’re currently especially seeking:

Full-Stack Software Engineers (React, NextJS, Ruby on Rails; Typescript, Python; Database Design, Devops, and third-party API integrations)

IoT Developers (Python, MQTT, GraphQL, AWS, Test Infrastructure)

Please apply using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/Dxpj7eTwcHpjiGT39. Applicants who submit before January 15 will typically receive a reply by January 31. Tier3 roles are typically 5-10 y/o/e with $150-$175k annual total comp. Tier4 roles are 11-20 y/o/e, $210-$250k annual total comp. Higher tiers exist, and we welcome exceptional applications.

REGARDING DECEMBER - if you already submitted to last December's post, and haven't heard from us yet, we're still getting to you. The team's been working really hard over the last year, and I unexpectedly gave most of the folks helping me with job submissions the time off at the end of December / beginning of January. Apologies for the delay, and we will be with you soon. Rest assured there are jobs we're trying to fill - in fact, more than ever, it seems.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2025)"

jadowdl — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 07:46:26 +0000

We’re currently especially seeking:

Full-Stack Software Engineers (React, NextJS, Ruby on Rails; Typescript, Python; Database Design, Devops, and third-party API integrations)

IoT Developers (Python, MQTT, GraphQL, AWS, Test Infrastructure)

Please apply using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/Dxpj7eTwcHpjiGT39. Applicants who submit before December 19 will typically receive a reply by December 29. Tier3 roles are typically 5-10 y/o/e with $150-$175k annual total comp. Tier4 roles are 11-20 y/o/e, $210-$250k annual total comp. Higher tiers exist, and we welcome exceptional applications.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2025)"

jadowdl — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 20:12:12 +0000

We’re currently especially seeking:

Frontend Engineers (React, NextJS, Typescript; Animations, Performance optimization; sfbay local a plus)

Teamcenter and Odoo developers (C++/Java/Python; Siemens Teamcenter; Custom applications, workflows, data model updates)

IoT Developers (Python, MQTT, GraphQL, AWS, Test Infrastructure)

Full-Stack Software Engineers (React, Python, Ruby on Rails; Database Design, Devops, and third-party API integrations)

Please apply using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/oJHSjofaxTjSPexW8. Applicants who submit before November 14 will typically receive a reply by November 21. Tier3 roles are typically 5-10 y/o/e with $150-$175k annual total comp. Tier4 roles are 11-20 y/o/e, $210-$250k annual total comp. Higher tiers exist, and we welcome exceptional applications.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2025)"

jadowdl — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 06:23:33 +0000

We’re currently especially seeking:

Frontend Engineers (React, NextJS, Typescript; Animations, Performance optimization; sfbay local a plus)

Teamcenter and Odoo developers (C++/Java/Python; Siemens Teamcenter; Custom applications, workflows, data model updates)

IoT Developers (Python, MQTT, GraphQL, AWS, Test Infrastructure)

Full-Stack Software Engineers (React, Python, Ruby on Rails; Database Design, Devops, and third-party API integrations)

Please apply using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/3Hv6cwZzAzwqKMGz9. Applicants who submit before October 17 will typically receive a reply by October 24. Tier3 roles are typically 5-10 y/o/e with $150-$175k annual total comp. Tier4 roles are 11-20 y/o/e, $210-$250k annual total comp. Higher tiers exist, and we welcome exceptional applications.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2025)"

jadowdl — Thu, 04 Sep 2025 06:00:38 +0000

@alexander2002 - "mostly". The jobs we're actively sourcing for here are USA remote and/or hybrid. As we say, we're always interested in exceptional resumes, where-ever they are in the world, and we do have some international staff. Americas timezone aligned or alignable is vastly preferred. I don't want to get anybody's hopes up, but I don't want to limit myself either.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2025)"

jadowdl — Wed, 03 Sep 2025 05:31:25 +0000

We’re currently especially seeking:

Frontend Engineers (React, NextJS, Typescript; Animations, Performance optimization; sfbay local a plus)

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Developer (C++/Java; Siemens Teamcenter; Custom applications, workflows, data model updates)

Full-Stack Software Engineers (React, Python, Ruby on Rails; Database Design, Devops, and third-party API integrations)

Please apply using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/NZo1uRJ9QfT2j3P27. Applicants who submit before September 12 will receive a reply by September 19. Tier3 roles are typically 5-10 y/o/e with $150-$175k annual total comp. Tier4 roles are 11-20 y/o/e, $210-$250k annual total comp. Higher tiers exist, and we welcome exceptional applications.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2025)"

jadowdl — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 22:35:04 +0000

Engineers:

We are looking for Full-Stack Software Engineers with proficiency in some or all of: React, Python, Ruby on Rails, Database Design, Devops, and third-party API integrations. Tier3 roles are typically 5-10 y/o/e with $150-$175k annual total comp. Tier4 roles are 11-20 y/o/e, $210-$250k annual total comp. Higher tiers exist, and we welcome exceptional applications.

Please apply using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/2LnPAcqQYWbthddb6. Applicants who submit before August 15 will receive a reply by August 22.

Sales:

I am continuing to seek one or two unique business-/sales-/marketing-minded individuals - probably former tech startup founders - to work with me personally on formalizing and expanding our sales efforts. Understand our unique inventory of talent, help me find problems worth solving for the staff, and pitch bespoke solution proposals that make potential clients take notice. Please send me a pitch, including your preferred pay band and/or comp strategy: hn-sales-rfp@ptown.tech

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2025)"

jadowdl — Wed, 02 Jul 2025 05:18:56 +0000

I’m the founder, trying to do “enlightened business.” We are a small, worker-first, fully-remote, SF-based, boutique indie tech agency. Our leadership staff are ex-Fortune 100; everybody codes. Notable recent projects: internal tools for Anduril, and voltagepark.com.

Applicants must meet a high bar; in return, I pledge my personal commitment to finding you interesting work and getting you good pay. You are free to submit again even if you have already done so in the past.

Engineers:

We are looking for Full-Stack Software Engineers with proficiency in React development, database design, devops, and third-party API integration. Tier3 roles are typically 5-10 y/o/e with $150-$175k annual total comp. Tier4 roles are 7-20 y/o/e, $210-$250k annual total comp. Higher tiers exist, and we welcome exceptional applications. Fully remote positions available.

Please apply using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/VQ7zEkNkzBZ4Wbas8. Applicants who submit before July 11 will receive a reply by July 18.

Sales and Marketing:

(seriously, engineers, please stop submitting here. you want the google form up above. If you email for the sales role, you'll get misprocessed and denied.)

Prophet Town is mostly engineers and TPMs; we’re lightweight on business majors :). I’ve done most of the sales for the company personally as the Founder. I am trying something new, and issuing a general RFP for folks interested in joining a nascent sales and marketing arm within Prophet Town. Learn our ~50 hire-out staff, and our recent projects, and help land the next million dollar build-an-app or staffing-gig contract, that provides slam dunk matches between Work and Workers. I do not believe in cold-calling or spamming. Also, please note that I am personally ex-Google, and helped run Adwords: I believe in science and data-driven sales and marketing, and want humble and academic bizdevs who postulate falsifiable hypotheses and minimize time and spend to prove hunches wrong (and expect to be wrong a lot!). Please send me a pitch, resume (pdf, attachment), and your preferred pay band and/or comp strategy, to hn-sales-rfp@ptown.tech. For emails sent by July 15, I will personally review emails, and respond before July 25.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (June 2025)"

jadowdl — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 19:56:24 +0000

June 2025

I’m the founder, trying to do “enlightened business.” We are a small, worker-first, fully-remote, SF-based, boutique indie tech agency; for this posting we are hiring for our own internal employees. Our leadership staff are ex-Fortune 100; everybody codes. Notable recent projects: internal tools for Anduril, and voltagepark.com.

We are looking for Full-Stack Software Engineers with proficiency in React development, database design, and third-party API integration. Tier3 roles are typically 5-10 y/o/e with $150-$175k annual total comp. Tier4 roles are 7-20 y/o/e, $210-$250k annual total comp. Higher tiers exist, and we welcome exceptional applications. Fully remote positions available.

Please apply using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/7T29JpSdWgTbFgXj8. Applicants who submit before June 9 will receive a reply by June 20.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (May 2025)"

jadowdl — Thu, 01 May 2025 22:14:56 +0000

We are looking for Full-Stack Software Engineers with proficiency in React development, database design, and third-party API integration. Tier3 roles are typically 5-10 y/o/e with $170-$240k annual total comp. Tier4 roles are 7-20 y/o/e, $220-$285k annual total comp. Higher tiers exist, and we welcome exceptional applications. Fully remote positions available.

Please apply using this Google Form: https://forms.gle/oNJs2tCi8hBYrd9t7. Applicants who submit before May 9 will receive a reply by May 16.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2025)"

jadowdl — Sat, 26 Apr 2025 05:01:56 +0000

We have in isolated cases, in the past. Our needs at the moment mostly require US-only, but you're free to put in submission to the form.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2025)"

jadowdl — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 21:26:27 +0000

Thanks! Prophet Town's 2nd-in-command (Ian) is helping me comb responses and he's out camping through Saturday; we're going to start going through responses this weekend.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2025)"

jadowdl — Tue, 01 Apr 2025 17:41:36 +0000

UPDATE 2: we have a more current posting here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43863977. We believe we've responded to everyone who submitted in April. Also, prmehta asked "what is an enlightened business" - hard to condense, but roughly, one that is worried about helping people as well as making money.

UPDATE: we had 72 submissions by April 7. We have currently processed resumes for everyone who submitted up through April 4, and are a little behind schedule on reaching out to folks with results. If you submitted and haven't heard from us, we are hoping to be in touch ASAP! Thank you. And yes, meanwhile, we are still accepting submissions.

We are looking for Full-Stack Software Engineers with proficiency in React development, database design, and third-party API integration. Tier3 roles are typically 5-10 y/o/e with $190-$270k annual total comp. Tier4 roles are 7-20 y/o/e, $240-$305k annual total comp. Higher tiers exist, and we welcome exceptional applications. Fully remote positions available.

Please apply using this Google Form: [REDACTED - please see more current job posting at top]. Applicants who submit before April 7 will receive a reply by April 11.

New comment by jadowdl in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (February 2025)"

jadowdl — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 04:07:00 +0000

I'm sorry you feel misprocessed ArtemZ. It looks like, based on downvotes, a few others feel the same way. If anybody submitted to one of my older job postings, and feels misprocessed, please email me, james at ptown.tech, with your name and which month(s) you submitted for, and the subject “HN Hiring Override Inquiry”, and I’ll respond - even if only briefly. (If you submitted to February, though, please give me at least another week, we’re only just getting ready to do initial mail outs to folks who submitted since last Monday.)

In the meantime, I'm going to try to cover a lot for some folks with a longer explanation.

First, I have personally looked at _every single resume_ that has come in since October 1st. Including ArtemZ's (which I won't comment on publicly here). I am responding to people - we have done initial calls with nearly a hundred candidates in the last few months, and some have even been hired. I just had somebody who responded to the December posting sign and start last week. If I have not reached out to you personally yet, and it’s been more than a few weeks since your submission, your resume did not win out against the competition for openings we had at the time (at least, to get scheduled for an initial screen); but was not so bad that I wanted to turn you down yet either.

I have admittedly been bad about turning down the folks in the December and January job postings. If you haven't gotten an email scheduling an interview, and you submitted to one of those, you're very soon going to get a mass rejection email. I really hate telling people "no", and even worse, not being able to explain to them individually what we would have needed to see for them to be more competitive. I’m slow to adjust what I want (everyone to get a bespoke and considerate response) with reality (at best we have time to mass reject most).

For those who haven’t gotten to talk to me in a phone screen, some general feedback:

- You're in the middle of a multi-quarter tech labor recession, with all of the majors constantly firing quarter-over-quarter, and there is a butt-ton of literally amazing competition for any single job opening.

- There's also a lot of unbelievably good people facing RTO mandates that are trying to jump ship to a quality remote-friendly shop like mine. Like, imagine running a boutique science research shop, and getting resumes from Einstein and Bohr.

- The guys and gals who tend to get hired, hop to the top of everybody's queue, and for the same reason - we hirers know they're going to get sucked up in days, not weeks, and we have to act to be the one who gets them. (This is also some of why I continue to post to HN Who's Hiring even when I'm not done processing from earlier months.) That doesn't mean others don't have a chance; but it can explain why weeks go by and some people don't hear back; they’re getting bypassed.

- I used to post one of these a year or two ago and it would get 15 responses. These days we are getting 100-200 a month, and I can usually do about 5 calls a week. There's a lot of LLM-generated fraud. I like to give everybody a very bespoke, human touch - I do most of the opening phone screens personally. But I am the head of this company, and I have a lot of other things to do besides hiring; I'm simply having a hard time getting to everything and everybody.

- y/o/e is “Years of Experience”. If you just got out of college and you’re submitting for T3 or T4, you’re not qualified. If you’re a VP of engineering or have been coding for 20+ years, and you submit for a T3 or T4 position, you’re likely overqualified. To be clear, there are some good college grads and some good VPs that have written in, and I get greedy and want to see if I can pull them for something else - but they’re not, strictly speaking, the best match for the job posted.

- I put a lot of weight on people following instructions. If I say upload a .pdf somewhere I can wget it, and people link their LinkedIn or a Google Doc - and heaven help you if I would need to “request permission” - it’s just an instant reject. If they take the .pdf down before I can get to it, I have nothing to read. (We usually wait for several submissions to come in, and then wget everything all at once.) Yes I could require everybody to sign in to gmail and then get the ability to make them upload their .pdf in the Google Form, and maybe I should do that; but I know some really talented folks who are really anti-Google, and I don’t want to lose out meeting really qualified people just because of that.

- I also value resume conventions - even if the candidate is unconventional. One page, max two. Focus on the techs and techniques, not the “achievements” - I want a match between the job I’ve posted, and the tech on your resume, with proof you aren’t just buzzword stuffing, have been using the tech for years, and that your experience in the tech isn’t dated or superficial. Schools and employers I know stand out, especially if we know someone in common who can vouch for you. If you have a habit of changing jobs every 12 months, that starts to be a concern for most hirers.

Also, a nit, I'm not "reposting" - there are material changes from one month to the next:

- In October, PM, engineers, and infra/devops. We filled PM quickly.

- In November, swamped, no posting.

- In December, engineers and devops, mildly different tech stack description. Our first attempt with a Google Form. We’ve actively closed/redirected this posting.

- In January, -”devlops/infra”, +”platform engineer”, in an attempt to better describe the open hole. Folks that can orchestrate microservices but can’t code don’t tend to do well here. New questions in our Google Form. We've closed the form/posting.

- In February, completely new role: +"data scientist". Also still more improvements to the Google Form. The need for T3 and T4 engineers is perennial; we’re still looking to fill that platform engineer role.

Put another way - if we just had one gigantic evergreen Google Form that we never shut down, and left it running for months at a time, the chaos would be even worse, especially considering changing descriptions and needs of the jobs we're trying to fill.

I am sincerely sorry that folks feel neglected, and that I don't have the time to meet and help each of you. I want to help as many of you as I can, but it sounds like swift rejection would actually be the better blessing, based on the feedback here. See the top of this mega-comment for my email if you want to reach out.