Hacker News: marek77

New comment by marek77 in "Can non-developer build commercial products with AI"

marek77 — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 10:45:15 +0000

The distance between a personal project or MVP and a legit commercial product is VASTLY undersestimated by non technical people.

New comment by marek77 in "Ask HN: Why are companies so distrustful of remote employees?"

marek77 — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 10:16:22 +0000

Senior SWE / consultant working remotely since 2020 here. Besides all the "control" aspects, the truth is there's been a lot of abuse - a lot of it coming from certain locales. Here in Europe remote roles still exist to a certain extent (though they are a lot more scarce), but it's not uncommon now to see restrictions such as "remote from the EU", "remote from the UK", etc. To sum up: a certain faction has broken the trust of their employer/client, and blown it for everybody else.

New comment by marek77 in "Ask HN: Anyone still using JetBrains products today?"

marek77 — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 10:10:20 +0000

One of the companies most disrupted by AI? Sorry, but that is nonsense. I have been using their products proferssionally for over 20 years, and still do to the same extent as ever. That's while being fully on the Agentic Coding bandwagon. Admittedly their attempts at integrating AI have been an abject failure, but who cares? My setup is Claude or OpenCode on one screen, Jetbrains (IDE mostly), both viewing and working on the same codebase, and that works great for me.

New comment by marek77 in "Ask HN: Why don't Americans hire human assistants for everyday tasks?"

marek77 — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 08:41:06 +0000

It's totally a thing in HK. Indonesia or the Philippines is where the maids come from.

New comment by marek77 in "Ask HN: What kind of local on-device AI do you find useful?"

marek77 — Wed, 24 Sep 2025 08:32:51 +0000

Could you elaborate a bit on your tools / workflow? thanks

New comment by marek77 in "Show HN: Native Japanese immersion reader app + Anki integration (Manabi Reader)"

marek77 — Wed, 21 May 2025 11:46:43 +0000

Bummer it is iOS only (?). Any plans for an Android port?

New comment by marek77 in "Tokyo – Salary Expectations"

marek77 — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 10:02:27 +0000

European freelance SWE here. I worked in Japan in your field for a number of years in the past decade. Your idea is utterly crazy. You are making 170K EUR in a low cost european locale=you are in a great position, especially in the current market conditions. Japan is like no.26 on the list of best-paying countries for IT skills. Meaning: Japan does NOT pay. Your expectations are simply unrealistic (and let's not get started on the value of JPY, which is at its lowest in decades), and you will need to be prepeared to take a MASSIVE pay cut. The fact that you are considering moving there with your family without doing the necessary due diligence is worrying, as it adds a whole extra layer of complexity that is not to be underestimated. Japan is welcoming to visitors. It is NOT welcoming to foreigners who come to stay. Japanese companies are also something else, and if you don't have experience with them, I would certainly not jump head-first. In short: as others have said, if you are interested in the "cultural aspects", travel there, do your freelance work remotely from there, but for the love of all that is good, don't move there with your wife and kids BEFORE you have tested out the waters exentisively. You will thank me later.