aklise

SEEKING FREELANCER -

We are a post seed startup that's looking to bring on a core engineer. Our stack is build with typescript in AWS (all serverless). We're looking for a senior engineer who's experienced working with AWS, AWS Lambda, Stepfunctions, CDK, etc.

It's important to us that the person we bring on can understand business problems and be proactive in suggesting technical direction. We are a small team so everyone is working on the entire stack vs siloed positions.

Please don't waste our mutual time if you're not specifically qualified for this role.

How to apply - send me a email austin [at] goroam [.] io and with a link to your linkedin, a few sentences on why you're interested, and what your hourly rate is. If you can't use ChatGPT (I hope you don't actually use ChatGPT) to follow these instructions you're not a good fit for our role =).

This was the year when the impact of AI on society – a long-anticipated revolution – became something much, much bigger. It was the Industrial Revolution. It was the Space Race. It was another Internet boom. It was all of those together. AI is too powerful, too opaque, too dystopian, too dangerous. And now, at last technology has gone too far. After all, this introduction (parts in bold) were written by A.I. using ChatGPT 4 with the help of one of Ross Douthat’s Atlantic articles. However, the consequences of similar technological movements point us to ramifications we can expect to see with A.I. The disenfranchisement, disruption, and dystopian promises of A.I. aren’t new.

I remember back in 2016 when I first had a schedule that allowed me to work from home (WFH). It was exhilarating to be able to host virtual meetings from my apartment and squeeze runs in between calls. I would “Zoom” with my Australian clients who were in the height of their summer while I was watching Colorado winter storms from the window. I felt as if I were Oz behind the curtains, pulling strings and synchronizing my team of project managers and developers without even needing to don a pair of shoes.

Then, in 2020, COVID greatly democratized the number of people who were able to work from their own hearth, allowing for almost anyone who used a computer to sign in remotely. The lockdowns accelerated the development of technologies needed to support virtual industries. Server farms, APIs (databases talking to databases), and communication tools grew and found their metamorphosis in real-time video conferencing software (Zoom, Teams, etc.) as well as a bevy of other tools. These new tools promised the same things that A.I. now promises: work (and life) reimagined without friction. You could build new software, conduct meetings, and do “team building” with a few clicks, all while wrapped in the warm embrace of your pajamas. Sounds good, right?

However, COVID was only the accelerant. Economic forces primed the development long before we had anything called “Slack,” “AWS,” or any other app or technology that preceded A.I.. One example of this is offshore software development teams. Over the past few decades software consultancies and tech giants have seen ripe fruit in the growing population of cheap technical labor in places like India, Pakistan, and eastern Europe. And it’s no surprise why; these developers can cost as low as 10 cents on the dollar compared to what a U.S. developer would cost. Unlike the more recent trends to bring back U.S. manufacturing jobs or to shop local software development companies are no longer searching for, “software developers near me.”

We’ve all rubbed shoulders with this trend via the overseas call center you’re connected with when you want to change your ISP or get technical support for a piece of hardware. Still, the same places aren’t just picking up our calls; they are also building the software that’s on our phones, smart watches, and social media feeds. It’s Adam Smith’s invisible hand simply matching labor to markets at the right price. It’s Henry Ford’s assembly line transcended, efficiently connecting the building blocks of the software development lifecycle. We have our product managers and executives in Silicon Valley (or now completely remote) and our engineers in Bangalore, Karachi, and Kiev all connected through emojis, avatars, Slack messages, and zoom calls. No A.I. in this mix yet, but the same dystopian promise of a world of perfect efficiency.