Hey HN,Excited to launch a new side project today. After leaving my startup at the end of the year, I wanted to hack on something with all the cool kid tools out there like React Server Components, Supabase, Tailwind, etc.Over the last month there's been a groundswell of opinions (particularly on Twitter/X) around this "new" role of "Design Engineer" with lots of companies now hiring for it....
We have a small team of 4 engineers (1 in Seoul, 1 in NYC, 2 in Brazil) + myself (CA) and we shipped a brand new product line with paying customers for our startup in a few weeks (subsequently added more features). I correlate that strongly to us having a 24hr engineering cycle and us being willing to pick up where others left off.
The small team acting as a startup really resonates with my experiences.
We're building out a team in Brazil and currently looking for a senior software engineer that is interested in building new product lines for a growing startup. If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus!
https://monograph.com/jobs-list?gh_jid=4746657004
Our stack:
- Next.js + Typescript + React on Vercel
- GraphQL + Rails on Heroku
Reach out directly to me (co-founder) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot com
We're building out a team in Brazil and currently looking for a senior software engineer that is interested in building new product lines for a growing startup. If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus!
https://monograph.com/jobs-list?gh_jid=4746657004
Our stack:
- Next.js + Typescript + React on Vercel
- GraphQL + Rails on Heroku
Reach out directly to me (co-founder) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot com
We do 4-day work weeks at Monograph, and we've been doing it for 3 years now. I believe we're one of the only companies founded in Silicon Valley that are advocates for working less, but more productively. To learn more about our engineering culture check out our Key Values profile: https://www.keyvalues.com/monograph (Lynne is a good friend!)
We're building out a team in Brazil and currently looking for a senior software engineer that is interested in building new product lines for a growing startup. If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus!
https://monograph.com/jobs-list?gh_jid=4746657004
Our stack:
- Next.js + Typescript + React on Vercel
- GraphQL + Rails on Heroku
Reach out directly to me (co-founder) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot com
We do 4-day work weeks at Monograph, and we've been doing it for 3 years now. I believe we're one of the only companies in SV that are advocates for working less, but more productively. To learn more about our engineering culture check out our Key Values profile: https://www.keyvalues.com/monograph (Lynne is a good friend!)
We're currently looking for a senior software engineer that is interested in building resilient, scalable systems for a thoughtfully moving startup. If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus!
https://monograph.com/jobs-list?gh_jid=4249267004
Our stack:
- Next.js + Typescript + React on Vercel
- GraphQL + Rails on Heroku
Reach out directly to me (co-founder) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot com
We do 4-day work weeks at Monograph, and we've been doing it for 3 years now. I believe we're one of the only companies in SV that are advocates for working less, but more productively. To learn more about our engineering culture check out our Key Values profile: https://www.keyvalues.com/monograph (Lynne is a good friend!)
We're currently looking for a senior software engineer that is interested in building resilient, scalable systems for a thoughtfully moving startup. If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus!
https://monograph.com/jobs-list?gh_jid=4249267004
Our stack:
- Next.js + Typescript + React on Vercel
- GraphQL + Rails on Heroku
Reach out directly to me (co-founder) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot com
We do 4-day work weeks at Monograph, and we've been doing it for 3 years now. I believe we're one of the only companies in SV that are advocates for working less, but more productively. To learn more about our engineering culture check out our Key Values profile: https://www.keyvalues.com/monograph (Lynne is a good friend!)
We're currently looking for a staff frontend engineer and a staff backend engineer (Rails) that is interested in building resilient, scalable systems for a thoughtfully moving startup. If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus!
- https://monograph.com/jobs/staff-frontend-engineer - https://monograph.com/jobs/staff-backend-engineer
Our stack:
- Next.js + Typescript + React on Vercel
- GraphQL + Rails on Heroku
Reach out directly to me (co-founder) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot com
We do 4-day (32 hour) workweeks at Monograph, and we've been doing it for 3 years now. I believe we're one of the only companies in SV that are advocates for working less, but more productively.
To learn more about our engineering culture check out our recently updated Key Values profile: https://www.keyvalues.com/monograph (Lynne is a good friend!)
We're looking for a product-minded engineering manager to lead a brand new team at Monograph—Product Growth. You will lead a team of engineers to deliver impactful customer value with minimal input. This is a very high leverage role and team.
If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus!
* $140-$175k salary
* Full coverage health, dental, vision for you and your family
* $1k yearly education stipend
* $50 gym / health stipend
* 52 days (4 day workweek) + 2 weeks off
https://monograph.com/jobs/engineering-manager
Reach out directly to me (co-founder / head of engineering) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot com
We do 4-day (32 hour) work weeks at Monograph, and we've been doing it for 3 years now. I believe we're one of the only companies in SV that are advocates for working less, but more productively.
To learn more about our engineering culture check out our recently updated Key Values profile: https://www.keyvalues.com/monograph (Lynne is a good friend!)
We're currently looking for a senior data engineer to help architect and build process around our data pipelines. We have the fundamentals setup (event schemas, Big Query warehouse, etc), but we're hitting the scale where we each team at Monograph needs more data to help them make informed decisions. You will come in and own data with the budget to hire full-time folks and consultants to help build out our data team.
If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus!
Reach out directly to me (head of engineering) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot com
To learn more about our engineering culture check out our Key Values profile: https://www.keyvalues.com/monograph (Lynne is a good friend!)
We're currently looking for a staff frontend engineer and a staff backend engineer (Rails) that is interested in building resilient, scalable systems for a thoughtfully moving startup. If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus! https://monograph.com/jobs/staff-frontend-engineer https://monograph.com/jobs/staff-backend-engineer
Our stack:
- Next.js + Typescript + React on Vercel
- GraphQL + Rails on Heroku
Reach out directly to me (head of engineering) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot com
We do 4-day (32 hour) work weeks at Monograph, and we've been doing it for 3 years now. I believe we're one of the only companies in SV that are advocates for working less, but more productively. We only have one engineering/product meeting each week and then everything else is heads down work (or one-on-one pairing).
To learn more about our engineering culture check out our Key Values profile: https://www.keyvalues.com/monograph (Lynne is a good friend!)
We're currently looking for a staff frontend engineer that is interested in building resilient, scalable systems for a thoughtfully moving startup. If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus! https://monograph.com/jobs/staff-frontend-engineer
Our stack:
- Next.js + Typescript + React on Vercel
- GraphQL + Rails on Heroku
Reach out directly to me (head of engineering) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot com
To learn more about our engineering culture check out our Key Values profile: https://www.keyvalues.com/monograph (Lynne is a good friend!)
We're currently looking for a staff frontend engineer that is interested in building resilient, scalable systems for a thoughtfully moving startup. If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus! https://monograph.io/jobs/senior-frontend-engineer (this is an older post, we're looking for staff-level now)
Our stack:
- Next.js + Typescript + React on Vercel
- GraphQL + Rails on Heroku
Reach out directly to me (head of engineering) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot io
We do 4-day (32 hour) work weeks at Monograph, and we've been doing it for 3 years now. I believe we're one of the only companies in SV that are advocates for working less, but more productively. We only have one engineering/product meeting each week and then everything else is heads down work (or one-on-one pairing).
To learn more about our engineering culture check out our Key Values profile: https://www.keyvalues.com/monograph (Lynne is a good friend!)
We're currently looking for a senior frontend engineer (ideally with Typescript and/or Next.js experience) that is interested in building resilient, flexible systems for a thoughtfully moving startup. If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus! https://monograph.io/jobs/senior-frontend-engineer
Our stack:
- Next.js + Typescript + React on Vercel
- GraphQL + Rails on Heroku
Reach out directly to me (head of engineering) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot io
We do 4-day (32 hour) work weeks at Monograph, and we've been doing it for 3 years now. I believe we're one of the only companies in SV that are advocates for working less, but more productively. We only have one engineering/product meeting each week and then everything else is heads down work (or one-on-one pairing).
To learn more about our engineering culture check out our Key Values profile: https://www.keyvalues.com/monograph (Lynne is a good friend!)
We're currently looking for a senior backend engineer (ideally with some production Rails exp) that is interested in building resilient, flexible systems for a thoughtfully moving startup. If you're interested in the built environment (architecture) that's a huge plus!
Here's the full job description: https://monograph.io/jobs/senior-rails-engineer
Reach out directly to me (head of engineering) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot io
Coming from Teespring and recently at Figma, I’ve seen both sides of this problem: home rolling a teeshirt maker in canvas and also trying to use parts of an editor at Figma for marketing (wasn’t decoupled enough). I’m excited to see where this team takes this and grows.
We do 4-day (32 hour) work weeks at Monograph, and we've been doing it for 3 years now. I believe we're one of the only companies in SV that are advocates for working less, but more productively. We only have one engineering/product meeting each week and then everything else is heads down work (or one-on-one pairing).
To learn more about our engineering culture check out our Key Values profile: https://www.keyvalues.com/monograph (Lynne is a good friend!)
We're currently looking for a senior backend engineer (ideally with some production Rails exp) that is interested in building resilient, flexible systems for a thoughtfully moving startup.
Here's the full job description: https://monograph.io/jobs/senior-rails-engineer
Reach out directly to me (head of engineering) and mention the HN post: moe at monograph dot io
For your own startup, are you targeting a specific niche? Do you have any advantages in distribution besides the excellent HN top comment hack :)
https://www.lobbplewe.com/blog/2019/09/rules-for-out-of-stat...
Repeating what others have said, starting a SaaS company broadly speaking does the opposite of what you hope. It gives you a job that you think about 24hrs a day, while maybe only actively working 6hrs a day, but realistically much more. That said I LOVE my job and super grateful I get to work on it everyday!
There are much better ways as a software engineer to take a lower risk approach to getting to financial freedom.
(These suggestions are not inclusive of coronavirus)
1. Save cash. Change jobs and increase your baseline income. If possible get to a FAANG and then also freelance on the side. It's very possible in the Bay Area after 5 years to save enough to retire without necessarily subscribing to the FIRE goals.
2. Work for enterprise companies or build them a micro-saas. There are plenty of high-value services that companies will pay $XXk monthly for. If your goal is to make money and maybe not love your job, this is a great place to be. Orchestrate Segment and a data warehouse, build out a robust Salesforce pipeline, take a spreadsheet and implement in Retool or Rails. Each of these examples can easily cost $300k for the right type of company. A micro-saas example is Sidekiq ([https://www.indiehackers.com/interview/how-charging-money-fo...). I would have probably 4x the enterprise rate to get to $4M/yr.
3. Explain something difficult, really well. Related to selling services to enterprise, you can also consult with companies by owning a very specific niche that is very high value. Explain security compliance (like SOC 2), orchestrate edge servers and CDNs, up-level sales teams with technical knowledge or off-the-shelf tools. A single dev can shepard folks through a process that costs $XM of dollars or enable a teams that also costs $XM of dollars.
4. Rebuild existing tools, much better. This is my personal expertise, but I believe all existing tools could use major improvements. You can make tools better in UX, better documentation and tutorials, faster code, easier onboarding, etc. The major benefit is that you know there are existing customers paying money and you can then develop much better tools along the way. In this model I believe free or enterprise is way to go as a single dev. With free tools, you need strong traffic to monetize with ads or sponsorship. At the enterprise you sell featured postings or (3) services / consultation.