Reading HN one could come to the conclusion that start-up = website + marketing and that node.js, bootstrap and github are the only technologies you'll need. Now I'm not for a minute deriding either fantastic web based start-ups or wonderful new technologies. It's just that I work for a medical image analysis start-up and we build conventional technology, desktop applications for highly regulated clinical end users. Just what the diversity of HN readers is in terms of their role, technology, company size and domain. Perhaps I just want to know I'm not the only one who never learnt javascript...
Ask HN: Any other readers Not working in a web-based start-up?
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Re: Ask HN: Any other readers Not working in a web-based start-up?
#2FWIW, from my profile:
I'm a PhD in Pure Maths (Combinatorics and Graph Theory)
from the University of Cambridge. My BSc(Hons) was in Pure
maths from Monash University, Australia. I work in industry
as a director of Innovation and Research, helping to create
equipment that does the maritime equivalent of Air-Traffic
Control. Basically, we provide kit to help people stop 30,000
tonne oil tankers from crashing into nuclear submarines.
Re: Ask HN: Any other readers Not working in a web-based start-up?
#3C programmer here, mostly traditional server-side stuff with an emphasis on high performance and security.
Not working for start-ups either, unless you consider my freelancing/contracting company a startup, which I suppose it is because I only started it this year. Its only product is me though.
--edit-- You may still be the only one that never learned javascript! I did a web-frontend project earlier this year.
Re: Ask HN: Any other readers Not working in a web-based start-up?
#4i just finished my masters in cs, thinking about phd, job, or startup...
i've learned a little javascript in the past, looking at haskell for applications to the combinatorics of graph theory to cfg's
Re: Ask HN: Any other readers Not working in a web-based start-up?
#5CERN programmer/devops here, but it involves lots of startup-y stuff like Rails to be honest. I share your impression of HN but there are quite a few nuggets of knowledge that I take away from reading this everyday.
Re: Ask HN: Any other readers Not working in a web-based start-up?
#6I've been recruiting mostly for web companies lately, but recently I started working a company that makes a SAN/NAS appliance. It's a nice change of pace to talk to people doing stuff with kernels and file systems. I suppose you could build a storage appliance running Node.js, but I'm not sure you'd want to.
By the way, you left Redis off your list.
Re: Ask HN: Any other readers Not working in a web-based start-up?
#7I do open source hardware development and open source desktop software. I don't enjoy doing web stuff (but I can bruteforce my way through it when necessary).
Re: Ask HN: Any other readers Not working in a web-based start-up?
#8We manage infrastructure for a number of companies, some of whom are web-based startups.
BTW, we're hiring: http://www.bashton.com/jobs/
Re: Ask HN: Any other readers Not working in a web-based start-up?
#9I'm an embedded software engineer. I used to design x86 chips.
90% of my programming is in C, 5% in assembly (ARM, mostly), and 5% in Python for test automation and general scripting.
I've worked for companies with 100000 people and 60 people, and a couple in-between; all are in the chip business.
I've done a bit of web stuff on the side, mainly to see what I'm missing in my day job.
Re: Ask HN: Any other readers Not working in a web-based start-up?
#10compiler/os dev (etc) for a large japanese semiconductor company