I am helping a not-for-profit, [NavSahyog](https://navsahyog.org/), build a custom software for their entire operations and programs that also tracks longitudinal impact. The organization conducts programs for children in Indian villages after school to build live skills.
This is my second iteration because the first version felt like a simplistic fit and improvement over their existing vendor provided app.
I have now designed a domain model based on my understanding and observations. I have a day job so I can't spend a lot of time in sync with the team. I have created a web app where the NGO management can test scenarios (by recording voice), and the AI (Claude Agent SDK) runs it past the domain model. In case, there is a gap, they can persist the scenario. After every iteration, I read through the scenarios and assimilate them into the domain model.
Happy Thanksgiving! I have been here at least for the last 12 years. I open the website at least twice a day - once in the morning when starting work, and once late evening before logging out for the day. The mantra I follow is that if something doesn't trend on HN it's not worth paying attention to.
Initially, I would only click on the links and jump off HN but over the last few years I have been more interested in the comments and the discussion.
Thank you everyone one for such a great community!
“Owning it all ... from cloud to edge” is an exciting ambition not only for Nvidia but also as a developer and a consumer. It’s going to be hard to pull it off, of course, but it’s worth a shot.
EDIT - explaining the benefits for developers, and therefore consumers.
A "cloud to edge" stack from hardware to the application layer could create new application patterns that can tremendously accelerate autonomous driving, everyday robots, gaming. It could democratize this for small (maybe indie) developer teams. Wouldn't this have a great impact on consumers?
I am in the quest of a system myself. I have tried various systems and asked other companies (big and small) on theirs. My tech startup was around 25-30 employees over 5 years. We have tried Balanced Scorecards/OKRs linked systems, 360 Evaluations, etc and ended up making a mix.
We used Google Sheets and asked for qualitative feedback on defined headers (skill with KPIs & culture/values), and a rating (1-5). Each of the headers had weightage that changed with roles & levels.
We tried to make promotions and compensation changes as data driven as possible, but they were inline with intuition / general opinion. To the employee it always felt like "Why did we do all this for such little change?!" It sucks but you need to improve the system across many years. With every round try and understand signal vs noise. That's how you build trust.
Consistency is key. A few learnings regardless of the system that I learnt the hard way:
* Communication. You need to communicate before, during and after the process. You need to make it relatable for all levels of employees. Give them specific templates with specific examples. You need to remove the narrative of you-vs-them, doing-this-to-justify-an-increase, and bring focus on reflection.
* Frequency/Cycle. "if it hurts, do it more often" is the quote that applies to this. Never let it slide. Minimum every six months, ideally every quarter.
* Review of KPIs. You need to review the KPIs every week without fail. It forces you to focus on metrics that you can move on a week-on-week basis. Anything that changes in step function over a month/quarter/year can be broken into a smaller metric.
* Rewards and Recognitions. We were always late on this. Always rolling out the red carpet when someone threatened to quit. It always felt like extortion as the manager. Don't wait for the cycle to call out extreme performance (great and terrible). Give negative feedback in private as quickly as possible. Do a non-monetary (Amazon Gift Coupons etc) for great performance. Wait for promotions and compensation.
* Pay performance linked pay well. I think this was what I got wrong the most. I did not plan the company finances well enough to pay out immediately. I would say "Hey great performance! We will pay you $$ but in 2-3 months when our situation improves". That erodes trust in a moment.
* Getting and acting on feedback. I struggled on this one too and made many excuses -- we are going through a curve
Hope this helps. I would love to hear from others.
Artoo (www.artoo.in) | Bangalore, India | Full-Time
70% of the world’s population has no access to even the most basic financial services. Artoo is transforming banking for the poor, using the power of mobile, cloud and data.
Last year, we helped disburse US $100 Million in loans across 25 states in India. This year we hope to triple that! This is where you come in.
We use the following tech: Ember.js & Node.js for Web, Java/Kotlin on Android, Python for ML, Chef/Ansible/Vagrant for servers, and are open to trying out anything.
If you are passionate about technology and creating an impact, apply below:
Artoo is improving access to financial services for the world's poor. Today, through its partners, Artoo disburses more than loans worth $ 3 million every month, increasing at the rate of 25% month on month.
Interested in making an impact? Improving people's lives using technology? Take a look at our jobs at https://angel.co/artoo/jobs
Artoo is improving access to finance and healthcare at the economic base of the pyramid: people who earn less than $4 a day. We use mobile and cloud technology to help enterprises to help their customers out of poverty. We work in the harshest conditions of connectivity, user literacy and technology saavy. We serve more than 7 Million end-customers across India.
Artoo is young, chaotic team that recently got funded and is looking for the following roles:
Hardware Engineer - Love Raspberry Pi / Arduino, help us design and build low cost peripherals for smartphones for critical functions like authentication in financial transactions, and health measurements in primary healthcare.
Android Developer - Design enterprise grade apps for users with limited literacy and technology savvy. Help users do financial analysis to give a collateral free $1000 loan to a small business, non-communicable disease risk scoring, etc in the most effective way.
(Emberjs + Nodejs) Full Stack Developer - Design web applications and APIs that allow users to work in spite of bad connectivity, limited technology savvy.
DevOps Engineer - Optimize performance, uptime, and costs of our AWS infrastructure that includes CouchDB, MySQL and Node application servers.
Please write to me at sameer[at]artoo[dot]in and highlight the role you are specifically interested in.
FullTime -- Android Developer, Artoo | Bangalore, India
Artoo (https://www.artoo.in) enables organizations working in healthcare and financial inclusion to deliver better products to more of the base of the pyramid (BoP). With our platform, the poor will have access to faster loans, lower interest rates, better healthcare, and other life-changing benefits.
We're looking for hackers who are passionate about creating a social impact, who are inquisitive, independent thinkers who propose new solutions, who work independently with minimal supervision, who are entrepreneurial and willing to take on multiple roles, and who are fun to work with!
Artoo develops intuitive technology to serve people who live on less than $2 a day. We work across rural primary healthcare, financial services and distribution.
If you like rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty, then this is THE opportunity. You will spend time not only developing the platform and apps, but will also spend an equal amount of time in the field -- working with users: designing around their literacy challenges!
You will get to see your impact and how you are dramatically improving quality of lives.
We are improving lives of nearly 7.5Million people by improving access to finance and healthcare in India. We are replacing the cumbersome paper and replacing it with digital intuitive interfaces that can be used in rural India. We are helping companies understand their customers better and provide customized products and services at extreme afforadability.
We need an experienced full stack (preferred), mobile or web engineer. We work on the following stack:
* Nodejs
* CouchDB
* Emberjs, D3js, CoffeeScript
* Android & TouchDB-Android
Please feel free to drop note on "What excites you about the work we do at Artoo and what would you bring to the table?" to [email protected]
At Artoo we are building inclusive technology for low literate, low income base of the pyramid people. These are people who have never used MS Dos, Windows XP or even iOS. Our technology interfaces need to be completely reimagined and made higly interactive and intuitive. We are working on range of technologies: Android, CouchDB, Play! Framework, AWS, Nginx, etc
Recently we discovered the real power of Backbone.js when we built a chat module built into the browser using websockets. Ever since then we have gotten really really excited about Backbone.
We need you to revamp our product interfaces. We need your skills to understand how can we modify our WebApp to best leverage HTML5 & Backbone make our technology highly interactive and make it work on really low connectivity (semi-urban and rural india). We then want to work on a few interesting projects that involve Augmented Reality and HTML5 Canvas - more details on this when you join!
We are a bootstrapped startup that is really excited about what the internet needs to be to work at the base of the pyramid and how it can become this. Read more on www.artoo.in.
If interested, please drop a line at sameer[at]artoo[dot]in
We are using Android & Cloud for low literate, first technology users at the base of the pyramid to help businesses become more effective in alleviating poverty! We work on Play! framework, Nginx, AWS, Android, WebSockets and more ...
We are looking for Android, Cloud engineers, data scientists, artists. We are also open to creating a role if you can convince us!