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We take pride in being a small, product-focused team focussed on iteration and experimentation. Above all else, we value product-market-fit and simple solutions, and we aim to get small features out to real users as quickly as possible using Basecamp's Shape Up framework.
Our tech stack is Python, Django, and Kubernetes on the backend. On the front-end, we use Vue.js, Typescript, and the Quasar component library. Under the hood, the work we do introduces interesting challenges across distributed systems, containerisation, scalability, and large-scale data processing. We try and wrap this up as a simple and delightful product which users love.
We try to remove meetings as much as possible, and if they are truly unavoidable, schedule them early in the morning so we have time to focus on building
It’s really important to have time to get into the zone, and constant interruptions and meetings, even if scheduled later in the day, can get in the way of this.
We particularly like Paul Graham’s article on the matter - http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
We are an optimistic but sceptical bunch. If an amazing technology comes around that promises to revolutionise development, we’ll take a look, but we’ve seen enough in our past to know that is not always true. For example, we’ve been pretty happy with our straightforward Django REST backend / VueJS frontend combo!
There are no prizes for writing complex code and solving hard problems for no reason. We’d rather that choices are pragmatic and reasoned, especially for an early-stage tech startup — for instance, using a library versus implementing from scratch. We’re interested in solving user problems and building a great product and business, not winning HN/Twitter points or doing resume-based development.
Our previous company used Haskell, so we’ve written and worked with a lot of complex and advanced code.
Along the way we’ve heard, and personally have participated in, many of engineering debates, e.g. inheritance vs composition, OO vs FP, static vs dynamic typing, microservices vs monoliths, enterprise Java vs hip new languages, ad-nauseum.
To be honest, it can get exhausting, and depressing, trying to keep up with the latest and greatest and the “thought-leadership” out there.
As a result, we’ve made a conscious decision to leave the debates and showboating to HN, and focus on delivering value. We never want to make bad technology choices, but recognise it is only one part of the solution to delivering a valuable product.