Throne | (Mid/Senior/Staff) Full-Stack Engineers | Berlin, Germany (onsite) | Full Time | jointhrone.com
Throne is a gifting platform for creators, servicing 100k+ content creators from Twitch, YouTube & Co and millions of fans every month.
We launched in Sept '21 and are already processing $20M+ in annual gifting volume with a small & highly capable team.
Our tech stack is TypeScript + React (frontend) and TypesScript + NodeJS (backend).
- Have at least 2-3 years of software engineering experience
- Have led engineering teams in the past (for our senior positions)
- Have experience in our tech stack: React/Redux/Typescript on the frontend and Node/Typescript on the backend
- Have fun writing clean, maintainable, and performant code
- Be a builder - you ship MVPs that are not always perfect and improve these over time based on user feedback
- Incorporate test-driven development
- Be comfortable shipping features end-to-end, from defining the product spec to deploying to production
Throne is a social commerce platform that allows creators on Twitch, Instagram, YouTube & Co. to connect with their communities in new ways. Creators on Throne can safely receive gifts from their communities in a gamified way while maintaining their privacy.
We raised a seed round from Ryan Hoover (ProductHunt), Cory Levy (FirstText) & Vibhu Norby (B8ta) in January and are processing $20M+ in annualised GMV already.
Throne launched in Sept '21 and we're growing very quickly. If you're interested, please reach out to us via [email protected]
If you don’t want to spend 10$/month for Superpowered, checkout trymeeter.com.
My cofounder and I built Meeter about a year ago and it’s fully free currently.
For me it was just looking for a procedure that annoyed me so much that I just had to build a tool to fix this.
Why do we still have to open our calendars, look through endless event notes to copy and paste a link into a browser that then launches the native meeting app? That's why I built an app called Meeter [0] for that.
I’ll tell you a little secret: when compiling or running multi-minute test suites, or sometimes even just being in a videochat, the fans rev up, and sound like a weak hair dryer, even on the 16” MBP (which is what I currently use).
The thermals on Apple laptops from the last several years don’t seem to be designed to work without frequently revving the fans way up.
Ugh, I was afraid of that. I've been clinging to my 2013 MBP, waiting for an upgrade with a bearable keyboard, and then when the 2020 MBA came along I thought I might have the ideal machine, but then I started hearing about the thermals. Was hoping the new 13 inch MBP might fit the bill instead, but it sounds like the thermals are just kinda crappy these days.
I am, I don't see much a difference at all compared to my 2016 15" MacBook Pro for Xcode projects. Whenever I need more power, I just ssh into my server with strong specs and start the process.
Hm, at least speaking for my uni (ETH Zurich), lots of grad students from Asia come here for cheap tuition & good PhD salaries, but almost all Chinese grad students I asked want to go back to China afterwards. Ideally we would keep talented people here instead of paying for their education with taxes and have them go back afterwards.
If you were running a country, would you want your brightest and best people leaving and never returning?
A large proportion of chinese people have to go back to China after being educated, or china will discourage them from leaving in the first place, since it wouldn't be in the national interest.
The US does similar stuff - through their worldwide taxation scheme, they discourage citizens from earning lots of money abroad. They're pretty much saying "if you're successful, we want you to bring those profits back to America".
1) This is anecdotal evidence but as far as I know it's difficult for non-EU people to get a work permit in Switzerland. I know quite a few students that completed the CS Master in ETHZ and that are from Egypt or China, etc. that could not get a job in Switzerland because it was hard to get a permit. Similar for Indian students that did their ETH Master in mechanical engineering, etc. All the students that I know wanted to stay and work in Switzerland.
2) Again, I might be wrong, but I feel a number of CS PhD students in ETHZ and EPFL are getting paid by European programs (e.g, ERC). So, it's not necessarily Swiss taxes that pay these people.
3) At the end of the day, the Swiss government or any government is making an investment on those students. As any investment, it might be profitable or not. Some students might stay in the country and pay back the investment by founding companies, getting good salaries and paying higher taxes, etc. versus some students that might just go back to their country. Actually, to me, it seems like a pretty good investment. If some student studies in China and then comes to Switzerland, Switzerland might have to pay for his/her education for a Master and a PhD, but Switzerland never paid for his kindergarten, primary, high-school and college years, etc., because for example China already paid for this.
4) Most of the papers getting published in universities (at least for CS) are published due to the hard work done by graduate and post-graduate students (with the help of their supervisor of course). Even if the students decide to leave Switzerland afterwards, they still increased the research-throughput of the Swiss university in which they worked. I believe we can agree that, that in itself is good.
To point 2): the EU research programs are co-financed by Switzerland. Otherwise, Switzerland wouldn't be allowed to participate in these programs. Hence, the EU research grants are still Swiss tax money in one or another way.
Maybe you could go with something like the Australian model where Uni is relatively expensive but high quality for international students while it is subsidised for domestic students with interest free loans and direct subsidies on course costs.
You are aware of the fact that at most ~8000 non-EEA people can get a work visa in Switzerland every year? This includes what would be called EB-1 visas in the US. A CS PhD graduate with no work experience has zero chance at passing the legal requirements.
There are almost no Asian people at Google Zurich.
> Ideally we would keep talented people here instead of paying for their education with taxes and have them go back afterwards.
Not sure how Swiss uni financing is setup, but I believe in most countries international (undergraduate) students pay full price so it's hard to argue that the host country is "paying for their education with taxes".
Can you expand more on why you feel like these students are being paid for with taxes? My understanding is that foreign students in the U.S. are typically paying massive amounts compared to their domestic peers. If anything they're subsidizing locals (assuming profits are used to expand capacity).
On Slack, you need to wait for your colleague to accept the call. We want to give users the option to be in an "active" state, where they immediately can talk to each other.
If I am working on a project in XCode for example and want to ask my coworker about an idea i have, I don't have to switch apps, search the colleague, press call and wait for them to answer. I just move the mouse to the menu, see that they are active and I am instantly connected
I honestly doubt this, the virus triggered some events that will ripple through the economy and companies with WFH tools like Zoom and Slack won't be able to make up for the losses.
There's plenty of big companies I know that need to cut costs, spend less on ads (which is bad for Google & Facebook), lay off people who then won't be able to consume as much and this will get worse in the coming months
Glad that they’re working on it, right now flying is just cheaper on many cases.
Need to go from Zurich to Paris? The TGV Train will cost you almost twice as much as a short direct flight. Berlin to Munich? Also cheaper by plane.
Being a student with a limited budget, this very much affects my decision.
Also cheaper by plane. Being a student with a limited budget, this very much affects my decision.
My tips would be:
* Book at least a week in advance.
* Buy a Bahn Card 25.
* Get up early.
If you do this Berlin -> Munich is €44.90 next Saturday on the 4 hour fast train. Also don't forget, it costs around €11 to go from Munich airport to the city.
Might have been a bad example, I was about to book the TGV from Zurich to Paris 5 weeks in advance for a weekend trip and I have the Swiss half-fare subscription (like BahnCard 50). Still would’ve been ~170€ instead of 90 CHF for a direct flight (both ways)
When I last rode the train semi-regularly I felt like I had to complete a PhD in train ticketing. I put at least 3 hours into researching the cheapest ticket and eventually, after riding for some time, discovered an even cheaper option.
In the end the cheapest option was not to use a BahnCard 25 or 50 but to buy two one-way tickets for each leg from the regional transportation provider via a smartphone app, because smartphone tickets are sold at a discount. It's wasn't just a bit cheaper but about 30%.
This is the pro-tip, a Bahn Card 25 reimburses itself in 2-3 trips and trains booked 6 weeks in advance (which is what I do for airplanes) or even 3-4 weeks in advances are inexpensive (like 30€ for a Hamburg Dammtor -Frankfurt HbF which is way more comfortable than going to both airports).
One thing I despise about trains in Germany and France is that the experience still feels way too old school. What happens when something is delayed or when a connection has an issue makes you feel back in the eighties. The Deutsche Bahn applications are a great way to see that, it's confused and overly complicated. I wish the UX of apps/websites like https://www.trainline.eu/ would be the standard by now.
BahnCard is great, but what we really need is an inner-European loyalty card for trains. BahnCard only works in Germany and I don’t want to buy another loyalty card whenever I go to another European country.
Aviation is highly taxed (about half of your ticket). Subsidies (or more accurately tax discounts) are only on fuel which is something like 10% of your flight costs. Rest goes on staff and capex.
There already is form of transport that's much cheaper than train or flying which is called BUS. We can make them fully electric and even have different classes. They can share existing infrastructure that doesn't require thousands of specialised people to maintain or operate...
>They can share existing infrastructure that doesn't require thousands of specialised people to maintain or operate...
Spending on highways and roads was $175 billion in the US in 2016 [0]. They absolutely do require massive numbers of people to maintain them - for example, Caltrans, the California agency that manages the state highway system, has over 18,000 permanent staff.
For some journeys, the train takes disproportionately longer (Zurich -> Vienna) but when you consider that the journey is way more comfortable on a train (more space, ability to walk around), train stations are in the middle of the city and there is no security or check in queue, the longer journey is more bearable
> [flying] is much more effective regarding use of time.
For short and medium distances it rarely is, given that
A) for flights, you ought to be at the airport 1 to 2 hours before departure.
B) the train typically takes you from city centre to city centre, while the airport is frequently 1/2 to 1 hours out.
C) on the train, you can work non-stop, while on a short flight a good proportion of the time you spend in security, boarding, take-off and approach, where you can’t be on your laptop.
D) on many routes, trains depart every hour or even more frequently, so you can basically go whenever you want.
> Zurich to Paris just takes too long by train, and doing night trains isn't always an option.
It's a nudge over 4 hours by TGV from Zurich center to Paris center. That is almost certainly comparable to getting from city center to airport, checking in, waiting before flight, flying, waiting for bags, and getting to city center at the other end. Of course, if your source and destination are closer to the airport and you have no bags/minimize waiting time that might tip the flight in your balance but I doubt it'd be very far off in many cases. Personally I'd much rather take the train here -- I find it more comfortable and convenient than flying and for me the overall time taken is comparable.
It can also be cheap. I've had several €29 fares on that route.
Especially when you account boarding, navigating the airport, having to show up at least half an hour before the flight, security checkups... All time-consuming tasks related to boarding the actual aircraft that you don't have to go through to hop on a train.
No, you have to run like crazy hoping not to lose the connection train, being stopped in the middle of nowhere without any information, stuffed into wagons without air conditioning and possibility to open the windows, cramped with more passengers than available seats, without any place to stuff luggage, out of order toilets,....
You get the same issue with connections whether you fly or take the train (I strongly avoid non-direct routes for this reason).
None of my train trips in Europe (Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland) had the issues you mentioned.
In particular, the designers of the German ICEs seem to have realized over the past ~decade that people don't want to lift heavy bags overhead (especially if the compartment is too small), and that when the only other space to store them is the corridor, the corridor will be full of bags. They added dedicated luggage racks with enough space to actually fit your luggage.
Okay so fly to CDG in Paris and then enjoy the annoying train ride into Paris that takes an hour and leaves infrequently. How do you get to and from the airport anyway?
Many cities it’s a nightmare to get to the airport, whereas the train station is usually central.
German trains pack as much people as possible and occasionally you can consider yourself lucky if you manage to reach your seat, if the wagon is still available to start with.
Agreed. I'd definitely say if you're only travelling across one or two European countries, between major cities, rail is definitely the way to go. It's more comfortable, safer, you're infinitely less likely to get touched up by an overzealous security person, usually takes you right to the city centre that you're interested in, you don't have to worry about Ryanair trying to extort something out of you. You also don't have to worry about airplane mode and many railways provide free (if shockingly bad) WiFi, and many routes have reasonable 3/4G coverage.
> In any case, that was just an example, I am not doing Germany - Portugal by train, unless forced to do so. It is more than 24h.
That's the point, we need to expand the rail network to make longer distance trips shorter, more comfortable, and affordable. Flying can't continue to be the default option.
I often find using interrail.eu to be a good option.
Much more elastic, and can quickly get financially interesting, even more so for multi-hop travels.
A flight between Helsinki and Rovaniemi is like 1h 20min. The train will take 8 to 12 hours. Even accounting for all of the airport bullshit, you'll save so much time by taking the plane without a big increase in cost (at least if you book in advance).
Throne is a gifting platform for creators, servicing 100k+ content creators from Twitch, YouTube & Co and millions of fans every month. We launched in Sept '21 and are already processing $20M+ in annual gifting volume with a small & highly capable team.
Our tech stack is TypeScript + React (frontend) and TypesScript + NodeJS (backend).
Hiring mid/senior/staff engineers, job description & details: https://angel.co/l/2wZSSg
Email: pat [at] jointhrone [dot] com