I intend to! And to wrap it in a gem; I’ve got it partly there, but it’s a currently a mess as I ran into a bunch of “oh that didn’t actually work” problems at various points. I’ll post a link later…
Edit: Ach, sorry - it's going to be awhile, when I went to roll my own I did it inside my project, so it's not even close to being available as a gem :/
It’s a brutal reality of laying off displaced workers to free up cash to invest in tech: bank tellers for ATMs; DBAs for RDS; factory workers for robots.
This fails when the hype doesn’t meet reality - shift back to cashiers from self-service checkouts as an example.
I think we’ll see something similar in AI where many companies will have over rotated and will end up rehiring sales, marketing and other roles that we thought AI could replace.
Except in this case it is like laying off the factory workers at the robot factory before the robots are built. Investing in AI still means investing in tech people to work on AI, but that's who just got laid off...
One might be inclined to think that it is a freeing up of dead weight accumulated during the COVID hiring spree, but we also know of industry-recognized people deemed very talented, who should be prime candidates for AI investment, that were let go, so...
You'd think for all the lip-service given to how employees are their most valuable resource they would at least consider re-training. Some developers (myself included) have zero interest in LLM-hype train and would gladly take a severance package, but others would certainly want to up-skill and they already know the culture and company. Seems much cheaper than fire/hire.
Eh, the "tech people" who've been laid off range everything from graphic designers to project managers to marketing, sales, HR etc, almost none of whom have any skill overlap with the engineers, mathematicians and scientists building AI.
There are a small number of CS-degree holding software engineers or statistical expert data scientists who can pivot into AI with a fairly direct application of their existing education and experience, but the vast majority of people who were laid off from "tech companies" do not have that background.
Unrelated to ai, but I once had a so bad experience with self service checkout in one of the major supermarkets in Italy, I wrote an email to their customer service detailing all the bad things I could think of that they could improve. Worst thing is they behave in different ways whether you're on the checkouts on the left or on the right side of the wall. Many friends told me it was too much writing an email, but many had same frustrating experiences as me
Sorry for the late reply, i guess hn doesn't show replies so I sometimes check my comments on my profile to see what's up (tell me if there's a way to be notified)
They replied something in the lines of "we sent your considerations to the department concerning buyings these things. We'll let you know" and then they didn't let me know
City Innovate | https://cityinnovate.com | Senior Full-Stack Engineer | REMOTE (USA only) | Full Time | $165-$215K
I’m the CEO and former CIO for the City of SF. City Innovate is a public benefit corporation helping modernize government agencies through document automation (think enterprise Google Docs - smart templates, granular permissions, workflow). We have product-market-fit, are profitable, zero churn, and are growing quickly. We have some of the largest govt agencies in the world as our customers.
We’re looking for a Senior Full-Stack Engineer who is comfortable with Ruby on Rails, Tailwind, and JS to build the next version of our application.
Please apply by sending an email to: remove-this-text-inculding-last-hyphen-product.leadership+hn@cityinnovate.com
City Innovate | https://cityinnovate.com | Sr Tech Lead | REMOTE (USA only) | Full Time | $165-$215K
I’m the CEO and former CIO for the City of SF. City Innovate is a public benefit corporation helping modernize government agencies through document automation (think enterprise Google Docs - smart templates, section level permissioning, workflow). We have product-market-fit, are profitable, zero churn, and are growing quickly. We have some of the largest govt agencies in the world as our customers.
We’re looking for a Senior Tech Lead who loves Ruby to drive our engineering team on developing high quality solutions through technical solution designs, code review, hands on development work. You will be contributing your expertise in software development and architecture to guide our core Ruby on Rails application and future tech decisions.
Please apply by sending an email to: remove-this-text-inculding-last-hyphen-product.leadership+hn@cityinnovate.com
City Innovate | https://cityinnovate.com | Director of Engineering | REMOTE (USA only) | Full Time | $165-$185K
I’m the CEO and former CIO for the City of SF. City Innovate is a public benefit corporation helping modernize government agencies through document automation (think enterprise Google Docs - smart templates, section level permissioning, workflow). We have product-market-fit, are profitable, zero churn, and are growing quickly. We have some of the largest govt agencies in the world as our customers.
We’re looking for a Director of Engineering to lead our vision and strategy in the GovTech space, driving feature velocity, stability, and team entrepreneurship, all while maintaining a focus on social good. Bring your expertise in software development, architecture, and team management to guide our core Ruby on Rails application and future tech decisions.
Some kindness could do you some good, if he asked it is because he didn’t get it, maybe English is not his first language or whatever it is, he didn’t unrestrained, so he asked. you don’t need to be an asshole. English is not my first language and occasionally I have to look for definitions.
Are there any other libraries or online services that does this well? I have a large number of PDFs from government agencies. I’ve tried AWS Textract and works fairly well.
https://www.handwritingocr.com is aimed specifically at handwriting, and will do that better than Textract and co, but works well for printed text too.
City Innovate | https://cityinnovate.com | Sr. Product Management | REMOTE (USA only) | Full Time | $140,000 - $155,000
I’m the CEO and former CIO for the City of SF. City Innovate is a public benefit corporation helping modernize government agencies through document process automation (think enterprise Google Docs - business rules, smart templates, granular permissioning, approvals). We have product-market-fit, over 430% growth over the past three years, zero churn, and have a strong balance sheet. We have some of the largest govt agencies in the world as our customers.
We’re looking for a Product Manager to help us reimagine documents for the public sector. This position requires an experienced IC who thrives in early stage companies, cares about our mission, and is a team player.
City Innovate | https://cityinnovate.com | Director of Information Security and Compliance | REMOTE (USA only) | Full Time | $165-$185K
I'm the CEO and former CIO for the City of SF. City Innovate is a public benefit corporation helping modernize government agencies through document automation (think enterprise Google Docs - smart templates, section level permissioning, workflow). We have product-market-fit, are profitable, zero churn, and are growing quickly. We have some of the largest govt agencies in the world as our customers.
We're looking for a Director of Information Security and Compliance to ensure our compliance with critical regulations, including SOC 2, StateRAMP, FedRAMP, HIPAA, and GDPR. This position requires a dedicated professional who can not only lead and manage these complex programs but also collaborate effectively with our Product and Engineering teams to integrate security measures seamlessly into our offerings.
