randomdrake

vor 2 Monatendiscuss

I wonder if this extends to training models on new content as well. Are we creating a cyclical information-consumption and training situation in which models being trained are more likely to pick up on and reference content created by themselves or by other LLMs than by other humans?

randomdrake

vor 2 Monatendiscuss

  Location: Tigard, OR (Portland Metro)
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No
  Technologies: TypeScript, Python, Go, PHP, AWS, Kubernetes, React, Angular, Postgres, MySQL, Claude / MCP infrastructure
  Résumé/CV: https://davidbyrondrake.com/david-drake-resume.pdf
  Email: [email protected]

Engineering leader with nearly 20 years building teams that ship. Looking for Engineering Manager, Director, or VP roles.

Most recent: DevOps and Engineering Manager at Counterpart (insurance), where I led two full-stack teams plus DevOps and built an MCP infrastructure connecting GitHub, Linear, Salesforce, Snowflake, and Slack across the full insurance lifecycle. Agile success rate peaked at 89% against an 80% industry benchmark. A git-tracked Salesforce deployment pipeline I built on GitHub Actions saved roughly $20k a year and made deploys boring again.

Before that: Director of Engineering at Flourish Software (up to 15 engineers, 60% improvement in on-time delivery, 50% reduction in support load), Senior Full Stack at Expensify (moved millions of dollars a day, six-stack infrastructure), CEO of RedDep Labs (17 people, $8.6M valuation), CTO at iCracked (Y Combinator, 400+ technicians, dispatching system).

How I lead: I hire people who care about each other's success as much as their own, set clear commitments, and then trust the team to do the work. I trained as an actor and was a special education teacher before I wrote code, which is how I keep technical conversations legible to non-engineers and how I'm comfortable in any room.

Best fit: a team that values shipping over performance, has real users, and wants a leader technical enough to read the code and grounded enough to keep the team steady when things get hard.

randomdrake

vor 3 Monatendiscuss

I got a paper route just to get a hold of the dx2.

It was a life-changing machine.

Ordered, I believe, from the depths of a Computer Shopper magazine.

randomdrake

vor 3 Monatendiscuss

When I was in college, we were required to take a business class (Business 101) that mandated a finished business plan as part of the project.

It had to be long, in-depth, and include everything you mentioned.

I was incredibly surprised when I entered the tech and startup workforce that these were generally absent.

I had misunderstood the class and instructor and thought that you couldn't even start a business without one.

Then, when I started raising money for my own venture, I thought for sure a complete business plan was a prerequisite.

Nope. A few graphs, preferably hockey-shaped, and a good story were all that was necessary.

My venture failed, of course. But if I were to do it again, I would do myself the favor of having a complete plan. It would definitely save a lot of headaches and guessing in the moment.

randomdrake

vor 4 Monatendiscuss

Thank you for your post. Very informative. Why is it too early for AI? It’s clearly an emergent cultural evolutionary byproduct that’s been many years in the making and quite mature. Perhaps your own bias is limiting you to imagine what AI is truly capable of?

randomdrake

vor 8 Monatendiscuss

Wrote and released a daily reader on sobriety and stillness called I Will Not Drink With You Today.

There’s a companion website: https://iwillnotdrinkwithyoutoday.com

I wrote the book in markdown, stuck it in a SQLite DB and wrote a parser to put all the data in static JSON so it loads very fast.

I also created a new personal homepage to update my presence on the web as a published author and experienced leader and technologist: https://davidbyrondrake.com

Book was released less than a month ago—growing it organically like a startup has been fascinating in terms of marketing, sharing, building, and measuring success.

Have been utilizing my acting skills again with readings from the book on my Instagram and TikTok.

Having a really good time with it!

randomdrake

vor 8 Monatendiscuss

Defending focus is way harder than adding features.

When you're building, adding yet another feature can sometimes shave off all the edges that made you successful in the first place.

Same with messaging. The more you try to sound universal, the less anyone hears you.

Strong opinions that are honestly held and communicated are such great signs of respect. It's refreshing to see: "This is who we are. If it's not for you, that's okay."

Good piece.

randomdrake

vor 9 Monatendiscuss

This is a well-done library that’s fun to work with. I put together a proof of concept org chart generator[0] with it a while back when working on another project. Very easy to use and well-documented.

[0] - https://github.com/randomdrake/react-flow-org-chart

randomdrake

vor 9 Monatendiscuss

Betty White holds such a highly regarded “Hollywood Star” place for me. It was fascinating to see her brought to life through her very ordinary belongings. Fun read.

randomdrake

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