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Justin, how do you help the engineers on their problems if you say yourself that you're not that much of a programmer?

• justin 16y ago
  I'm not a great programmer, but: - I'm a pretty decent web developer - I have a lot of web development experience and often times can solve web related problems with little direct knowledge of the particular code - Generally scaling problems all follow the same patterns and really there are only a few things that go wrong on websites - I am a decent communicator and can help communicate ideas (whether they are my own or others) - I have a good sense of timing around the work flow of web development, and can help line things up (design meetings, QA resources, releases) around the work flow of developers - I can be a sounding board for technical ideas - I can record a brainstorming / design meeting and turn it into a spec (although I could probably be better at spec writing!) - I can help people get excited about an idea When I started Kiko with Emmett 5 years ago I could barely do any web development at all (don't tell PG!). Since then, I think I've become quite adept at building web apps (and some of those skills even apply to mobile apps). That's not to say I'm exceptional -- I think most people should be able to learn something in 5 years! However, I've noticed that there are a lot of people in the tech startup / HN community that don't necessarily have a ton of programming experience but want to launch tech startups. There are quite a few examples among my friends of people who have done that successfully -- building web apps isn't just about programming.
  • freshfey 16y ago
    Wow, thanks for clearing that up! I'm really in that position right now, great to hear that from you.