12 ms·

I wrote a Dropbox-like file sync and share application called Syncany [1] as a side project back in 2014/2015. While it never made it out of alpha, it had gotte

I wrote a Dropbox-like file sync and share application called Syncany [1] as a side project back in 2014/2015. While it never made it out of alpha, it had gotten some traction, and looking back, I am still proud of the architecture and design (not so much of the code, hehe). One day, a developer from this random company in Connecticut (I am German and lived in Germany at the time) reached out to me in my project's IRC channel, and asked if I wanted to interview. I did, and I got the job. I moved to the UK, then to the US with my wife, and stayed with the company for 8 years. I got promoted from senior engineer to Sr. Principal Engineer and had an amazing time there. I now have a green card and live in CT with my 2 amazing children (with German and American citizenship). I often think back about how much that project and that person who reached out to me changed my life. How different it would be if I hadn't worked on my side project, if it hadn't become semi-popular, or if he hadn't reached out. Butterfly effect at it's finest. [1] https://www.syncany.org https://www.syncany.org Edit: Fun fact: Drew Houston (Dropbox CEO) emailed me at the time and wanted to hire me, but he didn't respond when I emailed him back. And even many years later when I applied at Dropbox they didn't want me, hehe.

johnwheeler 3y ago
Awesome story! Thank you
triyambakam 3y ago
Sehr schön und süß!
tnvmadhav 3y ago
Amazing!
chupapimunyenyo 3y ago
Its finest, not it's https://youryoure.com/?its https://youryoure.com/?its
- binwiederhier 3y ago
  Thanks. Though I must blame this one one my phone's autocorrect. Hehe.
pokepim 3y ago
Is it common for Germans to dream about getting out of Germany and moving to US? Congratulations to you that you managed to do that, I am wondering how hard for German is to migrate to US to puruse better life here.
- tinco 3y ago
  Not super common, but many people dream of having better jobs and there's few better jobs than software engineering in the US. It's harder to move to the US since Trump cracked down on immigration.
- microtonal 3y ago
  Most Germans I know in tech (lived in Germany for 5 years or so) would never want to move the US. Everyone prefers the Germany social security/insurance/pension system (even if it’s quite mediocre compared to The Netherlands and Scandinavia).
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Most Germans I know in tech (lived in Germany for 5 years or so) would never want to move the US. And yet GP did, and others more like him. FWIW I had two German bosses who emigrated to the US(one to California, one to Atlanta), so the US is clearly an attractive place for them and they say they loved it there just like GP. The majority of Germans talking about how much they hate the US, have never lived there but they hate it nevertheless because it's a populat thing to hate in Germany, and also they don't work in tech, or need to rely on the welfare state, or are already from well off families where the lower local salaries make no difference. The ones working in tech who don't rely on the welfare state, are quite open to the idea of moving there for the right money. Sure, if GP was one of those Germans from a mid-upper class background with a nice inherited Bavarian house (unaffordable at any German working wage) then immigrating to the US makes no sense as he already would have enough prosperity at home, but if you have no wealth and want to build it, then working in the US tech sector is much better than working in Germany. So no, a blanket generalization cannot be made of "Germans wanting to move to the US", as that highly depends on their social/wealth class and career. Edit: seems I upset the apple cart with my comment. Sorry, next time I'm gonna parrot the HN accepted "Germany-Good, US-Bad" party line if that pleases the crowd.
keepamovin 3y ago
That's crazy about the missed reply. Maybe it was just email filters influencing fate! An abomination, but fascinating. Cool story! :)
hackernewds 3y ago
That sounds hilariously on character for Drew :)
stef25 3y ago
Getting a green card by writing code on the side. Very cool, congrats.
aureianimus 3y ago
Add-on story: I joined binwiederhier for a while in developing Syncany and he invited me for an internship at his current employer. The experience I gained both in contributing to Syncany and said internship helped me indirectly land the role I'm currently in, and my open source experience in general helped me land a cool engagement where I got to do some innovative open source projects.
- binwiederhier 3y ago
  Oh man, Pim! What a small world. I looooved working with you on Syncany, and I tried so hard to recruit you hehe. I looked you up on LinkedIn the other day and it looks like you're doing amazingly. Ping me and we'll chat if you like. I'm working on a new open source project [1] that needs your help, hehe. [1] https://ntfy.sh https://ntfy.sh
  - avhception 3y ago
    Looks great, what differentiates ntfy.sh from https://pushover.net/ https://pushover.net/ ?
    - binwiederhier 3y ago
      Pushover is fantastic, and if you are happy with it, then stick with it :-) I've never used Pushover, so I don't actually know all that well. However, ntfy is 100% open source so you can self-host it if you like, and I believe it does have a bunch of features that Pushover does not (email notifications, email publishing, scheduled delivery, tags/emojis, phone calls, icons, ... see for yourself: https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/ https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/). I'm sure ntfy is missing things too that Pushover has. I'll let you be the judge of it.
      - siddharthalodha 3y ago
        fellow selfhosted ntfy user. fantastic product.
      - 3y ago
SCM-Enthusiast 3y ago
Drew Houston probably wanted to see if you were a threat ;) If you had written back and asked about an acquisition/ or how you are focusing on "Taking Syncany to the next level", you might have gotten a response. That was when they were doing their network expansion initiative.
- nextaccountic 3y ago
  That would be incredibly underhanded. But it's the most likely explanation on why the CEO personally made an offer and then ignored him.

johnwheeler 3y ago

Awesome story! Thank you

triyambakam 3y ago

Sehr schön und süß!

tnvmadhav 3y ago

Amazing!

chupapimunyenyo 3y ago

Its finest, not it's https://youryoure.com/?its https://youryoure.com/?its

binwiederhier 3y ago
Thanks. Though I must blame this one one my phone's autocorrect. Hehe.

pokepim 3y ago

Is it common for Germans to dream about getting out of Germany and moving to US? Congratulations to you that you managed to do that, I am wondering how hard for German is to migrate to US to puruse better life here.

tinco 3y ago
Not super common, but many people dream of having better jobs and there's few better jobs than software engineering in the US. It's harder to move to the US since Trump cracked down on immigration.
microtonal 3y ago
Most Germans I know in tech (lived in Germany for 5 years or so) would never want to move the US. Everyone prefers the Germany social security/insurance/pension system (even if it’s quite mediocre compared to The Netherlands and Scandinavia).
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Most Germans I know in tech (lived in Germany for 5 years or so) would never want to move the US. And yet GP did, and others more like him. FWIW I had two German bosses who emigrated to the US(one to California, one to Atlanta), so the US is clearly an attractive place for them and they say they loved it there just like GP. The majority of Germans talking about how much they hate the US, have never lived there but they hate it nevertheless because it's a populat thing to hate in Germany, and also they don't work in tech, or need to rely on the welfare state, or are already from well off families where the lower local salaries make no difference. The ones working in tech who don't rely on the welfare state, are quite open to the idea of moving there for the right money. Sure, if GP was one of those Germans from a mid-upper class background with a nice inherited Bavarian house (unaffordable at any German working wage) then immigrating to the US makes no sense as he already would have enough prosperity at home, but if you have no wealth and want to build it, then working in the US tech sector is much better than working in Germany. So no, a blanket generalization cannot be made of "Germans wanting to move to the US", as that highly depends on their social/wealth class and career. Edit: seems I upset the apple cart with my comment. Sorry, next time I'm gonna parrot the HN accepted "Germany-Good, US-Bad" party line if that pleases the crowd.

keepamovin 3y ago

That's crazy about the missed reply. Maybe it was just email filters influencing fate! An abomination, but fascinating. Cool story! :)

hackernewds 3y ago

That sounds hilariously on character for Drew :)

stef25 3y ago

Getting a green card by writing code on the side. Very cool, congrats.

aureianimus 3y ago

Add-on story: I joined binwiederhier for a while in developing Syncany and he invited me for an internship at his current employer. The experience I gained both in contributing to Syncany and said internship helped me indirectly land the role I'm currently in, and my open source experience in general helped me land a cool engagement where I got to do some innovative open source projects.

binwiederhier 3y ago
Oh man, Pim! What a small world. I looooved working with you on Syncany, and I tried so hard to recruit you hehe. I looked you up on LinkedIn the other day and it looks like you're doing amazingly. Ping me and we'll chat if you like. I'm working on a new open source project [1] that needs your help, hehe. [1] https://ntfy.sh https://ntfy.sh
- avhception 3y ago
  Looks great, what differentiates ntfy.sh from https://pushover.net/ https://pushover.net/ ?
  - binwiederhier 3y ago
    Pushover is fantastic, and if you are happy with it, then stick with it :-) I've never used Pushover, so I don't actually know all that well. However, ntfy is 100% open source so you can self-host it if you like, and I believe it does have a bunch of features that Pushover does not (email notifications, email publishing, scheduled delivery, tags/emojis, phone calls, icons, ... see for yourself: https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/ https://docs.ntfy.sh/publish/). I'm sure ntfy is missing things too that Pushover has. I'll let you be the judge of it.
    - siddharthalodha 3y ago
      fellow selfhosted ntfy user. fantastic product.
    - 3y ago

SCM-Enthusiast 3y ago

Drew Houston probably wanted to see if you were a threat ;) If you had written back and asked about an acquisition/ or how you are focusing on "Taking Syncany to the next level", you might have gotten a response. That was when they were doing their network expansion initiative.

nextaccountic 3y ago
That would be incredibly underhanded. But it's the most likely explanation on why the CEO personally made an offer and then ignored him.