Mantis Innovation | Full Stack Rails Engineer (Mid / Senior) | REMOTE or ONSITE (optional) in Houston/Denver/Boston | Full Time | $110-130k+ DOE | https://mantisinnovation.com
Mantis Innovation is reimagining facility performance. We provide technology-enabled solutions that target the entire building footprint – from roofs, walls, and pavement, to HVAC, lighting and power – as we guide our clients on their journey towards increased sustainability.
Stack Overview:
- Ruby 2.6, Rails 5 (Upgrading to latest is in-progress)
- React, Stimulus, vanilla JS
- MySQL, Redis, ES
- GCP, K8s (GKE)
What You Need:
- CS degree or equivalent experience
- 3+ years of non-trivial Rails experience
- Strong grasp of CS concepts (e.g., OOP, data structures, etc.)
- Strong relational DB skills
What You Get:
- $110k-130k+ Base Salary Depending on Experience
- Medical, Dental, Vision, HSA, FSA
- Work Remotely (+/- 3 hours from Central Time)
- 401k w/ up to 3% match
- Up to 10% annual bonus
- 15+ days PTO + 10 Paid Holidays
- Parental Leave - 6 weeks
- Tuition Reimbursement (Up to $5,250/yr)
- Equipment Budget - $5,000
If you are interested, please reach out to devhiring@mantisinnovation.com
You take a person that could be producing goods and services in the private sector, and pay him to work in the public sector, where he produces no such goods or services, and often is tasked with creating and enforcing regulations that limit economic freedom.
Clearly you're going to end up with lower economic growth.
The fact he would spend his salary on purchases is small comfort, especially when he'd likely earn a larger salary to spend in the private sector.
It's a false premise that taxation does not produce a good or service. E.g. USPS, defense contracts, farm subsidies, etc.
It's not clear that you're going to end up with lower economic growth. For example, taxing some level of income that would otherwise not be spent on economic activity (e.g. savings or equity investments) and spending it on things that do result in economic active results in higher economic growth.
Tyler Cowen writes: "You sometimes hear there is no evidence of automation putting people out of work, but arguably the automation of manufacturing, plus IT-enabled foreign competition, are significant factors behind this trend."
Male participation in the wage economy peaked right before the recession of 1958. We have now seen 57 years of decline. Women's participation in the economy peaked in the late 90s. How many decades of decline would you need to see before you feel you seeing a crisis?
Hm, I wonder how they hack these numbers together. I just made up my own unemployment metric, absolute unemployment. A-U = Population - Employees. For US. A-U = 308 mil. - 140 mil.(1)
which suggests there is about 55% of the population who are not currently employed. So, A-U - U-4 = the approximately 50% of the population who don't need jobs I guess.
Population in that case includes children and the retired.
Albeit, I hate using the phrase "retired" here. Retired for most simply means the equivalent of someone being born into wealth retiring at age 0.
Anyway, there are around 75 million kids, so real figures are something like 40% unemployed. But a lot of people are working under the table, no longer in classical employment, etc.
Though hopefully the kids are also doing something as well besides just factory public schooling. Figure 1 in 4 is 14-18 and they might have some part time job, albeit unlikely.
There is a fundamental shift to consider, though. A hundred years ago regardless of employment figures most people were farming and by farming that meant the whole family worked together to eat and provide shelter for themselves, and raise enough money to buy that which they cannot provide to themselves.
Sorry, I was thinking about No Child Left Behind, which was an Act of Congress. You're right -- Common Core is implemented differently. From what I know, it was mainly drafted up by testing corporations, but has the support of the Obama administration. Since the federal government has levers and dials it can use (i.e. fines, penalties, withholding grants, etc.) then it seems to me like the end result will be the same.
Common Core was one standard that states could adopt, and they could also develop their own, that would satisfy requirements to gain additional funding. Essentially, the Feds said: Improve your curricula because what's out there sucks, if you do, we'll give you a bonus.
Texas and others developed their own standards, for example.
No Child Left Behind is anti-productive. How anyone could believe an education initiative by a president who thinks captain crunch discovered america in 1975 could be of any value is beyond me.
Well, American taxes are rather typical. A bit on the low side, but not much. What is atypical is the very low return American citizens see on that tax. Some of that is just because of high defense spending but the rest is a product of a completely inane government. One could argue that given the rate of return, American taxes are quite high.
The poor spend a larger share of their income on items covered by VATs and excise and import duties than do rich people. Conversely, rich people save and invest a larger portion of their income. Point being that Europeans, who "see more from the taxes they pay," are really just paying themselves.
Don't most states have VAT? And are there really no import duties in the US? Why would the US need free trade deals then?
Well, I'm pretty sure that there's more redistribution in northern Europe than in the US. Sure, there's a lot of "paying yourself" going on, but that's hardly everything. Anyway, my point is that in most industrialized countries the mechanisms by which you pay yourself are much more efficient than in the US.
No, but many have sales taxes (which are not the same thing as a VAT, though they serve a similar purpose; VAT's are collected at each step in the supply chain, sales taxes only on sale to consumers.)
So much cynicism in these comments. As a 27-year-old, I found myself nodding at almost everything stated by the author. Perhaps I don't fall into the same category as most other HNers.
1. Stay married to the same person.
I married my wife right out of college (age 22) and we were and still are serious about the "til death do us part" bit. We realize that a strong marriage is something that takes hard work on a daily basis. Are there cases where this just isn't the best route to take? Absolutely (e.g. abusive relationships, unfaithful relationships, etc).
2. If you’re going to have children do it before 35.
Our daughter is now 14 months old and we have a 529 set up for her. I'll definitely be pushing for an in-state public school.
3. Choose a career you can imagine doing for 35 years and stick with it.
I love being a software engineer and I can't imagine working at a different company than I do now. I'm constantly challenged and learning new things while being part of an amazing team.
4. Secure a job with a defined benefit pension, ideally one with a union that protects you from the wiles of a topsy-turvy job market.
This is where I diverge, albeit not necessarily by choice. I contribute to my 401k which my employer contributes a generous amount. I am not a member of a union.
5. Find a financial advisor you can trust.
This is one area where I've procrastinated. I've read a lot of personal finance books and blogs, so I'm not entirely ignorant, but I do need to find a competent professional to look after my finances.
6. Buy the best house you can afford.
I didn't quite follow this advice, as we decided to buy a house below our means, but it is in a great area, brand new and plenty of space (2100 sqft). I don't view buying a home as some sort of investment (i.e. I went in to it not expecting any significant return), but we bought towards the bottom of the market with an amazing interest rate. On top of that, we're paying almost the same exact monthly payment as we did on our apartment that was 1200sqft while putting equity into something. It does help that we're out in the burbs.
7. Years before you retire, develop long-standing interests that are not outrageously costly and that don’t depend on your job or your family.
I think this is great advice.
Many comments are saying this results in a really boring life during peak years, but I don't see that. We eat out at great restaurants, have travelled internationally, are involved in our community, actively engage in hobbies individually and together, spends a large amount of time with friends and family, etc. I suppose it's just a matter of different strokes...
The advice is terrible. Most of it is a function of the luck and circumstances of his own life and requires you predict the future.
1. "Marry someone you'll never want to divorce." No shit.
2. "Plan your child rearing years around how long you expect to live." No idea how long I'll live.
3. "Choose a career that will remain lucrative and relevant." Most of our "careers" are going to be eaten by software.
4. "Get a pension plan that will never become insolvent." Good luck.
5. "Find a trustworthy and competent person in an area you have no expertise in, and hand your future to them." Impossible and irresponsible.
6. "Buy a house where there will be no real estate market crash." On average real estate prices track inflation, the last 30 years is an anomaly.
7. "Rule out any hobbies that will be expensive in 40 years." Getting into computers as a hobby 40 years ago would have seemed insanely expensive. Like robotics or 3d printing today.
As you can tell unless you can predict the future most of the advice here is empty and hinges on the past being just like the future, and not anyone's past but this guy's past.
> This is one area where I've procrastinated. I've read a lot of personal finance books and blogs, so I'm not entirely ignorant, but I do need to find a competent professional to look after my finances.
The problem is most financial advisors are just salespeople. They don't have your best interests at stake, they're just looking to get you into whatever product gets them the best commission.
Personal finance is not complicated, at least for those of us of average means. Max out your tax-advantaged accounts and keep costs low. Invest early, invest often and stay the course through a crisis.
A financial advisor will load you up with mutual funds charging >1% annual expenses. Vanguard index funds are as low as 0.05% and historically are more likely to outperform a given actively-managed mutual fund. Over your lifetime, that's a difference of hundreds of thousands of dollars in costs.
John Bogle, founder of Vanguard, says "buy the entire market and hold it forever." You don't need an advisor to do that.
As a native Texan (I've lived in the Houston area for about 26 years), I agree with most of what you say.
RE: the clinics, instead of closing, could those clinics continue to offer the other services and simply stop offering abortions? I feel like it's throwing the baby out with the bath water to just shut down altogether. Perhaps I am just misunderstanding the legislation, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't think it's a weird thing to do if someone loves what they do or is very grateful for the opportunity they have. However, I'm biased as I have written a thank you note to my CEO before (small company - I was #13 and we have 36 people now).
I guess doing the math it's just likely below my radar.
Thousands of thank-yous comes out to around ~100 / year, and Amazon has probably had between 10,000 and 100,000 employees for most of that, so it's around 0.1%-1% of employees choosing to write a thank-you in any given year. I probably don't know 100-1000 people well enough for that to show up in my personal experience.
Mantis Innovation is reimagining facility performance. We provide technology-enabled solutions that target the entire building footprint – from roofs, walls, and pavement, to HVAC, lighting and power – as we guide our clients on their journey towards increased sustainability.
Stack Overview:
- Ruby 2.6, Rails 5 (Upgrading to latest is in-progress)
- React, Stimulus, vanilla JS
- MySQL, Redis, ES
- GCP, K8s (GKE)
What You Need:
- CS degree or equivalent experience
- 3+ years of non-trivial Rails experience
- Strong grasp of CS concepts (e.g., OOP, data structures, etc.)
- Strong relational DB skills
What You Get:
- $110k-130k+ Base Salary Depending on Experience
- Medical, Dental, Vision, HSA, FSA
- Work Remotely (+/- 3 hours from Central Time)
- 401k w/ up to 3% match
- Up to 10% annual bonus
- 15+ days PTO + 10 Paid Holidays
- Parental Leave - 6 weeks
- Tuition Reimbursement (Up to $5,250/yr)
- Equipment Budget - $5,000
If you are interested, please reach out to devhiring@mantisinnovation.com