oldsj

Joined 11 years ago

Karma
100
Submissions
108
Member since
Apr 26
Github: https://github.com/oldsj

Blog: https://blog.jamesolds.me

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Recent submissions

Comment · 10 months ago
Location: Remote (US)

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: Python, Go, TypeScript, Terraform, Kubernetes, GCP, AWS, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Dagster, LLMs/AI tooling (Pydantic AI, Langfuse, Qdrant)

Résumé/CV: https://blog.jamesolds.me/james-olds-resume.pdf

Email: james + hn @ oldsmail . com

GitHub: https://github.com/oldsj

Blog: https://blog.jamesolds.me/

---

Full Stack / Platform Engineer, previously at Trail of Bits.

Recent focus: Designed entire K8s infrastructure with secure best practices and Tailscale for intranet connectivity to self hosted services - supporting the team that placed 2nd at AIxCC DEF CON 2025. Built out multiple full-stack apps with Svelte, Tailwind CSS, Typescript, Python.

Currently building https://github.com/oldsj/mainloop so that I can more quickly build https://understanding.news, a reasoning layer for political news and comments.

Looking for: Full-stack AI native product development roles or Platform Engineering roles. Full time or contract

Comment · 10 months ago
I think we’re slightly better than random at this point
Comment · 10 months ago
I like the idea. As a solo dev I've experimented with creating Claude subagents for multiple perspectives for "team leads" and will run ideas through them (in parallel). The subagents are just simple markdown explaining the various perspectives that are usually in contention when designing stuff. And a 'decider' that gives me an executive summary.

  agents/
    |-- customer-expert.md - validates problem assumptions, customer reality
    |-- design-lead.md - shapes solution concepts, ensures UX quality
    |-- growth-expert.md - competitive landscape, positioning, distribution
    |-- technical-expert.md - assesses feasibility, identifies technical risks
    |-- decider-advisor.md - synthesizes perspectives, executive analysis
Comment · 10 months ago
I’ve been working on running agents (Claude agent sdk) on k8s this looks great to control their egress
Comment · 10 months ago
I'm just glad it can run async of my main thread now, so I can spawn other agents for more interesting things
Comment · 3 years ago
This looks excellent and very timely. We just started hand rolling our own ETL process with Python and Github Actions to ingest from various SaaS sources to a central DB for context to LLM(s) and traditional BI tools.

Speaking of Plaid, would love to see an integration there for personal finance

Comment · 4 years ago
> Imagine spending a lot of time and money picking out the best possible gear for a hobby before actually starting the hobby.

Are you kidding me that's my favorite part!

Comment · 4 years ago
I think there's something to this and have been thinking about this for a while too. Just today tried to see if diff.me was available, sadly it's not.

I was thinking something like a git repo with a flat file in it. You list your beliefs / opinions / things you think are facts in a structured way (maybe a tree like structure) going all the way back to some "root". Then you can easily diff this file with someone else and see where you agree and differ. Changing someone's mind could just be a pull request :)

Comment · 4 years ago

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton