mattpratt's comments

Caspian Trade, Inc. | Software Engineer | SF, Hybrid 3+ days a week | Full-time

We're simplifying global trade compliance and helping importers navigate the trade environment, starting with duty drawback—a tax recovery process that puts cash back into importers' hands. Our platform transforms messy trade data into actionable insights, helping businesses recover from the estimated $10B in unclaimed refunds each year.

- AI/ML document ingestion processing thousands of unstructured documents - Data modeling for the complexities of global trade - Matching optimization (think: the world's biggest matching problem) - Building integrations across ERPs, customs brokers, and the countless creative ways companies manage trade data

Node, NestJS, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, React, Relay/GraphQL, BullMQ/Redis, Nix

The team is small, growing and well funded with with real revenue + domain expertise. If you're a product-minded engineer excited about shepherding AI to an old industry, let's chat: [email protected]

https://meetcaspian.notion.site/Sr-Software-Engineer-Caspian...

Caspian Trade | Product Engineer | Full-Time | SF | meetcaspian.com

We're building trade software that actually works.

Our first product is duty drawback. Every year $10B in potential refunds are left unclaimed. Data is unstructured, fragmented and trapped in legacy systems that don't talk to each other. We're helping companies organize and understand their trade data. Leveraging the wedge product, we intend to quickly grow beyond our initial product.

You'll work with a small (5-10), well-funded and experienced team. We have paying customers and are scaling up quickly in an established space. Our engineering culture emphasizes simplicity, autonomy and end-to-end ownership. Node, Typescript, React, PostgresQL

Feel free to reach out to [email protected]

Caspian | Full-time | Hybrid w. in-office requirement (SF)

At Caspian, we're helping companies understand and control their duty and tariff exposure. We're a small, well funded early stage company applying modern technology to one of the world's oldest industries.

The team is small, experienced (10+ years in logistics) and moving quickly figuring out how to scale our solution (yes, we have customers) to the next cohort of customers.

We're looking for engineers who love to learn quickly, build with autonomy and are excited to provide solutions to real businesses. We're working out of the Presidio in San Francisco. If you're up for a challenge, let's talk [email protected]

Hiring for Software Engineering :)

Caspian | SF | Full-time

Caspian is an early-stage venture backed startup focused on helping corporations manage their duty and tariff exposure. We're starting with duty drawback, a filing that gets companies money back for activity they are already doing. Over $7B in duty drawback claims go unclaimed every single year.

We're looking for engineers who are excited to learn quickly and bring modern technology to an old, unloved industry. The current team is < 5 people and has 10+ years of experience in building enterprise products in the logistics space. You'll help shape the early team and product. We're currently working out of the Presidio in San Francisco.

Current Openings

- (Senior?) Software Engineer

- Applied AI Engineer

To apply: send your resume to [email protected]

They wouldn't have exercised at that valuation. The options would be priced based on the 409a, which would be much much less than 1.5B.

money is simultaneously shifting to early stage

it's a double whammy

A problem I've noticed working at larger companies is complexity simply for the sake of demonstrating complexity. In order to demonstrate technical prowess or importance, engineers will push a project in terms of headcount, solution, etc.

Good engineering can look simple. The best engineers I've worked with will make things look easy. This can be at odds with promo driven culture.

A list of potential transactions + profits -- https://twitter.com/btcinchina/status/1438041142306623491

OpenSea's comms afterwards felt a little weak / lacking. I'm curious if they are still scrambling to put something together, investigate + determine appropriate action. The community is full of mixed reactions, so perhaps waiting for consensus or things to naturally blow over.

> We want to be clear that this behavior does not represent our values as a team

It was the head of product (from the top), so it's pretty damning wrt team values.

A podcast interview with the editors earlier this year --

https://samharris.org/podcasts/245-can-talk-scary-ideas/

In my experience the more common narrative was gaming the system to keep your GPA high. AP/DC/Advanced classes are typically shifted a GPA point up.

For example, you may not take an elective (Photography) because getting the top grade in the class would still drop your overall GPA. Despite Spanish being available in middle school, our valedictorian waited until high school because it would count a point higher -- by the time you realize how to play the game, it might be too late.

The other example cited was kids attending a very competitive school up until their senior year and then moving to a less competitive school and graduating a higher rank.

I'd point out that this only guarantees you admission into the general studies / undeclared school. It can still be difficult and competitive to get into the engineering or business school for example.

A law was passed in 2009 for the University of Texas specifically, that stated "the university must automatically admit enough students to fill 75 percent of available Texas resident spaces" [1]. That 10% number has dwindled down to the top 6%.

As a past automatic admission, I'm horrified hearing stories from coworkers. The process was never stressful for me -- I sent in one application, heard back before the holidays and was done.

[1] https://admissions.utexas.edu/apply/decisions#fndtn-freshman...

Similar to this one from a16z: https://cdixon.org/2010/01/03/the-next-big-thing-will-start-...

While Aaron's essay approaches the analogy from the perspective of those building, the linked essay approaches it from the market's perspective. For builders, don't take yourself so seriously -- but on the flip side, don't be so quick to write new things off as silly.

Aftershokz have transformed my relationship with cycling. I've always been hesitant to cycle with in ear headphones for safety reasons.

Aftershokz are perfect.

The Holloway Guide has some goodies --

https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-compensation

It's complicated and there's a lot of gotchas I wish I had known. You can read up but if you are considering any of these I would find someone who has navigated the space (and has likely been burned).

Reminds me of a16z's "dead equity" blogpost, largely revolving around employees with lingering options who no longer contributed their "fair share".

https://a16z.com/2016/06/23/options-timing/

> Well, not exactly. There is a more fundamental issue at the > heart of this seemingly good solution: A 10-year exercise > window is really a direct wealth transfer from the employees > who choose to remain at the company and build future > shareholder value, to former employees who are no longer > contributing to building the business/ its ultimate value.

But not mentioned in either is that these long running exercise windows "hurt" _all_ shareholders, especially investors. Nice of both to make this about the little man/woman.

I only wish their worth and value to the company was met with the same scrutiny they seem to give employees.

This 3-tier presentation is used at a couple places and would caution it as a way to anchor you on salary and equity. A lot of hires will negotiate the “salary high” and “equity high” option, saying they want no sacrifices, get both and join thinking they got a great deal.

> “Overnight, they just came and set this up. They had no respect for this community.”

A common narrative amongst opponents of the program is the lack of community outreach. Not mentioned in the article is that Motivate, the company that runs the bike share program, reached out to communities and collected feedback for 2+ years before rolling the program out.

Outreach report from February: https://s3.amazonaws.com/babs-www-assets/FordGoBikeInterim+O...

- Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

I recently finished _Deep Work_ by Cal Newport. In the book he discusses a workplace concept designed by David Dewane called the "Eudaimonia Machine". This workspace has multiple sections you progress through linearly, slowly moving towards independent, distraction free, personal chambers where you perform your most productive, thoughtful, deepest work.

My dream office would have more rooms like this!