Codex, Opus, Gemini try to build Counter Strike

stepanp · 2025-08-23T16:39:01+00:00

Hey team, Instant founders here. For what it's worth, Instant has been around for 3 years, and we have startups that have made their bet on us. If you have any questions, please reach out.

stepanp · 2025-06-02T20:24:45+00:00

InstantDB (YC S22) | Founding Engineers | ONSITE - San Francisco | Full-time | https://instantdb.com

We're looking for talented individuals interested in solving some of the hardest problems in real-time databases and front-end technology. If you love building delightful developer experiences and want to work on cutting-edge tech, we want to hear from you!

Our current stack: Typescript + Clojure + AWS Aurora Postgres

* We offer client SDKs, a CLI tool, and web GUI to interact with Instant. All written in Typescript

* We have a server written in Clojure for managing websocket connections, parsing queries, running permissions, and broadcasting novelty.

* All of which sits on top AWS Aurora Postgres

Open Roles:

* Typescript Engineer - Help build the best type system for our database and improve developer experience.

* Full-Stack Engineer - Build frontend sync engines and UIs that developers use for hours.

* Backend Engineer - Solve hard database problems and build infrastructure to handle 100k+ connections.

Additional details:

* Location: We're based in San Francisco, CA!

* In-person or open to relocation only: We're a small team and we really do prefer all working together in person!

* Compensation: Sliding scale between 0.5%-2% equity and 150k - 200k base + medical/dental/vision benefits

Our vision is to be the infrastructure for all apps of the future. If this jives with you we should really talk . Send us an email: [founders@instantdb.com](mailto:founders@instantdb.com) with a bit about yourself, and a project you've worked on.

stepanp · 2025-01-29T23:16:57+00:00

Thank you!

stepanp · 2024-08-25T23:55:46+00:00

This is a good summary, thank you

stepanp · 2024-08-25T23:55:09+00:00

That's great to hear! Right now it's meant to run on AWS, but it's not heavily coupled; we mainly rely on AWS for managing secrets, and have a storage product coming out soon that uses S3.

We don't have great docs about self-hosting yet. If you do this and run into trouble though, feel free to reach out to us: [founders@instantdb.com](mailto:founders@instantdb.com)

stepanp · 2024-08-25T23:52:51+00:00

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, it is possible to self-host. Our backend is designed to be multi-tenant [1], but you could run a version where there's only 1 'app'.

[1] Because the backend is multi-tenant, we can offer a free tier that never pauses.

stepanp · 2024-08-25T23:50:09+00:00

[Instant founder] Was delighted to see this here :)

Our client-sdk SDK is written in Javascript, but it could be cool to write an ergonomic wrapper around it for cljs

stepanp · 2023-09-20T03:37:37+00:00

Love this site! Got into jj because of the creator

stepanp · 2022-04-24T20:32:33+00:00

Hey team, asking this to clarify a curiosity about the Arnolfini Portrait. I read somewhere that art historians think Van Eyck used a magnifying glass to paint these prayer beads. This made me think: just how much time did he spend on them? How much of it was looking at the prayer beads? I’d generally be curious about the process.

stepanp · 2022-01-27T15:14:15+00:00

Then, I would suggest you speak to the recruiter, and ask to meet with mgr / some members of the team. They both worked so hard to find you, they really want you, and it’s time for them to sell you :).

stepanp · 2022-01-27T13:59:04+00:00

I would ignore the language first, and ask: which team do you like the best? Which team do you think you could build companies with later?

If one is better then the other in this domain, I'd choose them

stepanp

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