Tag: Retool

Retool (YC W17) is hiring hackers to combine visual programming with AI

Hi HN,

We’re Retool (https://retool.com), a visual programming environment for building internal tools. Here’s a 3 minute demo video: https://d3399nw8s4ngfo.cloudfront.net/videos/intro-to-retool….

You can think of Retool as something like Visual Basic, but in the cloud. The idea is that there are lots of internal applications that businesses need, and today, build from scratch (probably via React). But while React is great for many things (our landing page is built in React, our product is built in React, etc.), it’s possible that it might be overkill for building a simple form that POSTs data back to your API. (Who _wants_ to worry about debouncing the submit button, handling errors from the backend, and authenticating and authorizing the users?)

We launched on HN around five years ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725966). Since then, we’ve launched three new products – a native mobile product (https://retool.com/products/mobile), an automation product for developers (https://retool.com/products/workflows/), and a database product (https://retool.com/products/database/). We’ve hired and grown the team to over 350, and are proud to have businesses like Doordash, NBC Universal, Mercedes Benz, and the NFL using Retool.

The network at Retool is also fairly strong — our lead investors in the Series B and C were Sequoia, along with Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, as well as John and Patrick Collison. Other investors include the founders of Github, Gusto, Segment, PagerDuty, Plaid, etc.

This year, while other companies are downsizing, we’re doubling down. (Literally.) We’re attempting to double our engineering, product, and design orgs this year. We think the opportunity to invent the future of programming is enormous, and we’re looking for more hackers to join our team.

We think that AI is going to change the way people build software. We think that there is tremendous potential in building interfaces that help humans and AI collaborate together to build software. We want to build a world where humans can quickly assemble full applications by just providing high level directions to AI.

We believe we’re set up especially well to do just that – we have all the building blocks for creating software (frontends, backend compute, data storage) as well as a live interactive builder environment. Why entangle yourself with messy things like Webpack, Docker, and Kubernetes when you can directly manipulate a live app, running right in front of you?

We also think that the world, as a whole, is under-utilizing AI. Businesses are broadly interested in generative AI and LLMs, but don’t know how yet to leverage and use them. It should be simple for businesses to quickly set up flows to have AI automatically triage bug reports, summarize customer feedback, and enrich datasets.

We’ve shared a sneak peak of what we think some of this could look like (https://retool.com/blog/gpt4-in-retool/), and there’s a bunch more coming up that we’re really excited to talk about soon.

If you’re interested in working with AIs and LLMs to change the way companies build software, we’d love to hear from you. We’ve made multiple hires from HN in the past, so we’re posting here. But if you know any friends who are interested, feel free to tell them to reach out as well.

Please email us at snir AT retool with “HN” in the subject line.

Thanks!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35978151

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Retool (YC W17) is hiring hackers to combine visual programming with AI

Hi HN,

We’re Retool (https://retool.com), a visual programming environment for building internal tools. Here’s a 3 minute demo video: https://d3399nw8s4ngfo.cloudfront.net/videos/intro-to-retool….

You can think of Retool as something like Visual Basic, but in the cloud. The idea is that there are lots of internal applications that businesses need, and today, build from scratch (probably via React). But while React is great for many things (our landing page is built in React, our product is built in React, etc.), it’s possible that it might be overkill for building a simple form that POSTs data back to your API. (Who _wants_ to worry about debouncing the submit button, handling errors from the backend, and authenticating and authorizing the users?)

We launched on HN around five years ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725966). Since then, we’ve launched three new products – a native mobile product (https://retool.com/products/mobile), an automation product for developers (https://retool.com/products/workflows/), and a database product (https://retool.com/products/database/). We’ve hired and grown the team to over 350, and are proud to have businesses like Doordash, NBC Universal, Mercedes Benz, and the NFL using Retool.

The network at Retool is also fairly strong — our lead investors in the Series B were Sequoia, along with Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, as well as John and Patrick Collison. Other investors include the founders of Github, Gusto, Segment, PagerDuty, Plaid, etc.

This year, while other companies are downsizing, we’re doubling down. (Literally.) We’re attempting to double our engineering, product, and design orgs this year. We think the opportunity to invent the future of programming is enormous, and we’re looking for more hackers to join our team.

We think that AI is going to change the way people build software. We think that there is tremendous potential in building interfaces that help humans and AI collaborate together to build software. We want to build a world where humans can quickly assemble full applications by just providing high level directions to AI.

We believe we’re set up especially well to do just that – we have all the building blocks for creating software (frontends, backend compute, data storage) as well as a live interactive builder environment. Why entangle yourself with messy things like Webpack, Docker, and Kubernetes when you can directly manipulate a live app, running right in front of you?

We also think that the world. as a whole, is under-utilizing AI. Businesses are broadly interested in generative AI and LLMs, but don’t know how yet to leverage and use them. It should be simple for businesses to quickly set up flows to have AI automatically triage bug reports, summarize customer feedback, and enrich datasets.

We’ve shared a sneak peak of what we think some of this could look like (https://retool.com/blog/gpt4-in-retool/), and there’s a bunch more coming up that we’re really excited to talk about soon.

If you’re interested in working with AIs and LLMs to change the way companies build software, we’d love to hear from you. We’ve made multiple hires from HN in the past, so we’re posting here. But if you know any friends who are interested, feel free to tell them to reach out as well.

Please email me at david AT retool with “HN” in the subject line.

Thanks!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35277721

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Retool (YC W17) is hiring engineers

Hi HN,

We’re Retool (https://retool.com), a fast way of building internal tools. We launched on HN around three years ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725966). Here’s a 3 minute demo video: https://d3399nw8s4ngfo.cloudfront.net/videos/intro-to-retool.mp4.

You can think of Retool as something like Visual Basic, but in the cloud. The idea is that there are lots of internal applications that businesses need, and today, build from scratch (probably via React). But while React is great for many things (our landing page is built in React, our product is built in React, etc.), it’s possible that it might be overkill for building a simple form that POSTs data back to your API. (Who _wants_ to worry about debouncing the submit button, handling errors from the backend, and authenticating and authorizing the users?!)

Instead of building from scratch, Retool gives you the best components for internal apps (e.g. a `JSON Schema Form` component: https://docs.retool.com/docs/working-with-json-schema-form, which consumes JSON from your backend and auto-generates a form, so you can change your form programmatically), a drag-and-drop interface for assembling your UI, a FRP-like state management system (you can refer to any component and its properties, within {{ }}, wherein you can also write sandboxed JS), as well as a bunch of admin features (authentication via an SSO provider, authorization via groups synced from your SSO provider, and audit logs) that all internal applications should have.

A surprising amount of software engineering resources go into internal applications! If you think about it, almost all the engineers at “traditional” companies (e.g. Disney, PitneyBowes, Mercedes Benz, Bosch, Progressive, or NBC; all paying customers of Retool) are working on internal applications. It’d probably be fair to say a majority of all software in the world is internal-facing. And our goal is to get all that software, built (faster, and in a more delightful way) with Retool.

We’re hiring for many roles, but particularly interested in engineers, engineering managers, engineering directors, and engineers who enjoy talking with customers (whether pre or post-sales). Retool is a highly technical product, and we especially like engineers in non-engineering-specific roles. (For example, one candidate who came in via HN was an engineer, and now works on sales at Retool. In the first quarter of this year, he closed $1M of contracts by himself.)

Today, we’re cash flow-positive, and are around 80 employees. We’ve grown approximately 3x in the past year (both in terms of revenue and employees), and expect to grow approximately 3x again next year. In 3 years’ time, we expect both revenue and headcount to grow approximately 10x from today.

The network at Retool is also fairly strong — our lead investors in the Series B were Sequoia, along with Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, as well as John and Patrick Collison. Other investors include the founders of Github, Gusto, Segment, PagerDuty, Plaid, etc.

I think there’s a unique opportunity to join Retool now — we’ve found product-market fit, are cash-flow positive (and growing quickly), but are still a small team with a lot of ambiguity and therefore autonomy. Because the company itself is growing very rapidly, you’ll have a front-row seat into what building a rapidly scaling startup looks like. You’ll also get to have a very significant impact today (since we’re so small, and big believers in enabling people), but also grow into a larger impact as the company itself grows.

We think the market for custom enterprise apps is huge. And we think that Retool has a promising shot at capturing much of it. We have a product that works, that customers mostly like (although we have so much work to do, still), and whose usage is growing rapidly. And we’d love to potentially work with you!

We’ve made multiple hires from HN in the past, so we’re posting here. But if you know any friends who are interested, feel free to tell them to reach out as well. Please email me at david AT retool with “HN” in the subject line.

Thanks!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28373610

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Retool (YC W17) hiring engineers, support engineers, designers, etc. in SF

Hi — we’re Retool (https://retool.com), a fast way of building internal tools. We launched on HN around a year ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725966). We’re a small team based in Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA.

Business-wise, we’re profitable, growing quickly, and well-capitalized. (We recently raised a Series A from Sequoia. Other investors include technical founders, including Paul Graham, John + Patrick Collison, Nat Friedman, Greg Brockman, etc.)

Culture-wise, we’re a small group who enjoys solving problems and working hard. We work closely with customers, and iterate quickly. We spend our days typically either writing code or talking with customers.

The market for custom enterprise apps is huge. And we think that we have a promising shot at capturing much of it: we have a product that works, that customers love (go talk to any customer!), and whose usage is growing rapidly.

We’ve significantly de-risked the business (e.g. have significant revenue, have a good amount of paying customers, have raised $20M from Sequoia, are profitable, etc.). But there’s plenty of stuff to figure out as well. For example:

    - How can we quickly ship new products while keeping current customers happy? 

    - How do we design the UI/UX for a new programming environment? 

    - How do we concisely explain what Retool is, without a 4 minute demo video (https://retool.com)?

We’re hiring for many roles, including engineering, sales, developer relations, customer support + success. We think you’d be a good fit at Retool if you enjoy:

    - building things,

    - deciding what to work on, independently, and

    - getting things done + managing yourself

If you’re interested, please email me at david@retool.com. Thanks!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21340263

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Retool (YC W17) hiring engineers, support engineers, designers, etc. in SF

Hi — we’re Retool (https://retool.com), a fast way of building internal tools. We launched on HN around a year ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725966). We’re a small team based in Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA. Business-wise, we’re profitable, growing quickly, and well-capitalized. (We recently raised a Series A from Sequoia. Other investors include technical founders, including Paul Graham, …

Retool (YC W17) hiring engineers, support engineers, designers, etc. in SF

Hi — we’re Retool (https://retool.com), a fast way of building internal tools. We launched on HN around a year ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725966). We’re a small team based in Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA.

Business-wise, we’re profitable, growing quickly, and well-capitalized. (We recently raised a Series A from Sequoia. Other investors include technical founders, including Paul Graham, John + Patrick Collison, Nat Friedman, Greg Brockman, etc.)

Culture-wise, we’re a small group who enjoys solving problems and working hard. We work closely with customers, and iterate quickly. We spend our days typically either writing code or talking with customers.

The market for custom enterprise apps is huge. And we think that we have a promising shot at capturing much of it: we have a product that works, that customers love (go talk to any customer!), and whose usage is growing rapidly.

We’ve significantly de-risked the business (e.g. have significant revenue, have a good amount of paying customers, have raised $20M from Sequoia, are profitable, etc.). But there’s plenty of stuff to figure out as well. For example:

    - How can we quickly ship new products while keeping current customers happy? 

    - How do we design the UI/UX for a new programming environment? 

    - How do we concisely explain what Retool is, without a 4 minute demo video (https://retool.com)?

We’re hiring for many roles, including engineering, sales, developer relations, customer support + success. We think you’d be a good fit at Retool if you enjoy:

    - building things,

    - deciding what to work on, independently, and

    - getting things done + managing yourself

If you’re interested, please email me at david@retool.com. Thanks!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21209355

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Retool (YC W17) hiring engineers, designers, developer relations, etc. in SF

Hi — we’re Retool (https://retool.com), a fast way of building internal tools. We launched on HN around a year ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725966).

We’re a small team based in Hayes Valley, San Francisco, CA.

Business-wise, we’re profitable, growing revenue quickly, and well-capitalized. (We recently raised a Series A from Sequoia. Other investors include technical founders, including Paul Graham, John + Patrick Collison, Nat Friedman, Greg Brockman, etc.)

Culture-wise, we’re a small group who enjoys solving problems and working hard. We work closely with customers, and iterate quickly. We spend our days typically either writing code or talking with customers.

The market for custom enterprise apps is huge. And we think that we have a promising shot at capturing much of it: we have a product that works, that customers love (go talk to any customer!), and whose usage is growing rapidly.

We’ve significantly de-risked the business (e.g. have significant revenue, have a good amount of paying customers, have raised $20M from Sequoia, are profitable, etc.). But there’s plenty of stuff to figure out as well. For example:

    - How can we quickly ship new products while keeping current customers happy? 

    - How do we design the UI/UX for a new programming environment? 

    - How do we concisely explain what Retool is, without a 4 minute demo video (https://retool.com)?

We’re hiring for many roles, including engineering, sales, developer relations, customer support + success. We think you’d be a good fit at Retool if you enjoy:

    - building things,

    - deciding what to work on, independently, and

    - getting things done + managing yourself

If you’re interested, please email me at david@retool.com. Thanks!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21141901

Points: 1

# Comments: 0