BitcoinL2Labs

[mhb11]

APPLICANT

Type:                                                                        Direct Application

Email:                                                                    [email protected]

Discord:                                                    mhb11#3649

Twitter:                                                        baigi

Stacks Forum:           

GRANT BASICS

Grant Name:                                        Stacks Labs

Total Budget:                              200,000

Total Duration:                 2,650

Grant Type:                                               Open Source Dev Repeat Grantees

Grant Track:                                          Stacks Protocol

Grant Goal:                                               Strengthen Community

Grant Audience:             Developers

Specific Audience:         Core developers for Stacks

Grant Team:                                       mhb11

Previous Grants:                      

Ecosystem Programs:      I previously completed Stacks Accelerator (cohort 1).

Our team is called 'Superfandom', a product where creators mint and sell Stacks-based 'Experience NFTs' to their fandoms.

GRANT MISSION, IMPACT, RISKS & REFERENCE

Grant Mission:         Stacks core software is developed as a public good. But in the past 18 months the community has noticed that there aren't a lot of full-time core developers focused on the Stacks layer. Although various companies in the ecosystem contribute to the open-source code, there is a strong need for dedicated core developers.
A strong developer culture and shipping cadence for the Stacks layer core consensus and node software will attract more developers; developers are the growth catalyst in the competitive world of layer 1 blockchains. When developers flock to projects, they strengthen the ecosystem. User activity and interest naturally follow.
We’re proposing ‘Stacks Labs’, a community-led software development initiative. It will act as a community platform that contributes to Stacks’ core blockchain roadmap (www.stacks.co/roadmap) and, in the future, to other ecosystem projects.
Such a community-led initiative can:
1.Bring more dedicated full-time core devs to Stacks
2.Attract new developers to the Stacks ecosystem, especially from internationally diverse jurisdictions
3.Hasten the achievement of milestones on the Stacks project roadmap (e.g. Subnets, App chains and beyond, etc.)
4.Improve the state of decentralization of the ecosystem of core developers and entities developing and maintaining the Stacks network
We can start small (engaging 2 developers for 6 months) and expand if the community agrees on the usefulness of this initiative. We'll seek a follow-on grant thereafter.

Grant Impact:               Telemetry to measure developer productivity, for e.g.:

• Number of merged PRs to the Stacks core software.
• Number of tickets completed.

Grant Risks:                          Risk includes attracting talent and retaining it. This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that competition for skilled developers is lesser these days. Moreover, we'll also maintain a candidate pool to fill new positions if needed. Having a network in the Stacks community will help us in this regard

Support Link:                                     

GRANT ROADMAP & DELIVERABLES

MILESTONE 1:

Deliverable:                   Creating a legal entity in Caymen (crypto-friendly and tax-free) to employ devs

MILESTONE 2:

Deliverable:                   Create 2nd entity in UAE (for payroll), which can legally convert crypto to fiat

MILESTONE 3:

Deliverable:                    Hire 2 experienced developers with expertise in Rust and/or C++ (or C)

MILESTONE 4:

Deliverable:                   Arrange for salaries in fiat via managing payroll through UAE entity

MILESTONE 5:

Deliverable:                   Enable developers to work on core Stacks roadmap

MILESTONE 6:

Deliverable:                   Delivering ~160 hours of measured development work per dev per month

FINAL DELIVERABLE

Deliverable:                   2 devs contributing to Stacks core, for at least 6 months (~160 hrs/month/dev)

[stacks-foundation]

👋 @mhb11


Thanks for your application! We will do a pre-review and let you know if we have any immediate questions. In the mean time please refer to our review schedule here for a detailed timeline and response dates.


Best,
Will

[will-corcoran]

Hi @mhb11 -

Thanks for the application. Could you please revise the deliverables (final deliverable and milestone deliverables) to reflect the scope of the work you are intending to work on? Right now, they only reflect your operations. We are hoping to see some more substantial items listed - i.e. HOW do you plan to attract more core developers, what experience do you have with this, why are you uniquely positioned to do so - and WHAT specific contributions do you plan to make to subnets, etc and WHAT level of pre-planning with other core contributors has been done with regards to verifying these specific protocol features, updates, improvements, etc.

Also, can you please share your application with any core contributors you have worked with in the past or plan to work with during the length of this grant and ask them to comment on the application? This helps us get a better understanding regarding the level of community support for your proposal and helps us feel comfortable with you contributing to such important and sensitive infrastructure.

Thanks
Will

[will-corcoran]

Hi @mhb11 - just checking to see if you have any thoughts on the comments above. Thanks, Will

[mhb11]

Hey @will-at-stacks

How do you plan to attract more core developers?
We plan to focus on Europe and Asia for our core developer searches. We’ve noticed a lot of talent in places like East Europe, Dubai, Singapore, etc., that is currently not fully explored for Stacks contributions, and our grant can help source from these areas. We also have existing business contacts at entities working in the ecosystem and plan to leverage their learnings to help our search.

What experience do you have with this; why are you uniquely positioned to do so?
I’ve operated two startups in 10+ years and managed a team of 25 people directly. I have extensive experience managing remote teams, where we previously sourced candidates from the USA, Malaysia, Europe, etc. I’ve been part of the Stacks ecosystem since 2020 and have first-hand knowledge of various current pain points like slow speeds etc.

What specific contributions do you plan to make to subnets, etc and what level of pre-planning with other core contributors has been done with regards to verifying these specific protocol features, updates, improvements, etc.
We plan to contribute in two specific areas: (a) to the faster L1 working group and (b) to the sBTC implementation. We’ve had discussions with some engineers on the sBTC implementation. We have engineering requirements for what qualifications are needed for candidates (strong Rust experience, broad systems-level engineering experience, e.g., distributed systems, large-scale databases, and/or consensus algorithms).

[muneeb-ali]

I wanted to leave a note that I'm excited to see this proposal! There is a lot of great talent around the world that can contribute to the core consensus code and actively sourcing such devs and giving them a structure to contribute can be very helpful. Such grants can also help maintain healthy levels of decentralization in the ecosystem.

[diwakergupta]

The ecosystem wide capacity to do Stacks blockchain development has been and continues to be one of the biggest bottlenecks for Stacks IMO. So I'm excited about any initiatives to expand that capacity, and this proposal looks very promising!

Some more thoughts:

• most of the existing core devs are in the western hemisphere (mostly Americas / EU). Lack of presence in the APAC timezones has frequently come up, especially during network issues
• even with the recent hiring initiatives, taking on the projects outlined in the new Stacks paper / sBTC paper + effort required for testing + general eng quality improvements on the Stacks blockchain require many more blockchain engineers than are currently working in the ecosystem

[muneeb-ali]

+1 on APAC timezones as an important point.

[jennymith]

Hi @mhb11 thanks for keeping up with the discussion here. Just a note that we'll be reviewing this application along with some of the other critical bounties in early January. We're aiming to share a final decision by January 17th.

[mhb11]

@jennymith looking forward, thanks.

[fluidvoice]

It looks like Superfandom doesn't have a history focused on developer recruitment.
What makes them a better candidate for creating a "Stacks Lab" than a recruiter or other entity with a history and network focused on this kind of thing?

[mhb11]

Hello @fluidvoice
I'm not saying there won't be teething pains, but we'll get this done. I've actually managed tech teams in capacities other than Superfandom. I've explained that experience in a previous comment. And via Superfandom, we've felt the pain points that dapp developers on Stacks have undoubtedly felt. Thus that experience is quite valuable too. I'm confident that we'll develop some real momentum in the coming months once we get the ball rolling on this.

[will-corcoran]

@mhb11 after a thorough review we have decided to approved this application. Congrats! We feel this effort will not only help increase the ranks of blockchain devs in the ecosystem, but it will help provide support in underserved timezones around the globe.

Per our discussion we will require to set up a monthly call with you and a set of advisors. In addition to reviewing the milestones that we discussed we will also require monthly updates on your efforts to secure additional funding.

We would also like to thank @diwakergupta @owenstrevor @wileyj @tycho1212 @jennymith and Kenny Rogers for their time and effort in conducting a review of this application!

We will be reaching out by email to set up a call. If you could please provide any additional comments you have from our previous discussions below for the community, that would be great. (cc: @jennymith )

Best,
Will

[mhb11]

The focus of this initiative is to help with progress in key areas of Stacks development. To achieve that, our focus over the next 3–4 months includes:

• Getting the entity set up and hiring 2 core developers (this will require some weeks).
• Next, bringing those developers up-to-speed and having them begin contributing to Stacks core development. We aim to do this by Q2 2023, in time for major sBTC developments.

[Updated Roadmap]

MILESTONE 1: Hire 2 experienced developers with expertise in Rust and/or C++ (or C) and wrap-up operational logistics related to entity establishment.

MILESTONE 2: Facilitate the training of the new developers on Stacks code/tech-stack, and have them provide key support to core developers in the L1 and Non-Custodial BTC working groups. As the new developers familiarize themselves with Stacks, they'll also be expected to:

• Vastly improve the quality of existing code by auditing existing code and removing unsafe code, investigating long-standing issues with certain libraries, and optimizing the code filing system.

• Vastly improve the state of documentation by creating system diagrams that better explain code structure and relationships between components and updating documentation commentary where necessary.

• Vastly improve test suite reliability.

MILESTONE 3: Complete a critical piece of development work (to be determined/assigned by the core developers on the L1 and Non-Custodial BTC working groups).

In addition to regularly reporting on our work to the Stacks community, we will periodically check in with a review committee comprising core developers from various Stacks entities. This review committee will advise us on our direction and scope of work as well as hold us accountable for the aforementioned milestones.

Note: I will update this thread with the names of the review committee members once they have all confirmed their commitment to Stacks Labs.

[will-corcoran]

Additional discussion for this grant can be found here.

[igorsyl]

@mhb11 @will-at-stacks I would like to contribute to this initiative.

[will-corcoran]

@igorsyl that is excellent to hear! I know @mhb11 has 45'ish days in front of him to get the organization all set up and get his bearings, but it would be cool if you could connect in the mean time.