I'm enjoying myself a lot at my current job. What more can you ask for? Well, some extra co-workers apparently. My boss activated the we-want-a-programmer page again and I myself am noticing that we're a bit low on programming capacity compared to the number of possible projects. There's so much fun to be had!

planet.plone.org interlude: I know this post also ends up on planet.plone.org, which means I'm semi-spamming the planet aggregator with a job posting. :-) It is also intended, though, to give a inside view of an average-sized community loving plone company, so that's a right fit for planet. If you can't forgive me: I'm always prepared for a friendly medieval duel.

What you get

You get to work on open source software. We use plone and python as our basis, which is all open source. It is almost mandatory to involve yourself to a greater or lesser degree in the plone community. Read the mailinglists, show up in #plone on IRC. The plone community is a pretty cohesive, helpful and friendly bunch: being part of it is a big factor in why I like my job so much!
Of course we're not only using other people's code: we're contributing actively. I just released azlinks, Rocky Burt released feedfeeder which he worked on for us, etc.
> In the end, all this should fit your mindset. Do you like to cooperate? You don't mind to explain things? You don't mind to ask things? You'd like to help other people out? <dd>

What our customers get

What our customers get is what you give them. It should be enjoyable for both. What we use almost all the time is eXtreme programming: we've made a tool that helps to steer the projects in that way. Read the tool explanation if you want to know more.
> As a programmer, I get nice chunks of functionality I have to implement, with enough explanation to get me started. Most of the time I'm there at the customer meeting (twice a month) where they explain what they want. If I need more info I can email them or talk to them directly, as I work on location from time to time. Every task I implement gets crossed off in the web interface: that's both positive feedback and a handy way to keep track of what's left.<br> The customer gets absolutely unheard-off transparency in what gets done. They can look at our web-based tool and see how many hours got spend on which tasks, how many of those tasks are done, etc. The person that signs the final paychecks for a Real Big company in the Netherlands told us that he hasn't ever seen such transparency and that it made our bill completely trustworthy. Of course we foul up from time to time: the tool makes it perfectly clear which parts took longer, together with what kind of work was done on those parts. That makes it possible to change things so that it goes more smoothly in the future. Feedback!
> The biggest advantage of this extreme programming approach is that the customer gets to steer the project every two or three weeks. I never have to waste much effort in programming unneeded or unwanted stuff. It happens from time to time, but waaaaay less than when we'd had to work off a 1 meter thick written project specification. <dd>

What should you be able to do?

Now we get to the job description part. I'm sure this is the same for many other plone companies, so if it interests you a bit but you don't want to move from Gibraltar to the Netherlands: sound out some plone company closer to you.
> I don't think you need to be a horribly competent plone programmer right from the start. I'd like to have you as a colleague, of course, if you already know plone by heart. But if you're a civil engineer student at some university and you think you're better than most of the student assistents that had to grade your first-year simple programming assignment: that also starts to sound like something. Did you buy a generic programming book just to get better at object oriented programming in general? Do you read some weblogs that you wouldn't mind telling my boss about when coming over for an interview? That sort of mindset.<br> We do all our work with the programming language python, which is a very friendly, easily learned language. So if you're a java programmer and don't want to end up as java-programmer-number-63 at some java shop but instead want to be part of a smaller team with lots of freedom (which you pay for with responsibility and which you pay back for with increased job satisfaction and thus productivity)... Try out python. Write a small program with it to automate something.
> Something that I'd personally would consider <b>Pflichtlektur<b> (=required reading) is the pragmatic programmer. They've got a load of articles also on their site, so read a few of them (all pdf links). I think that if you like those articles, you'd be a good fit for Zest software. Well, that's me talking. Check with the boss :-)
> Well, some web experience also helps. Don't scream when you see HTML. A smattering of UML here and there. Etc. <dd>

So: Zest software could use an extra pair of hands! Oh, and don't forget the head. And the opening through which you pour coffee (or tea).

Mr. and Mrs. Boss are gone for a week-long holiday, so don't expect a quick answer when you bug them at info@zestsoftware.nl. You can bug me (reinout@vanrees.org, or "reinout" on IRC, or go to #zest on IRC). Or you think it over for a week and bug Jean-Paul and Esther (see our team page) afterwards.