Candidature - Jeff Dickey

Loic Dachary suggests implementing http://tickets.farsides.com/issues/119 and http://tickets.farsides.com/issues/118

Intro/background
* Can you describe yourself briefly? What did you work on so far ? I’ve been in professional software development for over 30 years now, and a Web developer for 15. I’ve done everything from embedded systems to real-time operating system work; from network appliances to network clients and server software. On the Web, I’ve worked on everything from simple three-page static sites to large systems like electronic bill presentment and payment, as well as an aircraft parts ordering and inventory-management system used by over a dozen airlines in several hundred airports.

* Why are you looking at a new job? And why with Farsides? I’m looking for a position where I’m more than just a “hired gun.” I want to make an important, long-term contribution to an organisation; to help them be more successful, and to share in that success. Farsides is appealing for several reasons:

* You’re oriented towards online games; something I’ve long been interested in but have (quite honestly) minimal actual development experience in the last decade or so; * You’re passionate about and publicly committed to open source and communities. I’ve been using as well as developing for and with open source for many years. I’d love to be associated with a company that pays as much attention to getting things right as the best proprietary-software companies do; * And several other reasons we can explore during the interview process. :-)

* Are you looking for a part time or a full time ? If part time, how many days or half days per week ? I can go either way, though my preference would be for full-time, long-term work. I’m not looking to be a cog in a huge bureaucratic machine, but some stability would be nice. And again, I crave the opportunity to show what I can do within an organisation that carves out its own niche!

* How much were you earning in your last job ?

The equivalent of ~€4000 per month, in Singapore.

* How much do you wish to earn at Farsides ? I’m flexible but not suicidal. If I’m not worth twice as much in a year’s time, fire me. If I am, I frankly expect to feel recognised for that — and money is by no means the only method of “keeping score.”

* Are you currently a freelancer ? Yes; I’ve mostly been working on small projects for local companies.

* Where do you live ? In Singapore. Anywhere in Europe would be a major improvement.

== Technical == Don't worry if you don't have experience in some areas - working is more fun when we have something to learn : ) * What is the operating system you have the most experience with?

Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, numerous others.

* What are your favorites development languages/frameworks? PHP, Objective-C, C++, Groovy and C#. Delphi and Ada back when they were new and shiny. I’m very test-infected; with PHP I use PHPUnit religiously and have recently added Behat to my core toolset. I am a hard-core OO developer, but tend to lighter frameworks (Kohana, Symfony2, Fat-Free) than obnoxiously-huge systems like Zend.

* Did you contribute to free software projects already (code or other) ? (if yes, please include a link) Several years ago, I contributed several patches to the development of the Linux 2.4 kernel series. I’ve also submitted to Phing, the PHP analogue to Apache Ant.

* What is your experience with the following - Object oriented development: Since the late 1980s, essentially continuously. - git: Six projects, four of which suffered because of it. I love DVCS systems; I just prefer ones that don’t think they know more about your workflow than you do — like, say, Mercurial, Monotone or darcs. - Symfony: Have not used 1.x at all; falling in love with Symfony2 and using it on two small projects right now. - Facebook/social network APIs: None worth mentioning. - Unit tests: Extensive, in several languages. As I said earlier, PHPUnit (or the xUnit system for whatever language I’m working in) is “dead-finger technology.” - Online communities Extensive experience, going back to the early days of IRC (for which I developed a client running under OS/2, later moved to Windows NT). - Games: Zork to present. - SCRUM: Experience with many agile methods since long before Kent Beck and crew wrote the Manifesto. One (commercial) project explicitly defined as SCRUM.