Have you ever read a book where there's an empty page between chapters? You finish the chapter, turn the next page, and nothing's there. Quickly, you turn to the next page to make sure your book didn't ship with a page that went unprinted. It didn't, but it does give you that brief moment of pause.
I just turned to a blank page. I know there's a new chapter getting ready to start, but I'm going to take a moment to savor the green field that is that blank page. This week is my last Ning.
I've spent a lot of time and done a lot of soul searching, and just felt that it isn't the correct place for me right now. The team at Ning is truly amazing. I've never worked on a team with as much depth as the one they've assembled. Everyone there is a rock star. That said, I need something different.
I don't know what's next... yet. There's lots of great ideas out there and I have a few personal projects I want to spend some time on:
- PHPT is is dire need of finishing and documenting. It runs, but doesn't handle everything in php-src which is it's true test.
- I want to spend a bit of time with YABT. I've got some ideas I want to try out and see if they work.
- I've been "learning" Cocoa and Objective C for something like 5 months now, I want to get actually get proficient in it as there's a few apps that no one else has done yet that I'm going to write.
- I'm getting the itch to write more. That means more blogging and I have a few ideas swirling about for books. I said I'd never spend another summer writing, but I might just if one of these ideas gets some traction.
- And as they say... and so much more.
Sounds like tons to do. Of course, I can't spend all of my time working on my pet projects, unless I find a benefactor/patron (and if you fit that description and are looking for someone to sponsor, please do email me), so if you're looking for a senior level PHP dev and have an interesting concept, drop me a line or leave a comment.
For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you know I've recently gone to work for Ning. Been living under a rock and don't know what Ning is? It's a platform that lets you build your own social network. Best of all, if ya don't like the way something is implemented, you can get access to the source and change it around yourself.
The team of people working on Ning is amazing. The number of new people since I stated a few weeks ago is crazy. We're growing by leaps in bounds, but there a few positions that are close to my heart... if only because it helps spread the load of work that I'm responsible for! :-)
The team I'm on, Application Development (AppDev), needs more of us. We're responsible for building the PHP and Javascript that the user interacts with when they're on the network. When you create your own social network, you're on the code we write. The same code that you can get access to if you want. PHP and Javascript a great, but raw programming talent and a willingness to learn the languages are even more important.
We're also in need of a top notch Flash dev or two to join our team as well. There are a few of us who can muddle our way through Flash apps and make things work, but having someone who really groks it would be a huge bonus.
If you're a top notch PHP or Flash guy and are interested in working on something big and exciting, Ning's got a place for you. Telecommuting is definitely an option - I think about half of our AppDev team is remote now stretching from London to Melborne to Canada to NYC and (now!) Kansas. Shoot me an email with your resume if you're interested. Seeing as how my name is travis and the domain name is ning.com, an enterprising person should be able to figure it out: ;-)
Update: I've closed the comments on this post. We're only looking for people with very specific programming skills, so even though this shows up high on Google search results, it's not a general purpose job listing. Might I suggest checking out Monster or HotJobs.
If you eat and breathe INNER JOINs and sub-selects, think that UNIONs shouldn't be busted, and like to shard databases on the weekend for fun followed by late nights of drinking, SugarCRM's got a place for you. Ok, so we're not looking for all of that. The drinking part is optional. ;-)
Seriously, we're looking for a top notch MySQL DBA to add to the ranks. Someone with experience in PHP too is great, but the database experience and a willingness to learn the other parts of the job are even more important.
If this fits you, shoot me an email at tswicegood [at] sugarcrm [dot] com with your resume or a great cover letter if you're so good you don't need a resume. Even if this doesn't fit you, we're looking for lots of positions. From VP's in Sales to Engineers and everything in between. If you're looking for work and want to work for one of the coolest big small companies in PHP-land, just let me know.
Oh, and given Cal's recent comments on telecommuting I should touch on that here. If you do your job, you can do it from a sailboat (as one of the guys in Professional Services often does) for all we care. Translated: we're telecommute-friendly.
