Stamen is looking for a developer
Update: This position has been filled. We are, however, always looking for interesting collaborators, so feel free to mail us about working with us, and if things change (they often do), we'll be sure to get in touch. Sometimes it can just take a while. Thanks.
"We were doing it under the most extraordinary circumstances, but the first out of the tent in the morning would be David Lean. He said to me on the very first day of shooting, Pete, this is the beginning of a great adventure."
—Peter O'Toole
"Specialization is for insects"
—Robert A. Heinlein
Stamen's work is a creative fusion of design and technology, front-end and back-end. Behind the maps and visualizations in our projects are rivers and streams of changing information, and the practices supporting these flows are themselves in a state of constant change. We're looking for a candidate who can work with us in our San Francisco studio to advance the state of foundational technologies supporting the collection, processing and publication of big, live data, supporting a fast-paced client-focused production environment.
About You
You'll be working with a small team of designers and engineers led by a creative director who will be looking to you to make their ideas feasible. You're excited by the possibility of cutting and bending data to fit it through the thin straw of the internet. You can look at a source of information and model it as resources, rows and columns, messages and queues. You have the programming experience necessary to write data processors and servers, the system administration experience to inhabit and actively guide a constantly-shifting technical environment of free & open source software, and the patience & grace to grant that PHP and spreadsheets might be appropriate tools when circumstances require the quick and the dirty.
You're up for the excitement of a continuous flow of new projects, and you're willing to try new things for the sake of learning and fun. You're able to work well with multiple inputs from a variety of sources: creative direction, technical direction, production expediency, and client feedback. You're friendly & courteous, good at finding ways to have fun under the pressure of deadlines, and you're OK with our carefully-selected and well-managed clients having the final say.
(this is a big one, so please read that paragraph again)
You must have the willingness and ability to discuss the finer points of HTTP, SQL, RESTful API's, response formats and resource consumption. You must demonstrate proficiency and adaptability in a range of specific technologies including PHP, Python, EC2, Linux, and MySQL. You understand the fundamentals of geographic technologies and concepts, and if you've worked with open geodata so much the better. You know how to enter an existing codebase, get the lay of the land, and adapt yourself to local conventions. You understand that the perfect is often the enemy of the good, and your pragmatism & flexibility show themselves in functional systems. You can see the connections between technical infrastructure and the interactive design & visualization it supports.
You will need to have been paid to do good work; the skill that comes from delivering work for money can't be learned in any other way. You maintain a state of constant learning to keep up with new work in your field, participate in communities of practice connected to your expertise, and experiment with new techniques in personal projects. We're less concerned with how long you've worked than with how good you are.
About Stamen
Stamen is lucky; we get to work on a wide variety of projects for many different clients in multiple kinds of industries. We are committed to maintaining a constant state of learning, both about our tools and about the world. We want to continue to work with people who know a lot, and are excited to learn even more.
Our technology choices lean towards open source databases, unix-flavored operating systems, and scripting languages like Python and PHP. You'll be expected to know these things, and bring something new and unexpected besides.
Stamen is a client services firm. We work with flows of real data. Open source projects, cultural projects and client work exist in a dynamic relationship and one or two of these often provide support and lend legitimacy to the other. We've often found it easier to build something than to comp it in Photoshop. In our past projects, someone in your role might need to:
- Design and develop a tiling system that feeds a National Geographic iPad app by converting raster geodata into image tiles that can be displayed on a globe.
- Design and prototype Digg.com's RESTful API, delivering a full suite of unit tests to verify the final release.
- Develop a geographic content management system for the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games in PHP and MySQL.
- Design a collections database for a museum, so that it can be presented in an immersive visual interface.
- Investigate incoming data sets from potential clients to determine whether we work can work with it, whether it's interesting, and what new questions it suggests.
- Prepare a deployment environment for a project on a freshly provisioned Linux server.
- Meet directly with a client to address new needs that have been discovered during the course of work, and adjust course accordingly
Our development challenges are about constant experimentation, rapid prototyping, and reliable turnaround for project engagements that can typically last anywhere from one month to six and occasionally more. We seek to delight with our work, and your participation will help us delight ever-larger audiences.
And So:
Qualified applicants will have an online presence with tangible evidence of work for clients, for employers, for love. You don't have to be a rock star, and we're more than OK with someone junior who shows promise. If this sounds like you, please contact us at jobs (at) stamen.com; no phone calls or e-mail attachments, please.