“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.”
– Drew Carey
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Tag Archives: jobs
Web Developer Job Descriptions by ZeFrank
ZeFrank recently posted these brilliant job descriptions, and I’m reposting them here because I don’t want to lose them if he takes down the “help-wanted” page.
Full or Part Time Front End Developer/Interaction Designer (4+ years experience):
Ideally you should know what the following acronyms stand for and be able to use any one of them to fix a leaky pipe in my bathroom: CSS, HTML5, PHP, AS (AS3, AS2), C++ (for mobile), and all sorts of APIs. You should know by experience that whatever you don’t understand you can learn quickly. You should be awesome at making JavaScript do things it wasn’t designed to do. You should be okay at making Photoshop do what it was designed to do. You should have sent at least one email to someone you have never met telling them that they should stop using tables. You should know how to interact with a database in a healthy, grown-up, passive-aggressive way. You should tell your coder friends that you are a designer and your designer friends that you are a coder. You should have friends but it is okay if you don’t. You should find an exhilarating beauty in finding a simple solution to a problem. The word “iterate” should roll off of your tongue like a mantra.
Part Time Graphic Designer/Illustrator/Interaction Designer (4+ years experience):
You should be comfortable designing anything that needs designing. The phrase “Please make that look more like a Muppet vomited SteamPunk.” should seem like satisfactory art direction, and to be honest there was no need to use the word “please”. You should feel slightly anxious when you see something that isn’t properly aligned. You should know the difference between art and design, and you should love getting into those kinds of arguments. You should feel relieved that I am kidding. You should be awesome at Photoshop and Illustrator and you should be able to use HTML and CSS well enough to defend your work against Internet Explorer. You should love to draw and know how to animate. The word cute should not offend you. You should have had a prior job that made you question your profession. The word “iterate” should roll off of your tongue like a mantra.
Intern (6-9 months):
All of the above should simultaneously intimidate you (at least a little) and interest you (a lot).
New Year, New Job!
In October, after four years at Pop Art, I decided it was time to move on. While I will always miss the incredible people I worked with, and the passion everyone brought to the job, the company had changed and it wasn’t the right place for me anymore. While negotiating my exit, I interviewed for a job at R2C Group, which I accepted.
However, in my first week at R2C, it became clear to me very quickly that it was a poor fit. I spoke to my managers, and we all agreed to do everything we could to address the situation, but in the end the company’s needs and my own were incompatible. I gave notice, and my last day was Christmas Eve. I didn’t have another job lined up.
How to Hire a Front-End Web Developer
The following is an email exchange I had with a friend at another company about a year ago. We were talking about the best way to go about hiring a front-end developer, and I was sharing some tips from our hiring process.
“Hi Scott, we are in need of a CSS expert/ninja. Our company has gone through agencies and the whatnot, but the candidates that have come from that route haven’t exactly knocked our socks off. I’m hoping that since this is what you do you might know some people, have some advice, or know some agencies that specialize in this area.”
I’ll tell you how we found Libby, our other CSS rockstar.
The Big News: I’m Leaving Pop Art
Friday will be my last day at Pop Art. I’ve been working there nearly four years, and deciding to quit was not an easy decision. I won’t get into all the details, suffice to say that it’s time for me to move on, and I’m ready for some new challenges.
Over the years at Pop Art, I’ve worked with a lot of great people, many of whom I would work with again in a heartbeat. I’ve learned a lot, and I also feel like I made a real difference. Together with other front-end developers like Libby Molina and Ryan Parr, we’ve shaped the production process and made top-notch standards-compliant code one of the things that Pop Art is known for. I’m proud of that legacy.
All in all, I’m stoked. It was definitely time for a change, and this feels like a really good one. I’m sure I’ll be posting more details soon, but in the meantime, wish me luck!