<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Hi Tocho,<div><br></div><div>Thanks for the detailed reply - that all makes sense - a few responses inline.<br></div><div><br></div><div>The first point to highlight (explained more below) - we are currently looking for</div><div>someone with maybe a year or two's experience, so pretty junior, but not a new</div><div>graduate - our planned salary is likely lower than a mid-level dev would be</div><div>interested in.</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 6:45 PM Tocho Tochev <<a href="mailto:tocho@tochev.net">tocho@tochev.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Hi,<br>
<br>
Sorry for the delayed response.<br>
<br>
Regarding your first question, about the possibility of a co-working desk:<br>
- currently due to COVID-19 there is government enforced lockdown<br>
- as a result we do not do any co-working, we even encourage people <br>
not to come to the lab if it can be avoided<br>
- this may change, but it is doubtful that normal co-working would <br>
be a possibility before the spring/summer<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That makes sense.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
- we scrapped the fixed co-working desks, because we decided the space <br>
would better suit a hardware room (3D printing), so we currently have <br>
only what we call "flex" desk<br>
- this means you don't have a dedicated desk<br>
- if you have a PC you have to store it away after you leave (we <br>
have member boxes, but they are not locked)<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Ah, cool. That seems logical.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
- events in the lab take priority<br>
- they are after working hours/on weekends and we have several <br>
rooms, there is only one event (preparation for a conference) that lasts <br>
a week (around the first week of November), so in practice it shouldn't <br>
be a problem for someone working with EU working hours<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That seems fair.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
- about the calls - people have them, some prefer to go to other <br>
rooms or the hallway, but we do not offer any type of "conference <br>
room"/"dedicated call booth" </blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
- given the above, there is less expectation of business but more <br>
of a community, so the price and the conditions reflect it<br>
- the membership for flex desk is EUR 32 per month<br>
- note that these were the conditions before the pandemic, we do <br>
not know what will happen after the lockdown is lifted<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That makes sense.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<br>
Regarding the second question, the possibility of finding someone for <br>
the job, we have unwritten policy of not posting job offers, exceptions <br>
have been made for volunteer work.<br>
That being said, if the person is going to do mostly open source work, <br>
it is my personal belief, that there might be some people that will be <br>
interested, depending on the type of work.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Grand - we started out in a similar hackerspace, so that all seems sensible.</div><div>At the moment (as with everyone) we are a bit up in the air.</div><div><br></div><div>We have a policy of not retaining any closed copyright or patent at all. We</div><div>take some client projects which are mostly closed source, if we need to, but</div><div>on the condition that we have contractual freedom to release non-sensitive</div><div>code openly. All of our products are open source, and we have a policy that,</div><div>within reason (e.g. yes, we will use AWS/Azure/GKE :D), we will only pull</div><div>in open code and libraries except by specific request.</div><div><br></div><div>For our own products, which we often use with public sector, these are</div><div>fully open source - a lot of work needs done to polish them, but that's</div><div>why we are looking at options for extending the team!</div><div><br></div><div>One of the main tools that we are trying to get people using (which was</div><div>developed elsewhere) is <a href="http://archesproject.org/">http://archesproject.org/</a> -- we have quite</div><div>cool (haha) Antarctic work going on with that too.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
So if you are still looking for a dev, please give more information <br>
about the expected work (at least for the foreseeable future), <br>
languages/technologies, how much is to be open source, a contact email, <br>
and we can check by word of mouth if anybody is interested.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Sure - as with everyone else, it is very uncertain what and how we will</div><div>be working over the coming months. Realistically, I expect it would be</div><div>a mixture - say 50% (but really from 25%-75% is reasonably likely).</div><div>We try and keep as much of the team on our open products as possible,</div><div>to help the company scale, but it depends on whether I (as the lead</div><div>engineer) am bringing in enough to cover salary, whether the rest of the</div><div>team needs to support client work too.</div><div><br></div><div>However, we do have a couple of R&D funds on-going on our open source</div><div>work, at least for the next few months.</div><div><br></div><div>Specifics - at this point, we are looking for someone fairly junior, ideally</div><div>with a couple of years professional experience, but we want to try this with</div><div>one dev, and if it's successful, try and build up a team with seniors and admin</div><div>in Sofia too. Ideally!</div><div><br></div><div>In terms of stack, I really want to emphasize this (it's a reason I've generally</div><div>given up on recruitment firms, as they don't take it on board) - I don't really</div><div>care what coding background someone has, as long as they</div><div> - understand fundamental principles (OOP, etc.)</div><div> - are really keen to understand code but still driven about getting things done</div><div> - strong self-motivation and responsibility</div><div> - are into open source.</div><div>Our own stack is Kubernetes, VueJS, Laravel/PHP, Python and a little Rust. However,</div><div>we have bits of Flutter, Go, Ruby, Erlang, Terraform and many others, so I'd rather a </div><div>good C# dev, than an inflexible Python one :) We tend to do data science, IoT</div><div>and numerics. Our main products do data validation for public sector, support</div><div>journalists and teach about natural disasters (all different fields, similar stack).</div><div><br></div><div>At the moment, given our current commitments, we could afford a salary in the</div><div>mid 20s - I'd probably recruit around that level in NI, if it doesn't look like it'd work</div><div>out in Sofia. Our next Sofia hire would likely be mid or senior, at a correspondingly</div><div>higher level.</div><div><br></div><div>I appreciate that's not a lot (our salaries are pretty similar to Sofia's, I think), but</div><div>as I say, for a first Bulgaria hire, we would be looking at someone junior to work</div><div>closely with me (online). If you do reckon that's too low to get someone with a year's</div><div>experience at least, please do say - that'd be helpful feedback. We would provide</div><div>on-the-job support obviously, so I'm not expecting someone to come in knowing a</div><div>huge amount, but being able to work on a problem without close supervision or</div><div>hand-holding is critical.</div><div><br></div><div>For timelines, if I can get someone in in that range very quickly, that'd be great -</div><div>if it looked like we would only be interviewing someone after Christmas, we might</div><div>look at options here in NI too.</div><div><br></div><div>I can send through a proper job spec, but it'd be good to know your gut feeling</div><div>first and thank you for your help!</div><div><br></div><div>All the best,</div><div>Phi</div></div></div>