What are they talking about?

Everyone has their own opinion and here is where you can read what they are. These are blog posts, not necessarily endorsed by anyone – except the team member who wrote them!

They’re hiring!

26 02.10

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything but that doesn’t mean MSU hasn’t been active. We’ve invested in 13 companies to date, several of which are hiring. If you or someone you know is interested in learning more, please get in touch directly with the start-ups involved.

  • Status.net continues to do well, and is now looking to hire a Commercial Director. More info can be found here.
  • Vanilla Forums are setting up shop in Montreal and are looking to add a PHP Developer, a System Administrator as well as a Sales & Marketing Guru to their team. Complete descriptions of the positions are available on their site.
  • Our latest investment represents a great opportunity for a senior developer (see below for details).

————

Think you have what it takes to be a start-up CTO?

We are a funded, Montreal based start-up looking for a CTO/Architect to join the founding team and lead the development of our service. Heavily social in nature, it will have Web and mobile components, APIs for third party add-ons, integration with social networks and some serious recommendation and data mining algorithms to power it all.

We are looking for someone who thrives in the creative, fast paced, get-things-done atmosphere of a start-up. You’ll be responsible for the high level design of the service, writing a lot of the initial code, maintaining servers and implementing solid development practices. We expect a fairly rapid ramp-up so you’ll also be point man (or woman!) for building a world-class technical team. No technical decisions have been taken yet, so you’ll have the freedom to choose the best technologies and architecture to do the job right.

You must have:

  • Minimum 7 years programming experience, most of it on the Web.
  • Mastery of one or more of the common Wed development languages (PHP, Python, Ruby) and their associated frameworks.
  • Comfortable with Javascript and AJAX interfaces.
  • Good knowledge of databases and SQL.
  • Intermediate level system administration skills.
  • Good software engineering practices (source control, testing, bug tracking, deployment, iteration planning, etc).
  • Good communication skills.

Bonus points for:

  • Past experience in a software architect role.
  • Experience managing a team of developers.
  • Having worked in a start-up previously.
  • Experience developing for the iPhone or other mobile platform.
  • Experience building applications for, and deploying them on, the cloud.
  • Ability to do Front End integration.
  • Having worked on social applications (comments, tagging, recommendations, social graphs, etc).

Some people dream of being part of a successful start-up, others go out and make it happen. Which type are you?

Contact: marc@socialgrapeswines.com

1 Comment

Cool Start-Up Seeks PHP Developers

19 08.08

We often get inquiries from start-ups looking to hire top talent.  Usually, we just tap our network of contacts to produce a list of potential candidates. This time, I thought it would be interesting to cast the net a little wider and so I’m blogging about it.

Recently I’ve been asked by two start-ups if I could recommend anyone for a developer position. Both are cool, expanding companies run by great people and looking to make a big splash. One is looking for a web developer that also knows a little about SMS and MMS. A lot of the work involves APIs and widgets and most of the code base is in PHP and JavaScript, so knowledge of both languages is essential. They are looking to bridge the Web and Mobile worlds. The other company is looking for a developer with 1-3 years of PHP experience and the right attitude. As a bonus, all of this company’s code is released under an open source license; therefore not only can you earn a living, you can also accumulate some good karma along the way!

So if you’re looking to escape from the drudgery of the corporate cube farm, have always wanted an employee number in the low single digits and are willing to sign on to the crazy roller-coaster ride that is an expanding start-up, please get in touch with me (daniel AT this domain). I’ll tell you a little bit more about the companies and, if there is a fit, I’ll arrange the introductions.

No Comments

Archives

Twitter: msu

  • Oops! Looks like Twitter's down!