DEVELOPER @ Hyves: social networking company in the center of Amsterdam, Europe)

Hyves is the dominant Social Network in The Netherlands, reaching more than 60% of the Dutch population. We have one of the coolest offices of Europe.

Software development at Hyves:

• The problem picks the programming language, not the other way around. C++ and Java versus Python, Ruby and PHP: it’s a matter of the problem domain.
• We take great care with noise reduction and work overhead.
• Decision making does not require going through several management layers.
• We have team rooms with a maximum of 5 people.
• You can order the workstation or laptop you want (MacBook Pro including), with up to 3 screens.
• There is plenty of entertainment outside working hours to make you feel at home at Hyves.
• Hyves pays 10%+ market average in the Netherlands.

Technology overview:

• Hyves runs a substantial operation in terms of volume, with over 9 million monthly visitors, 250.000 concurrent chat users, and ±3500 servers.
• The main technology stack is PHP, Python, NGINX, MySQL and Memcached running on Gentoo.
• High-volume key-value stores take care of persistency; Hadoop is used for massive parallel processing. Our services we provide include toolbars (FF/IE), desktop clients (Qt C++), several mobile clients (iPhone/Android/Blackberry) and the OpenSocial API.

The position: Developer:

• We operate according to a custom Agile development process. Our focus is on great, working code, so the UML and consultations are not an end but a means.
• Decision pathways and deploy cycles are very short, so there is a considerable momentum. What you think of today can be online in a matter of weeks.
• The software you write or modify is used by millions of people each month.

Responsibilities:

• You will spend up to 80-90% of your time doing coding—new projects as well as maintaining the existing code base. Everything that is shipped-, is used by 10 million people.
• You will contribute to the design and development of new software components and new functionality.
• You realize that constantly improving the usability of a high volume social network is essential to its long-term well being, and will enjoy contributing to improving the ease-of-use of our pages and forms and carrying out UI adjustments and optimizations
• You understand that a certain portion of each product’s development effort goes into maintenance — bugfixing, addressing technical debt, refactorying, increasing automated test coverage — and are ready to contribute to this activity.

Requirements:

• Minimum of a BSc in Computer Science or an equivalent field.
• Some software engineering experience, preferably in creating high volume WEB 2.0 applications.
• Proficient English speaker
• You value a multi-cultured environment where English is the working language and easily get on with people from different cultural backgrounds
• You are flexible in the choice of technology for the job at hand and are willing to switch from one language/technology to another on projects’ need basis.
• You are a quick and continuous learner who keeps their skills up-to-date and is eager to broaden up your technical horizons.
• Good knowledge and experience with modern OO languages like Java, C# or Ruby.
• Experience with Linux, App Servers/LAMP, MySQL (or MS-SQL, Oracle, etc.)
• OO Design experience and working knowledge of Design Patterns and the UML.
• Bonus: Hands-on with: LAMP stack, NGINX, Python, memcached, Prototype, Scriptaculous, Propel, Smarty, Python, or Twisted/Pyrex libraries.
• IT knowledge and understanding of Operating Systems, Networks and Databases.

Moving to the Netherlands?

You are not the 1st: Hyves employs programmers from all over the world.

Hyves will help with: Housing, relocation, paperwork and the language.