One of the things I love about being a trainer is that I get to visit and work with so many development teams. Every group of developers has their own chemistry, culture, skills and domain interests. Sometimes I think I’m learning as much as the teams I’m training.
As it happens, one of the teams I’ve enjoyed working with the most is looking for a full-time RCP/OSGi project lead. The company, EXTOL, is a small, successful ISV that creates B2B integration tools. I don’t do this too often, but I wanted to pass this on because I think it’s such a cool opportunity. What’s so cool about it, you ask?
- First, I don’t think there’s any better programming job than working for a small ISV. You can have a big impact and what you do matters. A lot.
- EXTOL is re-architecting it’s products from the ground up (this is greenfield development) and they’re using a lot of interesting technologies – RCP, OSGi, EMF, GMF and more.
- One of the coolest things they’re doing is leveraging OSGi on both the client-side and server-side. Very few projects are leveraging OSGi in this way, and I think the opportunities here are awesome.
- Finally, the team is great. The developers are smart and easy to work with, management knows how to let developers be successful.
So what’s the catch? Well, whether there’s a catch or not depends on what you’re looking for in your life at the moment. EXTOL is located in a small town (Pottsville) in the hills of eastern Pennsylvania. It’s a beautiful area with lots to do outdoors, a great place to raise a family and much more. It’s not for everyone, but I imagine it would be great for more than a few of the developers I’ve met.
If you’re interested, here’s a post on the EXTOL blog that goes into more detail. They’ll also have developers at EclipseCon, so feel free to introduce yourself to one of them (or me) if you’re there as well.