Looking for Projects and/or a Team¶
I’m available for work and am interested in contract/consultant projects or a position with a team.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently about which direction I want to take my professional life as a software developer and I’ve come to some conclusions. I’ll detail more about that below if you’re interested in my process and thinking on that but first I’ll summarize what I’m looking for.
- Consulting/Contract Opportunities
I’m perfectly happy to keep working independently or as a sub-contractor with a larger consultancy on Plone projects. I know Plone very well and am very happy to continue working with it on projects such as:
Intranet workflow/business-process applications
Custom web publishing CMS projects
Quickly solving critical problems as a Plone “hired gun”
Building a project while also cross-training internal developers
Social justice related projects
Etc., pretty much any Plone project
- Opportunities with a Team
I’m eager to join a team, either as an employee or as a contractor, that can offer some of the following:
More collaboration as a part of a team that genuinely like each other
More technological diversity outside of Plone/Zope
Opportunity to work on social justice related projects
Team Collaboration¶
I’ve been working as an independent freelancer since 2005 in one form or another. I’ve probably worked about 1/3 as a “sub-contractor” for a larger consultancy as a developer team member on larger projects. The rest of my work has been as a solo contractor doing everything from requirements gathering to deployment and support, end-to-end.
This has worked quite well for me. I’ve got my personal project management down to an art such that context switches cost either project almost no time. I enjoy the flexibility a lot such as being able to work from home or my favorite cafe and also being able to work at the times of day and the week when my brain is most productive. (Oddly, I seem to be most productive writing code between midnight and 4AM, and more so Sunday nights to Monday mornings, go figure.)
I started working with Plone in 1999-2000 and initially I was a total hermit, not getting involved in the community at all. Eventually, I started to come out of my shell and get more involved. It was something I waited far too long to do, especially in a community as awesome and fun to work with as Plone’s. I’ve enjoyed the greater interaction and collaboration in software development a lot and I’m interested in having more of that in my working life.
As such, I’m interested in opportunities to join a team where there’s a solid connection and more collaboration. I do enjoy my swingin’ freelancing location and hours flexibility, but I’m interested in making that trade-off for the opportunity to work closely with people with whom I have a good rapport.
Happy Code Monkey¶
For the last few years, I’ve also been wondering where I might want to take my career. It seemed to me there were two basic models for advancement as a software developer and they’re kind of the same model: IT management, or starting a business. While I’m very good at solo project management, I’m not well suited to managing a team. I greatly value a good project manager, they’re just a godsend. Similarly, I’m just not inspired by the challenges of running a business. More generally, I don’t have much natural capacity in those domains and my lack of passion there means I’d be no good at developing capacity there.
I suppose another “path for advancement” might be as someone who creates new software frameworks, code used by code to build things. Whether or not you think of that as a path for advancement, I have similar feelings about this path. I very much enjoy participating in and contributing to the development of exciting frameworks and I feel I have a lot to contribute there, but I’m not passionate about leading such projects.
Finally it occurred to me that maybe I should just set my sights on what I’m already passionate about, being a happy code monkey, a conclusion aided and finalized by too many drinks with Liz and Spanky after a sprint. :-) I find this conclusion very liberating which I take as affirmation.
As such, I’m looking for opportunities where being a happy code monkey is valued. IOW, I’m interested opportunities to join a team with more diverse opportunities for advancement other than IT management or ownership.
Diversifying¶
I am a self-taught web developer who has spent most of that time as a freelancer who loves working with the stack he first learned. It’s hard to formulate a better recipe for over-specialization. This is a difficult issue because I really do love working with Plone but I also know I would be happier and a better developer having more diversity in my experience.
As such, I’m very interested in opportunities where I can leverage my current expertise to gain new experience. Anything in the Python web app world would be good since I have very strong Python skills. Working with the new direction Pylons is taking, Pyramid, could be an even better fit since I can leverage my in-depth familiarity with it’s Zope underpinnings and heritage.
Summary¶
If you’re looking for a consultant/contractor or a team member, or know of any such opportunities, which you think I’m suited for. Please let me know. Here is my contact information and links to my online resumes.
- Name:
Ross Patterson
- Resume:
- Resume:
- Email:
- Phone:
+1 (415) 894-5323
- IRC:
- plone.org:
- GTalk:
- Yahoo IM:
patterson_ross
- AIM:
rosspatters
- MSN:
Updated on 30 October 2012
Imported from Plone on Mar 15, 2021. The date for this update is the last modified date in Plone.
Social Justice¶
Finally, while I’ve gotten to work with clients in the education domain here and there as well as some non-profits I support heartily, I’ve never had the opportunity to work on projects relating to the issues I am most passionate about, social justice issues. I’m interested in any opportunities to work on projects for organizations doing work on queer, gender, labor, race, or environmental justice issues. I’m very interested in working for any technology organization that provides technology services to such organizations.