https://agateau.com/tags/job/feedPosts tagged job2010-11-05T21:00:00+01:00Aurélien Gâteaupython-feedgenhttps://agateau.com/2008/available-for-hireAvailable for hire2008-01-04T21:00:00+01:00<p>I am currently available for hire.</p>
<p>I am looking for a Qt developer position, preferably working on open source projects. Extra bonus points if the job involves spending time working on KDE. I live in France, near Paris, but have no problem with telecommuting.</p>
<p>If your company is looking for an experienced Qt/KDE developer, <a href="https://agateau.com/about-me">contact me</a>. You may want to have a look at my <a href="https://agateau.com/2008/available-for-hire/cv_aurelien_gateau.pdf" title="cv_aurelien_gateau.pdf">resume</a> (pdf).</p>
2008-01-04T21:00:00+01:00https://agateau.com/2008/slowly-coming-back-to-businessSlowly coming back to business2008-03-12T21:00:00+01:00<p>As you <a href="http://agateau.com/2008/01/04/available-for-hire/">may remember</a>, I have been trying to find a Qt/KDE-related, free-software-friendly job for a while. Unfortunately it didn't work out, so I had to resign myself to look for a more ordinary position.</p>
<p>After publishing my resume on a popular <a href="http://monster.fr">french job website</a>, I got literally overflowed by consulting companies willing to hire me. I had to take my resume down after three days in order to shut off the fire hose and prevent my answering machine from segfaulting.</p>
<p>Of course, it's great to feel like everyone "wants me", but it makes for exhausting weeks made of three or four interviews a day. And I am not talking about half-hour interviews: the average interview is two hours long, and requires you to meet two or three different people.</p>
<p>Now I am facing an interesting problem: which employer should I choose? This is a "good problem to have", but it's still a problem. Most of my potential employers are consulting companies, I am having a hard time trying to find out which one would be better than the others. Any hint on that?</p>
<p>On Gwenview side, I am slowly getting more active now that looking for a job is becoming less time-hungry. Today I improved zooming and scrolling by throwing away most of my previous code: it seems Qt image scaling has become fast enough that it's no longer necessary to worry about threading it. It's not finished yet, more on that later.</p>
<p>I also improved the way the thumbnail view reacts with regard to thumbnail generation and scrolling. From now on thumbnail generation stops when you start scrolling the view and resumes when you are done, generating thumbnails for the newly visible images. Hopefully I didn't introduce any regression, feedback is welcomed!</p>
2008-03-12T21:00:00+01:00https://agateau.com/2008/really-back-to-businessReally back to business2008-04-03T22:00:00+02:00<p>As a follow up to <a href="http://agateau.com/2008/03/12/slowly-coming-back-to-business/">a previous post</a>, I am happy to announce I now have a job again! I start working for <a href="http://www.openwide.fr">Open Wide</a> on next Monday, as a GUI developer in the <a href="http://www.os4i.com">OS4I</a> (Open Source For Industries) unit.</p>
<p>It feels good to get back to work, even if I didn't have too much problem keeping myself occupied with Gwenview :-)</p>
2008-04-03T22:00:00+02:00https://agateau.com/2009/exciting-changeExciting change!2009-02-26T21:00:00+01:00<p>My professional career is about to change one more time... In two weeks I leave <a href="http://www.openwide.fr">Open Wide</a> for <a href="http://canonical.com">Canonical</a>, joining the Desktop Experience team as a KDE developer.</p>
<p>I spent some good time in the <a href="http://www.os4i.com">OS4I business unit</a> of Open Wide. In the jungle of consulting companies, Open Wide is a human-sized company and a nice place to work (especially if you like Japanese food!)</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I just could not ignore the opportunity of getting paid to work on what has become an important part of my life for quite some time now: KDE. And now that I live one hour from Paris, the possibility of working from home made the position even more enticing.</p>
<p>So, that's it, yet another job change. I am looking forward for the new challenges! <em>(hmm... who said "Notifications"?)</em></p>
2009-02-26T21:00:00+01:00https://agateau.com/2010/inflexionInflexion in my career2010-11-05T21:00:00+01:00<strong>Getting a dream job</strong>
Throughout my professional career, I strove to find a job which would let me contribute to free software I cared of. One year and a half ago, I was lucky to be hired by Canonical as a Qt and KDE developer. Back then, it felt like the best possible position for me. A few months later, however, I started to feel a bit frustrated. Sure I was working on KDE, doing some interesting work, but there was (and there still is) so many things in KDE and in Kubuntu I wanted to improve, yet my job was not to do that.
<p>It took me a bit of time (I am somewhat slow) to realize I was not really hired to improve KDE or Kubuntu, I was hired to ensure the changes my team (the Desktop Experience Team) implements on the desktop also work with Qt/KDE applications. My job is to ensure Qt/KDE applications integrate well in the Ubuntu desktop. Luckily I have not been strictly limited to working on applications though: I implemented KDE Plasma equivalents of the most important Ubuntu desktop changes such as the <a href="http://launchpad.net/plasma-widget-message-indicator">Message Indicator Plasma widget</a> and the <a href="http://launchpad.net/plasma-widget-menubar">Menubar Plasma Widget</a>.</p>
<strong>Wanting more</strong>
I could have considered myself lucky for getting this job: there aren't that many work-from-home, KDE-based job opportunities out there. Yet the amount of ideas I had in mind for KDE and other free software projects continued to grow, with no chance of ever turning them into reality. I decided to do something about it. Starting this month, I will be working for Canonical four days a week instead of five, keeping one day to work on what matters to me.
<p>Of course this comes at a cost which I am planning to partly cover through three means:
</p><ul>
<li>I created a <a href="https://agateau.com/support">Support my work on free software</a> page. If you like my work and would like to support me, head other there.</li>
<li>I wrote a few articles for the French Linux press in the past and plan to write more. If you are interested in an article from me, get in touch.</li>
<li>I have a web-based project in my mind which hopefully should bring a bit of money in when it's done. The project is going to be in French and not related to free software though.</li>
</ul>
I do not expect to cover the full salary reduction: my goal is not to trade one day of salary for one day of freelancing. If things turn out wrong, I should be able to get back to working five days a week for Canonical, so it's not too risky.
<strong>Anti-Troll material</strong>
Some may argue Canonical could do like other companies such as Google, 3M or Atlassian, which let their engineers spend a percentage of their week on personal projects. I think this is a great idea, but it probably wouldn't help in my situation: these personal projects usually must be approved by their managers and must end up benefiting the company. Like it or not, Canonical focus is on GNOME. Improving KDE would not be very useful for the company.
<p>By taking this day out for myself, I want to get the freedom to work independently from any business model, hopefully without ending up starving (this is partly up to you!).</p>
2010-11-05T21:00:00+01:00