Why is this the right job?
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I have been a free software contributor for quite some time now -- discussing problems and helping others on IRC and mailing lists, filing bugs, tracking them down and contributing patches. I started by writing patches for some GNU programs, did a Google Summer of Code in 2007 and become a Fedora packager for a few years. Currently I am hacking Telepathy Idle and Gstreamer's matroska elements.
Meanwhile, I have spent two years as a C/C++ developer writing and testing programs to generate, analyze and convert VLSI mask data as a day job.
So, all in all, I think I have the skills needed to analyze and track down problems in a relatively unknown code base.
Plus I am a big fan of telecommuting.
What are you proud of?
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I am a self-learner, and can quickly learn and master the skills needed by the job at hand. This is something that I have learnt from the free software community, and I am proud of this fact.
The most recent example of this fact is my employment at my university. When I joined, I was basically a programmer -- someone who could design (class hierarchies, interfaces) and write the code for a program, but the job was that of a system integrator. I had to take the Ubuntu 10.04 release and customize it according to our specific needs. I had to know a bit of everything including the Ubiquity installer, Debian packaging, GPG, Gstreamer, hostapd, iptables, LIRC, tcpdump, VDPAU, VDR, etc.. Being someone who had barely used an Ubuntu (or a Debian) system before did not help matters much.
Almost a year later, the appliance is functional and I am quite happy to have played an important role in its design and implementation.
What really motivates you?
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The joy of standing in front of a store and looking at a product that I helped create -- one which is considered by people to be a joy to use.