Two jobs—dream jobs for the right people. We may hire one person or two, depending on what we get. (We’re happy to look at resumes with a mix of talents, or other talents.) Both jobs are located in the New England area, with some potential for telecommuting.

Syadmin/DBA

LibraryThing, the web’s largest and most innovative site for book lovers, is looking for a smart and experienced systems and database administrator. We value brains and talent above everything, but demonstrated experience with complex, high-traffic LAMP websites is essential to this position.

• MySQL. Query optimization, replication, tuning, maintenance, recovery.
• Systems administration. Linux administration, security, maintenance and recovery. Installation of new hardware.
• Programming. You don’t need to start out a PHP guru, but you’ll have to support this part of the site.
• Personal qualities. Speed, intelligence, reliability, high availability, good communication skills and sang-froid.

Hacker/Developer

We’re also looking for a crackerjack PHP/MySQL developer. To qualify you must be passionate, creative, flexible–and fast.

• PHP. We write terse, losely modular non-OO code.
• HTML, CSS, Javascript.
• MySQL. Knowledge of query optimization, replication and MySQL internals a plus.
• Design or UI talents a plus.
• Knowledge of social networking, math, statistics, collaborative filtering, bibliographic data or library systems a plus.
• You must learn quickly and communicate effectively. Skills and attitude matter; experience per se does not.

How We Work

LibraryThing has a somewhat unusual development culture. It is not for everyone.

• We develop quickly, knocking out features in hours or days, not weeks. We value results, not process.
• We develop incrementally and opportunistically, assuming that member feedback will sometimes overturn our plans in mid-course, and that some projects will fail.
• Everyone who works for LibraryThing interacts directly with members.
• We value initiative and intellectual engagement. You must be able to work alone or in a small team.
• We are only accepting applications from people within driving distance of Portland, ME or Cambridge, MA. We are currently headquartered in Portland, ME–the second floor of a gorgeous three-family along the Eastern Prom.–but may relocate to the Boston/Cambridge, MA area.
• LibraryThing is more than a job for us. We work long, hard and usually sober, but not necessarily during “regular” hours. We love what we do. We want someone who will feel the same way.

About LibraryThing

LibraryThing is a social cataloging and social networking site for book lovers. Started in August 2005 as a hobby project, LibraryThing has grown to a handful of employees and some 215,000 members in a dozen countries. Members have cataloged 15 million books and applied almost 20 million tags. We are well known in the library world, and rapidly winning over booksellers, authors and publishers.

Contact Tim Spalding (tim@librarything.com) for more information, or to send a resume.

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