Storybird is adding a Python developer to the team. Done!
Skills:
-strong knowledge of Python and Django development
-experience with Python production deployment scenarios (such as
mod_wsgi, nginx)
-experience tuning Django queries for MySQL
-experience with MySQL replication a huge benefit
-understanding of HTML/CSS and Javascript/jQuery
Also:
-entrepreneurial mindset (we’re a startup)
-easy-going personality (team fit is crucial)
-comfortable working remotely (but within North American timezones)
-roughly 15 hrs a week (for now)
-strong experience with web apps (we’re building web apps)
We offer:
-great product/great market
-seasoned team/laid-back style
-chance to flex/opportunity to learn
-chocolate
We’re a pre-revenue, purposefully bootstrapped company. We’re open to discussions on compensation, but we’ll have to be creative.
What to do: Email us links to your work, code samples, your resume, and a few words about yourself:
jobs [at] storybird [dot] com
No recruiters please (we have only so much chocolate to go around).
For the next couple of weeks some folks are helping us kick the tires before we release v0.1 of Storybird.
One of them is Josh, a 3.5 year-old boy who learned about Storybird while taking his evening bath. When asked “would you like to make a story with your dad?” Josh squealed “yes!” and proceeded to hop out of the bath, still dirty and soaking. “I’m finished! I’m finished!” he insisted. Five minutes later with hair still wet he produced his first Storybird. He made another one before bed, then demanded his dad read him all the Storybirds in the public library. In the morning, he woke up to say “I want to make a Storybird.”
Another guest is writer Tara Lazar who is not only talented but, thankfully, patient. She discovered our first major bugs. Despite not being able to read any Storybirds (damn Internet Explorer) and losing her work the first time around, she went on to make a heart-tugging story with the illustrations of Irisz Agocs, a Hungarian illustrator known for her whimsical watercolors.
These two experiences stand out for me because they represent a key theme about discovery. For many media services (I guess that’s one way Storybird can be categorized), discovery is a key feature and issue. How do you find things? How do you share them? But discovery takes on a bigger role when you make things. It becomes reflective and personal. However quickly or spontaneously these stories were made and whether it’s a 3.5 year old boy or a mother of two, creating something means asking something of yourself. Some wondering, nurturing, and pronouncing occurs. If the “personal is political,” then “making is meaning.”
As a child of big-media who was taught that consumption is the only pattern worth pursuing, it makes me insanely happy to see how this is reversed with Storybird. For someone like Josh, if you permit me some metaphorically-appropriate geekspeak, his future isn’t just read. It’s read/write.
From The Guardian: “You know, you go through your whole life looking for an identity and then you become a mother and you’re like: ‘Oh … I’m a mom.’ So no matter what, that’s what I am. If everything else fades, I’m still a mom.”
A look at finished Storybirds! Plus, the Storybird player, Read page, and member dashboard. (Toggle the full screen icon on the player for best effect.)
Story art by Hungarian illustrator Irisz Agócs, fabricator of whimsy and loveliness. Visit her portfolio and ETSY shop for further heart-melting adorableness. Monster-maker Paul McDougall also lends a hand (he was in sneak peek #1).
Click here to see the previous sneak peeks.
Welcome!
This is the blog for Storybird—a service that makes it simple for families and friends to create short, visual stories together that they can share and print. For artists and writers, Storybird is next-generation publishing: global, viral, and instantaneous.
We post about Storybird from time to time, but mostly we amuse ourselves with stuff about storytelling, digital culture, media, publishing, families, kids, games, imagination, and artists.
