The Underscore Archives

On 31 Oct 2007, at 18:47, Neil Weston wrote:

> What elements of the job / environment at the Watershed (and any  
> other employers) were so enjoyable?  Obviously I'm interested in  
> ideas that can be integrated into my working environment rather than  
> "Joe Bloggs was a good manager", however any ideas / information  
> would be useful

Oliver's already mentioned quite a few of the benefits that keep us  
working here.

The flexible working hours are great. I generally work from home three  
days a week and come into the Watershed twice. Apart from this week  
where I've moved my days around because I needed to take a day off at  
very short notice, which was fine. As Oliver wrote, starting when I'm  
ready to start is great and finishing when I want to is also good (and  
practical: it means I can finish at a logical point in the code, say  
after finishing a function, and it doesn't matter if it's 4.30 or 8.30).

Watershed has a shallow and wide management structure here so we  
actually get to spend time 'creating stuff and making things work'  
rather than spending vast amounts of time on staff appraisals or  
figuring out holiday allocations. Staff are generally self sufficient  
HR wise.

At Watershed we have complete trust in our colleagues to do the right  
thing. We don't tell each other how to do tasks and we are free to use  
the languages, runtimes and tools that we want. It does mean that, say  
Oliver and myself, use completely different methodologies and tools  
but each of us is happy and confident in the way we work. As a  
consequence of this we run a number of different technologies,  
especially server-side web, but in practice this isn't a problem and  
there is a natural fit.

Lots of the tasks here are done in-house, so we get to work on a wide  
variety of projects. Many companies outsource development outside of  
their core competency but keeping most work in-house means that no two  
weeks are ever the same. This week I'm working on a small web based  
application; next week it's a desktop application. For me, it's the  
variety of interesting work, above all other reasons, that keeps me  
here. If i was just knocking out web-site after web-site, I wouldn't  
be here now. Our jobs change over time and even though my job  
description hasn't changed too much over the last five years, the work  
is very different now.
Each project scope is different and there are plenty of quick turn  
around projects. Many of these are briefed, started and finished in  
the same day.
Having to write software that runs for years or sometimes just a day  
is quite invigorating. Developing an application or tool that will  
only run for a day generally means more fun prototyping and making  
fast progress and less time tracking down memory leaks. It's just  
variety.

As Oliver wrote, we also have the opportunity to work on 'pet  
projects' and prototype up ideas. It's not just the generous time  
allocated to do this but the fact that these projects often end up in  
public use or incorporated into another piece of work.

Attending industry conferences such as WWDC are a huge benefit to  
working here. We get to meet (and drink) with our peers who we know  
from mailing lists but may work in different continents. There are  
massive tangible business benefits to going to things like WWDC, Java  
One, MS Developer Thing... etc. This year I was having some issues  
with the Image Kit in Leopard, so you just go and sit down with Werner  
Neubrand (the engineer who wrote the framework), get out your MacBook  
and work through things. Having an employer than can see the benefits  
of attending conferences and festivals like these is invaluable.

We have generous amounts of time for self training with a healthy  
budget for books. This is supported with the likelyhood that we can  
attend a residential course if we need to.

At watershed in particular there are advantages with being a non- 
profit (as well as the disadvantages discussed yesterday).
Such as not having to make a profit. The general lack of paying  
clients who suddenly discover they are web designers or software  
engineers and few public deadlines (and most of these are fairly  
flexible).


Benjamin





Benjamin Miller, Digital Developer
Watershed Media Centre
1 Canon's Road, Harbourside, Bristol, UK. BS1 5TX
t: +44 (0)117 927 6444, f: +44(0)117 921 3958
http://www.watershed.co.uk/
iChat-AIM: benjamin_miller at mac.com