An Unusual Office

I recently read this article, which had me chuckling for a week. Do read it, it’s brilliant. But it got me thinking. Really, the LiveCode offices are not your typical place to work, and LiveCode is not your typical programming language. It’s Easier with LiveCode.

Our development team are a pretty happy bunch overall (unless they’re faking it really really well!). I think this is down to a number of things. We expect you to work hard, but we also listen to your input, and there is a certain amount of flexibility in the working hours. Some members of our team regularly spend a day working from home – others prefer always to work from the office. We have monthly whole team meetings, where every member of the company presents their work for the month. This leads to a feeling of inclusiveness – I may not always understand Mark Waddingham’s presentation but I have at least a vague idea of where the tech is heading! Equally, the tech team gets an overview of what is happening in marketing or customer support.

Pets Galore

Possibly the relaxed atmosphere is assisted by the Office Dogs.

Developers in Training?

I frequently get asked why the servers running our hosting service have such odd names. Meg, Diesel, Tio, Jasmine, Pancake … what’s that all about? Well, they are the names of the office pets. A number of members of staff have pets who regularly come in to the office, providing entertainment and light relief. Your code not doing what you wanted? That bug proving intractable? Spend a few minutes playing tug of war with Tio, or throw the squirrel for Meg, and the problem may magically resolve itself. No, I cannot tell you why Arnaud’s cat (now sadly deceased) was called Diesel. You’d have to ask him that.

Programmers and Beards

An interesting phenomenon – almost all of our team have beards. And some have an uncanny resemblance to each other. I’m not sure why this is, does coding attract this genotype, or does working in code all day cause long hair and beards?

Spot the difference: Ali Lloyd and Sebastian Nouet.

We’re a creative bunch, and coding after hours for the sheer joy of it seems to be the norm, rather than the exception. A case in point – shortly after coming to work for us, we discovered that Fraser Gordon had a love of Raspberry Pi… to the point where he had picked up the embryonic LiveCode implementation for this platform and turned it into something useable, in his spare time. Way to go Fraser – don’t forget to sleep sometimes.

Yes, its definitely not a typical place to work. But friendly, fun and awash with creative atmosphere.

We’re hiring

Do you like dogs? Love working long hours for a deadline? Got some serious Programming Experience and credentials? Have a beard? Apply here.