MetaCPAN is Hiring!

OK, so that's maybe not 100% accurate, but we are looking for students who want to get paid to work with us. How can you get paid to work on MetaCPAN? There are currently two really great options: the Outreach Program for Women (OPfW) and the Google Summer of Code (GSoC).

What MetaCPAN needs from you is to help spread the word to interested students who may want to participate. Here's the pitch:

There are lots of things you can learn by working on the MetaCPAN stack. Our stack includes Catalyst, Plack, ElasticSearch, jQuery, Bootstrap and nginx. We also use Puppet for deployment and Vagrant + VirtualBox for development VMs. We have integration with Twitter, Github, PAUSE, Facebook and Google.

You will have help and guidance in working with these technologies from people who are quite familiar with them. Your code will deploy on robust hardware (think 30+ GB of RAM). Your code will often deploy within hours or even minutes of being submitted. Your work will immediately be put to the test by our many users on our very busy services. You'll gain experience in NoSQL (ElasticSearch), git, and also in participating in an Open Source project which functions as a highly available web service. You will gain experience not just in writing code, but in participating in the full cycle of code deployment, skills which are quite valuable in the real world.

More info on how to get involved is listed on our development page.

Maybe you're thinking "So, get to the important stuff already. How much does it pay?"

Well, OPfW pays $5,500 and I'm under the impression that GSoC will pay the same amount this year. Both programs are being run in parallel. If your gender identification is in line with the requirements of OPfW then you are actually encouraged to apply for both programs. The important thing to remember is that, at the end of the day, gender will not limit you from participating. There's a program for everybody.

The deadlines for both programs are rapidly approaching. OPfW has an application deadline of March 19, 2014 and GSoC has an application window of March 10 - 21 (Don't be fooled if the Google page appears to be blank at the top. Someone should get a GSoC slot just to fix the google-melange site).

However, please, don't take my word for anything. Do go to the respective sites to double check dates, requirements etc.

Essentially what you need to in order to be able to apply for either of these programs is to get involved in the MetaCPAN project. Send us your resume/CV so that we can get to know you a little better. Then, with our guidance, you can start shipping some code. (This is actually quite easy). Once you've become formally involved with the project, we can work with you on your application. There's not a lot of time, though, so let's get started on those pull requests!

We want students to leave this experience with some real world skills, but we'd also like for students to love the project so much that they continue contributing after this summer. We have lots of interesting problems to solve. Please help us find the right students to continue moving MetaCPAN forward. If you know someone who might be interested, please share this link.

My contact info is listed at https://metacpan.org/author/OALDERS, but essentially anyone can get help getting started by joining #metacpan on irc.perl.org and just asking for help. The channel is very friendly and there's generally someone around who can offer some guidance.