Weāre looking to add a senior developer to the Laminar Research team in the coming weeks.Ā
As an X-Plane developer, you would work on both our desktop and mobile simulators, and you'd have quite a bit of latitude to work on the projects you find most interesting. At various points, you might find yourself doing things like:
- UI development
- Low-level performance optimization
- Improvements to the X-Plane SDK used by third parties
- Networking
- Rendering engine work
- Platform-specific OS integrations
(We don't expect you to come into the role with deep knowledge of all those things. We like to hire "
T-shaped developers," people with deep knowledge in one or two areas, who can be flexible and pick up new stuff in other areas as the need arises.)
Why Work for Laminar Research?
As a member of our team, you would:
- Work on stuff that matters. Real pilots fly safer because of training in X-Plane, and real aerospace organizations (like Boeing, Cessna, and NASA, to name just a few) prototype aircraft in X-Plane before they build them in the real world.
- Work on a product that millions of people will see. Youāll get feedback from users, and that feedback will drive future development.
- Have tremendous input on the direction of the product. Because X-Plane is an exceedingly small team, every team member has a lot of say about what we work on and how we make the simulator better for our users.
- Set your own schedule. As far as weāre concerned, if youāre shipping features and fixing bugs, itās your business when you do so.
- Work remote. No commute, no cubicles, nothing to impede you from doing great work. (But the rest of the team is just a Slack conversation away!)
- Work on a variety of technologies and products. At various points, you might work on X-Plane, Plane Maker, WED, the X-Plane installer, or the MMO server.
Qualifications
A qualified candidate will:
- Have experience shipping major features in production applications with minimal oversight.
- Be a quick learnerāwe expect much of what you need to know to be learned on the job.
- Have the self-discipline to work from home and set your own schedule. (Itās not for everyone.)
- Have excellent English communication skills.
Itās a bonusābut not strictly necessary!āif you have specific experience relevant to X-Plane. Thereās no exhaustive list of skills we could use, but some possible examples include:
- Real-time graphics
- Real-time C++ development
- Mobile development
- Game development
- GIS data processing
- Networking
- The X-Plane plugin system
Our Interview Process
Hereās a rough idea of what the interview process will look like for the candidate we hire. (We might decline to proceed further with you at any stageādonāt take that as a snub, as we may have already found candidates with more relevant experience.)
- Intro email, maybe with some āscreenerā questions as follow-up
- Invitation to complete a ātake-homeā coding project.
- Our take-home project is designed to be done in 3-4 hours for candidates with lots of experience in C++ and native app development, but it will take longer if youāre new to this sort of thing.
- The project is designed to be as similar as possible to the real work youād be doing day-to-day. (Itās pulled from real features weāve shipped in the past.) This helps us understand if youād be a good fit for the role, but it can also help you decide if youād like the work.
- We donāt want to waste your time, so we wonāt ask you to do the take-home project unless we think thereās a good chance youāll succeed.
- One or more remote interviews with the teamāthis will include at least Ben, our project manager on the desktop sim, and Chris, our project manager on mobile. Weāll talk to you about your experience, how you approached challenges in your past, and so on. Thereās nothing to prepare hereāyouāll just need to be yourself. š
Things that are intentionally not included in our interview process:
- Flying you halfway across the world for an in-person interview
- Solving āpuzzlesā unrelated to real programming
- Answering silly āCS triviaā questions
- Writing code that bears no resemblance to something you would actually need on the job (e.g., āreverse a linked listā)
- Writing code under pressure, or with someone looking over your shoulder
In general, we donāt believe that subjecting candidates to a stressful interview process makes the process any betterāweāll do our best to make sure youāre comfortable.
How to Apply
Send an email introduction to hiring at X-Plane.com that includes:
- A brief overview of a project (or projects) youāve enjoyed working on
- Discussion of projects you have not enjoyed working on
- Why you think youād be a great fit for X-Plane
- Optional: a resume, links to GitHub/StackOverflow/your blog/etc.āanything you think will help us understand who you are as a developer
(Not sure if this is a good fit for you? Email me anyway and we can talk. š )
Weāre looking to hire pretty quickly, so weāll stop taking new applicants on the February 19th, 2021.
