[PD-ot] JOB: looking for an art-savvy programmer

[Hans-Christoph Steiner]

http://art.sy is looking for a programmer, I figured Pders are hackers
who like art.  Tell him I sent you:

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Carter Cleveland <carter at art.sy>
To: Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>
Subject: Re: info
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 14:16:26 -0500

Hi -- My name is Carter Cleveland and I'm the technical founder of
Art.sy, a startup with the goal of disrupting and expanding the fine art
market using AI technology (we've dubbed it the Art Genome Project).

I would like to tell you a little bit about Art.sy and explore the
possibility of working together. The information in this email is
confidential and I would be grateful if you did not share it.  

After bootstrapping our way to a proof-of-concept prototype, we recently
raised funding from some incredible investors (TechCrunch article here)
including Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google), Jack Dorsey (Twitter founder),
Founder Collective (Chris Dixon, Zach Klein), Alexis O'Hanian (Reddit
founder), Charlie Cheever (Quora founder), Dave Morin (Path founder),
Jim Breyer (named the no.1 tech investor in the world by Fortune
Magazine), Wendi Murdoch (NewsCorp), Dasha Zhukova (one of the biggest
art collectors in the world, former editor of Pop Magazine, fashion
model), and -- most importantly -- some of the most influential figures
in the art world (whose names have to be kept private for now). As a
first time entrepreneur, it’s been a _very_ surreal experience :). 

But here’s why I’m really excited: with our investors unique personal
networks, we've managed to sign on many major art galleries and
institutions that have traditionally refused to go online. These unique
partnerships will allow us to aggregate art world information in a way
that has never before been possible. Although artificial intelligence
has been around for a long time, we will be the first to get to apply it
-- and many other exciting technologies, such as computer vision -- to
this large and rich data set of important artworks. 

Today the fine art world is the last major industry yet to be disrupted
by technology. And for me, Art.sy represents a once in a lifetime
opportunity to create that disruption on a global and historic scale. 

But to do so, we need a Lead Developer to take our boot-strapped
prototype to the next level. To be clear, this role is one of the most
senior in the company, but is not ‘managerial’ -- you will be coding or
working with me on product 95% of the time. 

I’m sure you are busy, but I would love the opportunity to speak further
with you about our business, our culture, and the possibility of working
together. 

If you are not interested, I would be extremely grateful if you had any
ideas for who else might be a good fit. I know that great engineers tend
to hang out together :). 

Either way, best of luck with your ventures! 
Carter
@carterac | carter at art.sy | 646.267.7570

****** Here is what can be posted to a job board or forum ******

Art.sy, a just-funded NYC startup, seeks Lead Developer (willing to
re-locate)

In a sentence, Art.sy is Pandora for the fine art world. We use
artificial intelligence to expose collectors -- experienced and
inexperienced alike -- to beautiful works of art they would never
otherwise have discovered. Our goal is to disrupt the existing fine art
market, and expand it to the 99.9% of Americans who don’t buy fine art
but instead buy reproductions and mass-produced prints. 

We recently raised funding from some incredible investors including
Thrive Capital, Founder Collective, Eric Schmidt, Jack Dorsey, Wendi
Murdoch, Dasha Zhukova, and Jim Breyer. We would love for you to join us
and help take Art.sy to the next level.

The role:

Art.sy is looking for an extremely passionate, self-motivated, and
entrepreneurial Lead Developer to join our core team. This is one of our
most senior positions and you will help shape both our cultural DNA and
our vision for the future. Your responsibility: turn that vision into
code. 

Our web application is built in jQuery on top of Zend (an MVC + OO LAMP
framework for PHP), and our artificial intelligence algorithms are in a
Java web service. But specific languages aren't as important to us. Our
philosophy is simple: hire the best people -- languages are just tools
to an end. We are particularly interested in people with diverse
passions such as writing, design, machine learning, graph theory,
computer vision, non-relational databases, stand-up, and meditation. You
get the idea. 

You must: 
     1. Have built and scaled web applications (ideally in an MVC PHP
        framework).
     2. Be hungry for a core role with a lot of independence.
     3. Have cool projects already under your belt that you can point
        to.
     4. Enjoy working with teams and feel comfortable in a leadership
        role.
     5. Have an appreciation for beautiful design and the user
        experience. 
Send your resume to carter at art.sy.

On Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 9:38 AM, Hans-Christoph Steiner <hans at at.or.at>
wrote:
        
        hey carter, it was good meeting you last night.  If you send me
        a job description, I can forward it around to the various places
        I know for creative technologists.
        
        .hc
        
        ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
        
        "[T]he greatest purveyor of violence in the world today [is] my
        own government." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
        
        
        



-- 
Art.sy is looking for a Lead Developer in NYC! http://art.sy/#jobs 
(Help me find the right person and get a new MacBook
Air: http://apple.com/macbookair/)

Carter Cleveland
Founder | Art.sy
twitter.com/carterac | astatespacetraveler.com
646.267.7570 | carter.cleveland (skype)