That I'm having more fun working recently than I can recall having before hasn't changed, and part of that is working with some of the best people in the country (and occasionally in the industry as a whole) here at SynthaSite.  And now we're hiring (in both San Francisco and Cape Town, but I'm talking about the team here in Cape Town).  If that interests you and you think you're pretty hot (even if you might need some experience to fully shine), I don't think you can find a better place to work in Cape Town.

There are four positions open in Cape Town - two technology and two admin/support positions.  (And we're always open to getting to know people who are as passionate about making a great product as we are.)

The sysadmin position will join Lisa and I in the "systems" team mostly on the infrastructure side.  I've been doing most of the system administration in the company since I got there, automating as I go, but it's not something I can do as well as I'd like and still work on the things I most want to work on.

This job is probably fairly flexible.  You might be starting out, in which case we'll help you grow into the position.  You might be hard-core, in which case we'll generally keep out of your way.  Or you might want to do a bit of sysadmin and a bit of platform or product development.  Experience with Python and advanced Bourne shell scripting would be useful.

We also need someone to spend most of their time researching and building platform prototypes and then production systems as we move through iterative and large-scale improvements to our platform.  This is the "platform engineer".  Experience building platforms or using the sorts of tools that go along with building them (memcached, for example) is preferable, as is experience with multiple languages (I'd say Java and Python especially would be useful, but then my voice is just one of many).

The other two positions are for a copywriter and a support person - although, there's always scope to get involved in any number of other activities - QA, research, user testing, and so forth.

No, this isn't my post about what it's like to work at SynthaSite.  Although I can say that I've had the most fun I've had in years working here so far.

SynthaSite has two positions open that I'd like to see filled with local geeks, both working on the community and marketplace aspects (ie, forums, blog, web site, and so forth) around the core SynthaSite application.   Both the positions involve coding and the usual amount of collaborative decision-making in a start-up environment, but one is slightly more "senior" and will involve additional liaising and planning and organisation.  You'd be based in our Gardens, Cape Town, offices.

Basically, that's it - two bright and cheery and passionate geeks with a diverse skillset (including, but certainly not limited to, PHP) wanted to work at a well-funded "Web 2.0" start-up in Cape Town.  We have the usual start-up environment with pay-you-what-you're-worth remuneration and other financial incentives, great equipment, good company lunch, nice location (near the 24-hours-Woolies-at-the-Engen in Gardens), good connectivity (well, for .za), and so forth.

Send direct to careers@synthasite.com or send me an email if you know me (or can figure out my email address).

My current employer, CareerJunction, has two Python developer positions open at the moment, to build a second Linux/Python development team to be able to develop more Python stuff faster.  The developers on the first team started with Bryn and I, and now also Shayan (who applied after a previous job post), and Shaun is our "making sure the technology is actually remotely useful to the user" person - designing our pages in terms of what's on them and how they look, being critical of differences to the spec, and generally keeping everyone honest.

http://www.careerjunction.co.za/car/job/jobvuw.asp?adno=576705
http://www.careerjunction.co.za/car/job/jobvuw.asp?adno=576714

There's also a "Project Manager" job for the same team and some other
(mostly ASP) jobs at:

http://www.careerjunction.co.za/internaljobs/

(For non-South Africans or those South Africans not doing much online recruitment activities, CareerJunction is the biggest and best online job board in South Africa.)

It seems KT's doing well - they were invited to attend the Olliance Group's Open Source Think Tank event later this year.  (Nice venue!  The Californian winelands have long been the #1 location I'd love to visit in the US, even before becoming even more enamoured after watching Sideways)

And (belatedly), they seem to be looking for developers again - if you can stand programming in PHP and want to be paid to work on an open source project in beautiful Cape Town, why not apply?

The great guys at frogfoot are hiring - they've got junior and senior sysadmin posts going, as well as some non-technical positions.

Or if you've always wanted to work with me (how could you not?) - or maybe just with Python in Cape Town - you can also check out this Python web developer job at CareerJunction.  As far as I understand, there are two positions, and you'll be working with Bryn and I.  (If you apply, give me a shout, and if I don't know you well, a geekier version of your experience vs. what's on your CV, so I can put in a good word.)