Hello Art & Logic, Meet Sam!

Hi,

My name is Sam. Your company came recommended and I checked it out. I am impressed and excited to be considered for an open position with your team. I am available for full-time, off-site, contract-based engagements. I’m curious about how you all work and eager to learn more.

I created this one-page cover-letter for your consideration. Here at the top is an excerpt from an interview ‘we’ had recently. And further below is my full resume, updated portfolio, and more.

Thanks in advance!

-Samuel Asher Rivello

sam [at] RivelloMultimediaConsulting [dot] com

Interview

Describe how and why you became a developer.

I love videogames and technology. I bounced between the dream of creating art for videogames and the dream of designing code for videogames. I succeed at both, but development is my passion. I love the balance between the theory and its application. The ‘breaking down’ of the ideal to the influences of time and teamwork. I can be excited about a finished project by how it looks or how it plays or how it was made or how much my team and I learned. I love jumping hurdles shaping game API’s and mixing-into AS3 well-made language features like Singletons and Enums.

What is it that first attracted you to this field?

I fell in love with Legos and my TRS-80 at age 4. My mom – a teacher and fine artist. My dad – an entrepreneur and technologist. The balance between art and logic is a permanent one. My degree in visual arts helps daily in my 12 year career as a hard-core game and app developer.

Legos to me are the perfect toy. Fun | imagination | development | construction | design | simplicity

What keeps you going?

The tremendous possibilities on day 1 of every project, the bittersweet postmortems, and most of what’s between. I’m curious about so many things, its easy to find something new to light the fire. Inspiration. Challenging myself to learn new things and great things before a client needs it or knows they want it.  I balance my independence in problem solving with looking for a sufficient existing solution within the vibrant community.

List up to 10 things that you are an expert in — these can be programming languages, technologies, operating systems, problem domains, or areas of interest.

I am an expert at the Flash Platform. There was a time when I new every method and property in the API (Flash 5?) but thankfully now there is a universe of interesting topics within and without my reach. Picking favorite subtopics of Flash gaming with entity-based frameworks, single-codebase AIR for iOS/Android mobile, Flex development with Robotlegs, Box2D, and Stage3D. I champion clear lines of communication, collaborating, and collaboration technologies (email + Skype + GIT = yay!).

I sit down with a new friend who has a very clear idea of what he or she wants in a user’s experience and I will plan all aspects of design, architecting, team-building, development, and delivery. Shaping ideas, prioritizing features, and getting something simple and bug-free launched early are core fundamentals of my processes. When my team hears me and the consensus is to take another direction, I’m on board to see the team’s solution succeed.

I would love to learn more native development for iOS and Android as well as HTML5 for games and apps. There is another dimension of greatness there too. I love to learn new things and consider myself a good learner and sharer of new things. I enjoyed the read of your manifesto and too place strong emphasis on learning – in all aspects of life.

I travel light and have fun while working – about 50 countries visited/lived. I’ve had the pleasure to work with – learn from – and teach to – some of the most talented people on earth, on-site and remotely. I speak pretty darn good English (Native), Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French.

Full Resume

Updated Portfolio

And More

Here is some more info about me; I was a founding team member of Neopets (http://www.neopets.com), a grandfather in the online MMO industry. We grew the company through its sale to MTV Networks / Viacom in 2005. I built the game development team of 12 developers (US & Singapore); hiring, training, and supporting them with AS2/AS3 frameworks, tools, and more.

I not only follow the latest innovations – I define them with deep community involvement and bleeding edge development. I champion best practices and respect how your standards differ from my own published standards. I own no active open source projects but have helped others with many – small and large – such as my help with PureMVC and my assistance on the project Robotlegs. Generally am ‘out there’ consuming the fantastic work of others and publishing demos of cool stuff to help myself and others. I’m flexible on how I engage with new partners like yourself, anything from helping out on high-level RIA architecture down & setting up best practices for team workflows to simply lending a hand in development of existing projects.

In recent leisure time, I have updated my complete set of Robotlegs templates on GIT, and recorded more for a whole HD Video series on ActionScript 3.0. I’m currently very excited about HTML5 games for cross-platform and AIR 3.2 for mobile including Starling Stage3D with vector assets.

I am flexible to the methods of my clients, but My preferred architectures include;

Recent Articles For Clients

Recent Articles For Community

I am excited for the opportunity to learn about your company and share some information about me.

Thanks for your time,

-Samuel Asher Rivello

sam [at] RivelloMultimediaConsulting [dot] com

Original Post

At Art & Logic, we’re always doing something new, so it’s hard to make a list of desirable technologies. Our programmers need to be fluent with a variety of tools, and have the desire to do something new, cool, and unexpected. Below is a list of some of the skills we’re looking for:

  • Objective-C
  • Cocoa
  • iPhone SDK
  • Android SDK
  • C++, C#, Java
  • Audio, MIDI
  • Python
  • Python frameworks, especially TurboGears
  • PHP
  • HTML5, CSS, XHTML
  • JavaScript, jQuery
  • “Web 2.0,” AJAX, web services
  • database design, MySQL
  • ActionScript 3.0, Flex, AIR
  • cross-platform libraries and frameworks, such as Flex, Qt, and wxWidgets
  • Mac OS X kernel drivers
  • Windows kernel drivers
  • UI design and usability
  • graphic design

Everyone at Art & Logic works from home full-time so you’ll never be “left out” of key meetings or brainstorming sessions. We don’t require computer science degrees (and many of us do have an Art!) but you do need to love to learn…

Feel free to share this ad – we are happy to connect with awesome developers who aren’t even looking for a new job yet 🙂

Lastly, here’s a quote from a current programmer at A&L…

“When I first started working for Art & Logic, I had my share of reservations, after just coming from my own business with all the employees under one roof. That was now almost 5 years ago and I haven’t looked back. It really is the perfect job – smart and decent people running the company, some of the most talented co-workers on the planet, always challenging and interesting work, and the flexibility of working at home.”

Note: Please complete our short form. If you don’t have a resume, you can provide a link to your web site or Linked In profile. Questions may be directed to recruiting@artlogic.com. Thanks!

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