• Networking
  • Yamli is hiring Ninja developers ! Apply today !

If you want to work on the next big thing continue reading below, otherwise click here http://ihatemyjob123.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/mondays1.jpg:)

Original post: http://blog.yamli.com/2010/01/want-to-be-part-of-the-next-big-thing-on-the-arabic-web-yamli-is-looking-for-ninja-developers/

Like every other startup, we’re on a mission to change the world :) , in our case the Arab digital world. Our passion is to develop useful, intuitive, and innovative products for this extraordinary emerging market. We are not afraid of experimenting and love crazy ideas, and we want our team to feel like they are making a difference. If you are smart, like working in a group, love to learn, and aren’t afraid to try new things, you belong at Yamli. We are looking for both key junior and senior software engineers with expertise in the web or mobile spaces. We are still small, which means that everyone who joins will be able to make big impact and help us overcome major challenges with big rewards for hard work and creativity. We believe that at the at end of the day, it’s all about the people and want to build the top flight agile software engineering team in the Middle East.

Think you have what it takes? Shoot us your resume to jobs@yamli.com along with answers to following questions:

* What’s your favorite development platform (server side or client side) and why?
* Who is your hero in the development world and why?
* What one product or gadget can you not live without and why?
* What blogs/news do you follow?
* What’s the toughest bug you’ve had to fix and why?

Qualifications:

Web
* BS or MS in Computer Science or equivalent.
* Extensive experience with one or more server side platforms (Ruby on Rails, Java, PHP, or even ASP.NET) and a solid understanding of what happens under the covers (HTTP).
* Extensive experience with client side development (HTML, CSS, Javascript and JS frameworks). UI/UX experience is also a plus.
* Knowledge of relational databases and SQL. Knowledge developing and debugging on Linux systems.

Mobile:
* BS or MS in Computer Science or equivalent. Extensive experience developing for Symbian, iPhone, Android, BREW and/or Windows Mobile.
* Extensive experience with C/C++ and Java.
* Experience developing multi-platform desktop applications and plugins (Windows/Mac/Linux/Qt) is a plus.

We are also looking for web designers with a decent understanding of web technologies.

UI/UX Designers:
* Experience with illustration tools such as Adobe’s Creative Suite
* Experience in building interfaces using CSS, HTML, and/or JavaScript
* Ability to quickly prototype and iterate towards production-level quality
* Portfolios are welcome.

If your profile doesn’t quite fit, ping us anyway if you feel you can pick things up quickly and contribute. We offer competitive salaries and stock options, and are looking for applicants preferably able to work in Beirut, Lebanon. Telecommuting may be an option.
im interested in knowing whats the next big thing for Yamli ? , because quite frankly you were owned by both Google(Transliteration app) and Microsoft(Maren) ! you might want my input for testing , im perusing my CCE major , keep up the good work ;)
Thanks Jad - As an innovative startup we have been gaining fantastic momentum and continue on innovating in this fast emerging space ! PS: Owned is the wrong verb :) but regardless of competition we always focus on our end users and have been drastically growing our fan base - Very exciting products to come soon and we are looking for key smart people to join the core team !

Gd luck with your major
on second thought i guess my post was a bit harsh , sorry for that , its just that when i saw Yamli for the first time i thought it was something huge to be done in the Arab world , i expected Yamli (the original Arabic transliteration tool) to be constantly updated with new options . but it just stayed "primarily" the same . i mostly admire the effort put into Yamli i hope you kill all the others with new software ! make us proud ! i have some comments that i would be happy to PM you later ;) .
Thanks Jad :) - No worries and appreciate the feedback

Just in case you are not following Yamli's news, Yamli today has the typing technology, the API which is used on major websites including Maktoob, Annahar, Minister of Justice, Stanford etc ..., Arabic Smart Search engine, Firefox plugin, Facebook app and a number of other apps. Much more to come and this is why we are looking for smart people to join :)
be sure that i have been following up on Yamli and i know and tested all of those....you critically need to create something for the O/S platform , i tested the Firefox add-on removed it the second day , the reliance on the internet to transliterate the words was a bad idea having in mind the Lebanese internet . the software should need all its resources available offline to function properly , also there is this thing of error detection , or user preferences , the software should have a certain degree of AI so it doesn't make the mistake twice ! it should error with me once and never again ! i hope my thoughts are taken in mind . good luck :)
Noted ... Going back to the initial point, we are looking for smart hard working people to join our startup and work on new cool innovations - If u r up for it feel free to apply ...
I would like to manage a 5 minutes meeting with you Habib if that's possible. I definitely believe that once we meet you'll need me on your team.

- Currently making a web development company with my partner (beta portfolio links: www.mankies.info/xentrics, http://jizi.xentrics.net).. U'll notice from the experimental site the true spirit of Ninja coding (the whole thing is below 40KB)
- First commercial product was www.alhilalbank.ae website, flash programming side, which was done from scratch and won a lot of regional awards
- Developed a solution for minesweeper while still at university
- Have a good grasp on physics simulations
- Have a good grasp on understanding graphics programming (ie architected applications when volunteering with others, but didn't implement the code.. code was C++, OGL, DX)
- Both founders graduated as Mechatronics engineers, so we learned programming by virtue of passion rather than academics

we're still young, 22 me (Mohammad Skafi), and 23 my partner (Yahya Sidani)
I am hoping from this opportunity that at least you'll be an angel investor or lead us to some and give us some general advice about our ecosystem. Definitely looking forward.

We can continue on by email for specifics
Cool ! I remember seeing your profile guys from YallaStartup :) Would love to talk more, feel free to send resumes and answers to questions to jobs@yamli.com

By the way, I myself come from a Computer Graphics background, I used to work on the Graphic Cards at ATI, so if you ever get a bluescreen that's probably my code :P
Hey habib !

First of all , heads up for the work u doing on yamli and products :) before yamli, i never typed an arabic word on the web ! and my foreigner friends studying arabic just fell in love with it . I am sure u got lot of replies like this , but well... i couldn't resist saying it again. oh and glad to see you on lebgeeks.

as for the job, i am not looking into a job position now cuz i am loving the freelance experience, but i am answering your questions anyway ( well they are fun and to keep the topic active )

* What’s your favorite development platform (server side or client side) and why?
- not really anyone. i don't like my IDEs cuz i will stop looking for new ones and this largely depends on what i want to do , i don't like to launch an IDE that eats 1 GB RAM while i could use a text editor, i don't like using text editor while i should be using online collab tool for developers.

* Who is your hero in the development world and why?
- i should say linus trovaldes... but he is not , actually i would pick jeff attwood from coding horror and stack overflow, i used to read him extensively while "growing up" and really used tons of his advice... otherwise i admire and like the wordpress team - no special developer name in mind - reason is cuz of the impact wordpress has and cuz how neat and flawless updates, designs are

* What one product or gadget can you not live without and why?
- my laptop :P

* What blogs/news do you follow?
- xkcd , maya amalgam , all day i dream about photography , abstruse goose , smashing magazine, coding horror, friends blogs and the regular tech crunch,zdnet , blablabla , really long and boring list

* What’s the toughest bug you’ve had to fix and why?
Performance optimization stuff.... i don't want to talk about it , i don't even want to remember it.

as for what i theorically would find interesting to work with : QT, SQL, apps on android and iphone
good luck tho finding ppl with extensive knowledge in Symbian, iPhone, Android, BREW, Windows Mobile.
Glad you remembered!
I am proud to be a fellow in so many ways, Lebanese, programmer, entrepreneur and game programming am sure.
Hope you'll find your lot of ninjas.
I'll be waiting for a reply, please have the kindness of sparing me the need to send/receive every five minutes till the morning :)
@mir, we share xkcd and abstrusegoose! you should perhaps look at dilbert and thedailywtf if u haven't already.
mir wroteHey habib !

First of all , heads up for the work u doing on yamli and products :) before yamli, i never typed an arabic word on the web ! and my foreigner friends studying arabic just fell in love with it . I am sure u got lot of replies like this , but well... i couldn't resist saying it again. oh and glad to see you on lebgeeks.

as for the job, i am not looking into a job position now cuz i am loving the freelance experience, but i am answering your questions anyway ( well they are fun and to keep the topic active )

* What’s your favorite development platform (server side or client side) and why?
- not really anyone. i don't like my IDEs cuz i will stop looking for new ones and this largely depends on what i want to do , i don't like to launch an IDE that eats 1 GB RAM while i could use a text editor, i don't like using text editor while i should be using online collab tool for developers.

* Who is your hero in the development world and why?
- i should say linus trovaldes... but he is not , actually i would pick jeff attwood from coding horror and stack overflow, i used to read him extensively while "growing up" and really used tons of his advice... otherwise i admire and like the wordpress team - no special developer name in mind - reason is cuz of the impact wordpress has and cuz how neat and flawless updates, designs are

* What one product or gadget can you not live without and why?
- my laptop :P

* What blogs/news do you follow?
- xkcd , maya amalgam , all day i dream about photography , abstruse goose , smashing magazine, coding horror, friends blogs and the regular tech crunch,zdnet , blablabla , really long and boring list

* What’s the toughest bug you’ve had to fix and why?
Performance optimization stuff.... i don't want to talk about it , i don't even want to remember it.

as for what i theorically would find interesting to work with : QT, SQL, apps on android and iphone
good luck tho finding ppl with extensive knowledge in Symbian, iPhone, Android, BREW, Windows Mobile.
Cool stuff ! We are mainly interested in full time positions as we want to build a strong core team, this is why we are giving out stock options :) - Either way feel free to send us an email with the above answers and resume @ jobs@yamli.com
@hhaddad, hey Habib how are you doing, I hope everything is going great. First of all I would like to thank you for your great breakthrough in the world of arabic typing which really made our lives much more easier and fun when typing Arabic. Yesterday I was teaching my dad how to type using Yamli and he really likes your app.

I am actually interested in working at Yamli but not as a full timer beacuse I am still at university, but in case you want internships by next summer I am ready. I am majoring in Management Information Systems at Haigazian University, I am in love with programming and doing web development and I am currently setting up my own little freelance business on the web http://www.devzilla.net but the pages are still incomplete but I will finish them very soon. I am also working on some projects in Java and Php. I have also some experience from previous years, I worked at a company called TimeWare(specialized in making HRMS solutions) I worked as an alpha tester and then as a junior web developer.

I am always following your latest news on Facebook and twitter. In addition, you Yalla Startup project is really cool and I hope it will help making better entrepreneurs for the future. Furthermore, I was thinking if you would do seminars in Universities around Lebanon to make more people aware of this new project. If you are interested I can talk to the business department at my University and maybe we could arrange some time for you to come and visit us and talk about Yalla Startup.

Oh and here are my answers to you question,

* What’s your favorite development platform (server side or client side) and why?
My favorite platform is Java SE for making client side apps, so I prefer using Netbeans 6.5 and it has all the plugins I need for web development too that is Php, java script, CSS, and Ajax. So I like to work on both but these days the web platform is taking more of my attention and work on both server side and client side, that is Javascript and XHTML for the client side and Php for the server side. Recently I have just started to explore the zend framework.

* Who is your hero in the development world and why?
Of course not Bill Gates, he is more of business man after all :P It is Linus Torvalds since he is the founder of Linux OS and made a big step towards distributing the concept of open source to people. He didn't care much first about how he is going to sell and advertise his software, he just wanted to do something new, innovative and made people's life easier.

* What one product or gadget can you not live without and why?
My Laptop, because I have all my work on it, and I can't but work on at least one of my projects ever day,
actually programming has become an addiction to me.

* What blogs/news do you follow?
I mainly follow the industry news and blogs at the </dream.in.code> website: http://www.dreamincode.net
I am an active member there and I have contributed some tutorials and code snippets to community.The community has lots of experienced developers who share ideas, experience and development tutorials in different languages.

* What’s the toughest bug you’ve had to fix and why?
Optimizing memory usage in my Java app and speed, we all know that Java programs are quite slower than natively compiled ones such as C++ and they tend to consume more memory. I usually try my best in making them as efficient as possible.

Thank you very much and have good day, keep up the good work :)
Why are people answering the development platform question with bits on IDEs? :(
guys answer the questions to his email ! :D
arithma wrote- First commercial product was www.alhilalbank.ae website, flash programming side, which was done from scratch and won a lot of regional awards
Although your ideas are great (i really like the scrolling boxes and the gadgets and the menu animations) their implementation virtually raped my cpu. Not that im running a supercomputer, but still...
Oh well i guess thats the price to pay for flash. Flash is great. Dont forget SEO though. Maybe its also because im running OSX. I know flash for mac is way less efficient then the one for Windows.
arithma why dont you try doing the same effect using jquery or javascript?
i have to quite agree with Rolf....but i guess its easier in flash ? no ?