Help Wanted at LWN

https://lwn.net/Articles/949461/

by rascul • 3 years ago

195 20 3 years ago

lwn.net

quickthrower2• 3 years ago

Wow, that is fairly well paid, given it is fully remote, as well as being a fantastic sounding job.

matheusmoreira• 3 years ago

Yeah, it's an extremely attractive position. I wonder which fields comprise "the sciences".

freedomben• 3 years ago

I don't know for LWN, but in software engineering in general, especially the type of engineers who are deeply interested in the kernel, the sciences means something like a bachelor of science in computer science, computer engineering, electrical engineering, physics, chemical engineering, or other degrees with a fair level of math.

JeremyNT• 3 years ago

They also mention "equivalent experience" so I'd imagine that isn't a hard requirement.

Up to 140k as a technical writer sounds pretty amazing, although I imagine LWN is the "major leagues" of tech writing so this is probably a bit of an outlier in that field. I actually have an English degree and briefly considered tech writing as an option earlier in my career, but at the time it was far easier to find a career path in Sysadmin/Webmaster/Developer roles, and I've sadly never been able to use my writing skills professionally (outside of issues and emails, of course!)

orochimaaru• 3 years ago

Have you posted in the who’s hiring section? But that sounds pretty cool.

lifeisstillgood• 3 years ago

I am wondering why python development experience is a major bullet point. Does LWN have a lot of in-house code?

I am just idly wondering as I imagine a gilded life of tech journalism (which will be a million miles from the reality of deadline driven millstone)

But good luck to them - LWN always has the clearest explanation of "this is what the mile long thread on the mailing list means"

ossusermivami• 3 years ago

yes they have mentioned it multiple times in some of their articles, the website is in python...

jeron• 3 years ago

I couldn't have guessed with the way the website looks /s

sverhagen• 3 years ago

If ever a job seems deadline-driven, I'd have gone with journalism.

constantly• 3 years ago

This is awesome. LWN is one of my favorite publications.

jmclnx• 3 years ago

I remember when LWN was a small site run by one person. Interesting how they were able to grow into a real company with real revenue.

Newspapers should have studied them as they grew.

tuckerpo• 3 years ago

People writing about the Linux kernel get paid more than I do to write the Linux kernel. :^)

tux3• 3 years ago

An easily solved problem

Should kernel devs start commenting some of the more write-only parts of the kernel all on their lonesome, the lovely documentation people at LWN would find themselves out of a job and enjoying a deserved retirement!

jeffparsons• 3 years ago

IMO good tech writers are way undervalued in general, so I'm really happy to see that this position appears to be well-compensated. If I were an LWN subscriber, I'd also be happy to know that my subscription is contributing to that person's salary.

I still remember when Steve Klabnik moved on from Mozilla he mentioned in a blog post [1] that he'd recently discovered he was the lowest-paid member of his team. I was simultaneously flabbergasted, because I felt that Steve's contribution to the Rust project was so huge that it was hard to imagine what the Rust experience would have been without him — and entirely unsurprised, because it's so typical of organisations to undervalue writing work.

Writing is communication. In my experience, in any endeavour involving more than one person, communication is the single biggest factor in success or failure. So... you know what I'm getting at: pay your communication specialists well.

[1] https://steveklabnik.com/writing/thank-u-next

jauntywundrkind• 3 years ago

Writing is a force multiplier.

People use and adopt the new features going into the kernel because of lwn. This is the medium where sagas like eBPF and io_uring play out & are heard of, where folks get inspired to use these capabilities.

Open source in particular needs these bards, to sing these artificer's epics.

mongol• 3 years ago

LWN.net is maybe the oldest website I still return to. And it looks the same too! I think it existed already in the 90s?

Dudester230602• 3 years ago

"in such a case, salary and benefits will be dependent on what we are able to arrange in the specific location"

How generous, they understand there are countries out there where software development specialists are accustomed to higher compensation than in USA. Hence the language used.

smartbit• 3 years ago

There is a spin-off from gitlab that enables hiring people in many countries in the world. Could come handy.

Help Wanted at LWN

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