a decent cover letter
This is what I sent:
I will bring a wealth of experience and an undaunted passion to Reddit.
(With 10,000 hours as 1E) I have almost 3E of development, an E of Python, and others. Only half an E for JavaScript, but currently increasing that with XXXX, where we're dragging a VB application onto the web. It's going well, I was expecting more kicking and screaming to be honest, but tools and libraries are growing so much that last years' problems are always easy. Leaving more time for a quick glance at your front page where next years' problems were the top link.
I'm working (probationarily) for XXXX. They are USA-based (East Coast and Mid-West), and I'm leading a team in India for them, at home in Ireland. This is my first full-time remote job, [redacted], and it suits me. I started back in [redacted], and it did take a few weeks to get over the "continuous semi-weekend" feeling, but got back into bash, git, and vim for repositories and code reviews up to Christmas, and now I've found some time for choosing tools. Just installed JIRA, and it has jumped so much since last time I used it!
My passion is building tools for teaching and learning. From my BSc. dissertation on teaching ASTs to neural nets, through translating a Java application into C++ (because C++ had better profiling tools), with Chomsky, Jackendorf, Hofstadter, and Dennet, mentoring a stream of interns to Engineers, toward a more fluent way to write good code.
I would like to retire slowly, and go out the way I came in: teaching. I'd like to get another degree before then, and I hope to spend 1E on pym. I want to write Slackbots to write code which does my job for you. And if you have better ideas, I'd love to hear them.
I have almost 1E on Reddit, and would jump on any chance to start in Reddit.
jalanb +353 879 999 999
Any ideas on how to follow that up?