I found the perfect job... but it's in Amsterdam

July 7, 2009 7:37 PM

I found a job posting from a Mac software developer for a support/QA guru that pretty much sums up exactly what I want in a job right now. However, circumstances are not right for this particular position. How can I still do this as a job?

For context, here's an abridged version of the job posting, from SOFA's job openings page:

Sofa is looking for a full-time support and QA professional to join its team. Excellent written and conversational English is required. Fluency in Dutch, French, German or another big language is a plus, as is having prior experience as a customer liaison – either in support, sales, or another customer-facing role.

You will be working 40 hours a week from our Amsterdam office (relocation to Amsterdam area required) [...] There will be plenty of room for you to learn, grow and have a good time. Your tasks will vary from answering support emails, monitoring and responding to questions on our forums, and filing, reproducing and triaging bug reports, to testing new releases, authoring end-user documentation for our products and working closely with the rest of our team to prioritize bugs and feature requests.

We employ people who show initiative and have strong opinions. You are encouraged and expected to push the envelope for support, documentation and software quality.

If you care deeply about how people experience using their computers, and have a soft spot for well-made Mac software, please email [...]

After randomly stumbling upon this page the other day, I've started to realize that it's pretty much the perfect job for where I am in life right now. I am extremely passionate about Macs and indie Mac software, and I'm a novice Cocoa developer myself. I love writing, and I love helping and teaching people, and I have had at least six years of tech support experience, with the past two being almost entirely Mac support. (The truth is that I've gotten really sick of Windows/PC support and I'm trying to escape it at all costs.) The real catch is the whole moving to Amsterdam thing. Not that I don't think moving to Amsterdam would be cool, it's just not really a viable option for my family right now. Bummer.

So even though that's a letdown, I began to wonder if services like that would be valuable to indie Mac and iPhone developers as a freelance sort of thing. With the tons of new Mac and iPhone users come the potential for a lot more support requests. Though support requests may not warrant a full-time employee for many developers, I can imagine many of them being willing to pay someone to offload those requests.

Am I off base? Do freelance positions like this already exist? I haven't found anything significant on Google if they do. If they don't already exist, is this really a viable goal to pursue? How do I get my name out there as freelance Mac software support guru and technical writer extraordinaire? What skills should I enhance to make myself marketable?

Really, any feedback at all regarding this idea will do. Words of affirmation, words of warning... Even if you'd like to crush my dreams and tell me this will never work. I'd especially like to see some comments from indie developers. I know there are several of you out there on MeFi. Keep in mind, I'm not making this my ultimate career goal, but it is a big stepping stone to becoming an indie Mac/iPhone developer myself. Also, I'm not quitting my day job tomorrow or anything.

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (1 answer total)

These kinds of jobs are almost always advertised here under the "customer service and call centre" listings, not under IT. Maybe you're just not looking in the right place. The way job listings are categorised has its own special kind of weirdness, so don't make your job alert search criteria too narrow.
posted by Lolie at 2:04 AM on July 15, 2009