Support stories have always been among some of my favorite. Not enough links for you? Here, I'll just share my favorite favorite: Radio WTF Presents: Quantity of Service.
It's not so much the sense of smug superiority that comes with diagnosing ID-10t and PEBCAK errors, but more a sense of appreciation. I've been there — my first grown-up job was on a helpdesk — and to this day I still handle a fair bit of BuildMaster and ProGet support inquiries. And actually, that's why I'm writing this message today.
We've been growing a bit at Inedo this past year, and there was a position / job opportunity that I wanted to share with you: Support Analyst. This is not a typical helpdesk role by any means. Actually, it's a blend of roles — support, service, technical writing, and development — and since we're a small team, we'll all be working on doing all of these things together.
But I thought the most interesting part about this opportunity is the Developer Growth Opportunity. From the posting:
Most of the developers on our team started their career in a helpdesk/support role, either in college or as their first job. We'll gladly help you make the transition from support to development through our Developer Apprenticeship Program. If you are interested in pursuing this route, we will spend a significant amount of time working with you to rapidly increase your software development proficiency; through our mentorship, you could reach an expert/mastery level in a very short time (what would take most developers ten+ years), but it will require a lot of dedication and a lot of a hard work. This experience will also be helpful in the short-term: learning the code is crucial to understanding how our software behaves under certain conditions.
As you all know, either from first hand experience or reading an Tales from the Interview, it's nearly impossible to find great developers... especially in our fine city. But we can help make great developers.
Anyway, that's all. If you, or someone you know might be a good fit, please consider getting in touch!