More interviews. Which means I get to visit interesting parts of Stockholm that I don’t normally see. This is the Kungsträdgården subway station, one of my favourites. It’s very deep (the deepest in Stockholm I believe) and has interesting decorations. The station walls are plain bedrock, in places, with water trickling in through the ceiling. Moss grows on the walls, including species that are not present anywhere else in Stockholm. It smells like a cave.

On the topic of interviewing… If I am to search for a job, and if I want to find a good one, it makes no sense to meet one company only. I need to meet a bunch of them so I can compare and contrast. I have interviews scheduled for most days this week and next.

The obvious question is, what do I consider a good job? What kind of job do I want? What am I looking for?

I am looking for a developer job, not a manager position. (That’s a discussion worth an entire blog post on its own and I’m not getting into that now.)

What makes a good developer job?

First, there are the obvious things – competent colleagues, sensible bosses, a stable company that will be paying my salary on time, a decent office etc. Those are things that anyone would agree with, in any business, so they are not particularly interesting.

Next, there is the MAP triplet, things that I imagine any skilled worker would want: Mastery, Autonomy, Purpose. On the “purpose” side, specifically, I want to work on “good things” – projects that make some part of the world a tiny bit better, rather than worse. That means a no to online casinos, for example, and to all kinds of digital marketing.

I am a strong believer in the agile development philosophy. I want to work together with other developers rather than on my own. I want to work in close communication with customers/users.

I believe in quality. I want to work in a team that takes pride in doing an excellent job and believes in producing quality work.