Hello, just a quick introduction, my name is Mark Deepwell, and I work for the best software company on the planet, Thirdi Software Inc.

I recently read Daniel Tenner’s blog post on How to recognise a good programmer, and I was curious to see if we do have good programmers according to his criteria.

First I thought about the passion each of us has for our job, and asked each member of the team if they love what they do, and in fact, I quickly found that each one of us here at Thirdi loves what we do.

Ivan likes the whole software development process, from requirements and design to the final high quality product. Stan enjoys solving programs with an elegant solution. Abe, our QA guy, is passionate about delivering the best possible software to our clients and is not satisfied with a product until it is bug free. Matt loves his job so much he says it doesn’t feel like he has a job anymore. And I enjoy creating what we call painless software, software that is simple, easy and straightforward to use.

From talking with the team, I learned that self-teaching is a pretty strong part of our culture. Stan, a Java programmer, learned PHP on his own for a new project and Ivan picked up the Zen Cart framework when he created an online store. Learning a new framework or technology is relatively easy, but being able to leverage it appropriately is a challenge. We don’t use the latest technology buzzword just because it’s the current hot item, but we would use it if the scenario were appropriate. Each of us are self learners because we enjoy it, and we can use the added skills to build better products.

Each of us has worked with a variety of technologies, from bash shell scripting, to JavaBeans, we have used a wide variety of tools and languages: Java, Ruby, Bash, C++, Hibernate, JV2, JV3, Struts, Perl, PHP, Symfony, JMS, Propel, Torque, SOAP, Lucene, and many more. This is just a subset of all the technologies and experiences various members of our team have gained.

Even for a new project each of us will be working on, we have decided that it will be built on Ruby on Rails, an up-and-coming web framework that we’ve been wanting to try.

Does Thirdi Software have good programmers? I believe we do, and the breadth of skill and experience we each bring to the table surprised me.