Hello, This is a bit of a status report I guess for SciPy (www.scipy.org) and Enthought (www.enthought.com), but, really, it is a long winded job posting. Among other things, Enthought develops scientific software for clients. Python is central to to our strategy in this arena. We have long supported SciPy and believe strongly in Open Source Software. The purpose is to give people a feeling about what we do, the technical challenges we face, and the skills needed to meet them. SciPy ----- There has been a lot of work on SciPy lately by the Travis Oliphant, Travis Vaught, Pearu Peterson, Joe Cooper, and on the website by Jon-Eric Steinbomer and Janet Swisher. The site is now upgraded to Plone and we have a SciPy 0.3 package out. If you're interested in seeing the activity level at scipy.org, please visit. http://www.scipy.org/map?rmurl=http%3A//scipy.net/scipyusage/ It looks like we're averaging about a 100 downloads a day if you add up all source and binary distributions. When SciPy 0.1 was released a couple a years ago, I think we averaged about 10. Its extremely difficult to extrapolate a user base from such information, the obvious growth is good news. Other Stuff ----------- In addition to SciPy we have multiple projects going on right now that either already plug into or will be plugins to a Python-based scientific application framework called Envisage (sorta like an IDE for science apps) that we're working on. The idea is: (1) To lower the bar as far as work required to get a GUI put on the front end of a scientific algorithm. (2) Develop scientific plugins that can play well together so that, for instance, an electromagnetics simulator built by one person can be used in conjunction with an optimization plugin built by another person and results can be visualized with a 3D plugin. This is a hard, long path that requires much work and though. We have started the process and actually have built an app on a very early version of the Envisage framework. The app works great, but it's usage of the framework is a little mixed at this point. There were a lot of compromises we ended up making on the framework side in order to ship on time. Also, I am not sure whether "easy-to-program" and "flexible architecture for compatible plugins" are not mutually exclusive. I always have in my mind that I want a smart scientist to be able to build the GUI in a short amount of time after the algorithm (which is the "hard part") is finished. I still harbor this wish, but the lessons I've had over the last couple of years suggest that the GUI is actually the most expensive part of development for large apps. This is partially due to the fact that commercial apps are rarely built around "research" algorithms -- meaning that the algorithm code usually already exists in some form. Still, UIs take tons of time. Testing them is hard. Flexibility requires more complexity (factories, adapters, etc.) than seems necessary at first. Further, building *good* UI's is really hard. Scientist rarely have the patience or perspective for it -- and yet it is very often difficult to build a good UI for science apps without a scientist's understanding of the underlying problem. We have a number of tools along with SciPy that we're building that are pieces of this puzzle. 1. Traits -- They at the heart of everything we do. They provide some explicit typing, default GUI's, an observer event model for anything that uses them. They can also require some getting used to. 2. Kiva/Enable -- This is the generic drawing system for Python. 3. Chaco -- Interactive 2D Plotting 4. PyFace -- MVC layer on top of wxPython. Supports trees, menus, and a few other things right now. This will grow. 5. Envisage -- Plugin based GUI framework for scientific applications. Beyond the basic GUI that comes from Envisage, we already have a couple plugins for profiling code using hotshot and also searching for memory leaks. David Morrill wrote these and they are called gotcha and enroll. Martin Chilvers wrote a simple scintilla based plugin for editing scripts, and a PyCrust shell is available by default in the app (not a plugin at the moment). We would love to see a number of other plugins: a. Debugger. b. IPython-like PyCrust going. c. A more full featured script editing plugin. (there is a huge list of features here). d. Mayavi e. etc. These are all used actively in commercial products that we deliver. However, they are also in various stages of development and will continue to evolve and grow. Some are still pretty green. Portions of these are openly available now. All five of the listed tool sets will be open at some point this summer when they are cleaned up a bit. Jobs ---- All of this leads to the fact that we are hiring and looking for smart, pleasant, communicative people with integrity that are excited about building this sort of stuff. There is a lot of software architecture to be done that needs talented designers. There is UI design/development that needs scientists that care about UIs or UI developers/designers that are really quick at grasping scientific problems. We also need really strong scientists/scientific developers to do some of the backend coding for commercial products and also SciPy development. If you have a background in geophysics, electromagnetics (especially multi-pole methods) that is a big plus. For this, a PhD is helpful, but not required. Parallel computing skills wouldn't hurt. 3D visualization a la VTK/Python is a major need. So is knowledge about 2D rendering to help finish out Kiva and the Enable toolset. Strong Python skills, Python extension writing knowledge and strong C/C++ skills are a big benefit. Design/development with or of Java NetBeans or Eclipse-like architecture is great -- or any other solid GUI architecture. Dedication to writing clean/clear code meant for other humans to read is a requirement. We have 3 or 4 scientific/python positions to fill over the coming months, and we're looking for candidates that have the best mix of the above skills. You'll join our existing team of scientist/engineers, computer scientists, technical writers, and an HCI specialist. We like this mix and feel it is the best way to build this sort of software. If you are interested in working at Enthought, please send us your resume at jobs@enthought.com. If not, please send this posting to the smartest people you know that fit some part of the above description (Python experience not explicitly required). Salaries are competitive. Candidates must be willing to relocate to Austin, Tx. thanks, eric jones PS: There are additional positions listed at http://www.enthought.com/careers.htm for those interested in business application development (not necessarily with Python).