job
> Unfortunately, after careful consideration, we've decided to move
forward with other candidates who more closely match our requirements for
this role
How I resent this idiotic piece of text, which is put into every damn rejection mail I receive since a year. More than 100 job applications sent out and no damn job afterwards. For fucks sake I was a senior #developer, a master of #ruby who did the last two years at the job #elixir and guess what did all the other #web backend related bullshit. Like administering #postgresql doing the schema, designing the whole architecture of a legacy backend system written in ruby, writing backends, frontends with #javascript and guess what nothing.
I maintained so called #microservices on #linux with fucking #docker which ran on #openshift or in the pedestrian terms "#kubernetes". Nothing!
I started into being a #software #developer through the damn #hacker scene and was a "founding member" (whatever that means) of a #hackerspace out of which I was kicked out and still suffering the emotional scars. But yeah, fuck that I see. And probably I'm at fault 100% because that's what this shitty #shame based society wants to tell everybody.
In my free-time I dabbled with #lisp #smalltalk and #cpp and #clang and #perl and I wrote #python a little for money too and for extending a little #django app at a hackerspace. Yeah, sure this is also worth nothing.
I tried to do #freelancing for 6 months, but guess what the current project market in #europe is shit and therefore nothing on the table for me either. While I find thousands of dimwits on reddits and everywhere, who are telling me that "I'm not an entrepreneur" or that "I deserve X", because they simply don't like what I write or my face.
Yeah sure, I'm 39 and I have no idea to go to, no damn #community and for fucks sake seem to be now going to join team long-term unemployed... because... yeah absolutely no damn fucking idea why I'm in this mess. What I'm supposed to do and obviously nobody fucking cares anyway.
I once dreamed of being "my own man", being that independent developer, coding happy #foss projects and contributing to #opensource and getting paid for that. But no. World says no to that. World says "go and die".
Working full time on the Social Web
In January 2026, I will begin working full time in my role as Director at the Social Web Foundation. I am looking forward to the challenge of growing this young non-profit and fulfilling our mission to make a bigger, better Fediverse.
As a refresher: I have been working in the area of federated social networks since starting Identi.ca in 2008. Federated social networks are social platforms that let users on one platform connect to and interact with users on another platform. Linked up with open standard protocols, these platforms together form a Social Web that puts people first.
In 2018, I was a co-author of the ActivityPub standard for social network interoperability. I currently maintain the spec for the W3C and develop extensions for it. In 2024, I wrote ActivityPub: Programming for the Social Web for O’Reilly Media. And I co-founded the Social Web Foundation to further encourage the use of ActivityPub in social networks.
For the last year, I’ve been working nights, lunchtimes and weekends on SWF while holding down my full-time role as Director of Open Technology at the Open Earth Foundation. I love working at OEF; the organization build Open Source software to help cities fight climate change. I have felt very fulfilled in my work there, and I’ve made really strong friendships with the team. It’s been a very special place to work that has changed how I think teams can be.
But over the last year, SWF has had some really amazing opportunities, and in 2026 we’ll be making some big steps forward for the Social Web. I can’t keep doing both jobs, and I feel like, after 4 years at OEF, I’ve done what I can to build up that organization, and I am ready to start on this next one.
It will feel good to have my full attention focused on the Social Web. I’m looking forward to seeing my Open Source friends at FOSDEM 2026 in Brussels at the end of January where I’m helping to organize the Social Web track. I’m speaking at Princeton mid-February, and I’ll be in the Bay Area at the beginning of March. All this time, I’ll be working hard to get the next version of ActivityPub released and to push out several software projects to make the Social Web more fun and interesting.
Thanks to everyone who’s put time, effort and help into the SWF. Thanks to my coworkers at OEF for encouraging me on my next steps in my career. Thanks to my wife and family for tolerating yet another leap into the void.
I hope you have as exciting a New Year as I will.
Is there already an ActivityPub vocabulary for job openings, or cvs?
I'm trying to make my CV-webpage more visible, and also create a job-bot, that everyone can set up with their sources, and queries.
Obviously the idea is, to help people find jobs, and fill vacancies, without having to resort to a centralized network, like e.g. LinkedIn.
I'm aware of these efforts, though they're not ActivityPub related:
https://microformats.org/wiki/job-listing
https://microformats.org/wiki/h-resume