RiverKey Creative

Director of Interactive

Kansas City design firm seeks experienced software developer with “leader” written all over him or her.

RiverKey Creative, a Kansas City design firm, is looking for an experienced software developer with rock-solid architecture and spec-writing chops to lead a team of developers who make websites, touchscreen applications, tablet apps, and Flash-style interactive games.

Here are some things you’d have done in this position recently:

Crafted a framework for a series of interactive games destined to be played on stadium scoreboards in front of 50,000+ people at a time.

Chased bugs in a custom-built web browser for the biggest touchscreen wall in the country.

Written a functional specification for a tablet application and 55” touchscreen that’ll be deployed in an MLB ballpark to give their facility tours a multimedia dimension.

Evaluated a contract developer’s code, gently suggested where things were going wrong, and helped bring the project back to time and spec.

Chosen the most appropriate development platform for a shooter game destined for deployment to the web and iOS.

All about you:

You have battle-tested software development chops. We do most of our interactive work in three areas (Flash/Flex, Android/iOS, and HTML5/CSS3/Javascript/WordPress/LAMP stack) and you’re a master craftsman in one of these. You’re familiar enough with the others to lead a development team working on them.

You’re devoted to good development processes. You write and love great specifications, build solid frameworks, comment code where appropriate, track bugs, and conserve your strength over the long haul to ship solid software on time.

You have an honest desire to lead and mentor other developers. You can elicit hard work and inspire trust and admiration in others.

You have a working knowledge of which languages and platforms are good for what tasks, and can draw fluently on that knowledge, on the fly, in client meetings.

You understand the hell out of the Internet’s cogs and gears.

You communicate well in writing.

You live up to your promises.

You obses over acuracy and excelence.

You like fun.

This would also be great:

You have a solid UI, UX, and aesthetic design sense.

You have a working knowledge of major, modern social media APIs.

Your Twitter feed is entertaining, useful, or both.

You’ll want to be paid:

It’s almost meaningless to say it (we know, we know) but the salary for this position will be commensurate with your experience.

RiverKey offers medical and dental insurance. We’ve got the regular array of holidays, and offer comp time so you can rest after things get crazy. We have a coffee maker with the fancy little single-serving cups.

It’s a fun place to work.

We have some “about us” boilerplate:

RiverKey Creative is a Kansas City design firm specializing in computer animation, video production, and interactive design. Our marquee clients include both local and national companies as well as a broad roster of dozens of professional sports teams in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League. We’re a company willing to give an inadvisable amount of leeway and responsibility to those who impress us.

To apply for this position:

Send an email to “iwanttowork@riverkeycreative.com” that contains the following, either in plain text or as attachments:

• A statement about the skills you bring to the table. It could be a resume, but it doesn’t have to be.
• A concise statement about why we might want to hire you. It could be a cover letter, but don’t bore us. For bonus points, call out the three ironic misspellings in this job posting.
• A link to or sample of something you’ve made. We’d love to check out your contributions to an open source project, for example.

We’d say it even if it weren’t required by Federal law:

RiverKey Creative is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re looking forward to hearing from you.

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Business Dev. Assoc.

Design firm seeks Business Development Associates to bring our expertise to new clients.

RiverKey Creative, a Kansas City design firm, is looking for never-say-die go-getters at any point in their sales careers to join our team.

Business Development Associates at RiverKey have one job:

Devise, pitch, and ink deals to provide animation, video production, and interactive services to new and existing clients large and small, near and far.

Here’s why the job is hard:

We sell custom services. You’ll know in general terms what we can do, but you’ll often have to figure out for yourself exactly how those skills address with a particular client’s needs, and then you’ll have to make the case in terms so compelling the prospect would be a fool to say no.

That is, we don’t make widgets and there is no catalog, and the idea of that has to excite rather than terrify you.

Here’s why the job is awesome:

We’ve succeeded at building pretty much everything we’ve ever imagined. We made an interactive educational curriculum incorporating animation, live-action, and games. We made the UI and applications that run on the largest indoor touchscreen wall in the country (that we know of). We’ve continue to make ground-breaking interactive games for pro sports team to use in-stadium and keep the fans on their feet.

If you can sell it, we can make, and you’ll get a percentage. (You’ll get a base, too, but that’s not where you’ll make your money, and if you’re the right person for the job, you wouldn’t have it any other way.)

Here are the skills and attitudes you need:

You have a working familiarity with animation, video production, and interactive technologies. You know what “compositing” is, you can tell character animation from motion graphics, you know what a thirty-second spot is, and you know the difference between the versions of a website built for desktop and mobile browsing. Social media is second-nature to you.

You know that what you know now isn’t enough, but it doesn’t keep you up because you’re desperate to know more anyway.

You know that the job of sales is to identify where two parties can work together for mutual benefit and shared profit.

You communicate flawlessly in writing.

You live up to your promisees.

You obsess over excellence.

We have some “about us” boilerplate:

RiverKey Creative is a Kansas City design firm specializing in computer animation, video production, and interactive design. Our marquee clients include both local and national companies as well as a broad roster of dozens of professional sports teams in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League. We’re a company willing to give an inadvisable amount of leeway and responsibility to those who impress us.

To apply for for this position, send us:

• A statement about the skills you bring to the table. It could be a resume, but it doesn’t have to be.
• A concise statement about why we might want to hire you. It could be a cover letter, but don’t bore us. You’re a salesman, so it probably convinces us that we’ve already lost money today because we didn’t hire you yesterday.

Send that stuff in one (1) email to iwanttowork@riverkeycreative.com, and make the subject line something that won’t confuse our spam filters.

This is a salaried, full-time, exempt position. We’re open to people at any point in their sales careers, from those of you who just graduated from college to those of you who’ve been selling this stuff at a 400-person agency for the last ten years and want to work somewhere small, lean, and dangerous. It’ll be a base plus commission deal. We’ll agree together on your quota, and you’ll respect us if we show you the door 90 days from your hiring date for not meeting it.

RiverKey Creative is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re looking forward to hearing from you.

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Interns

RiverKey Creative seeks interns eager to sharpen their skills at computer animation, motion graphics, audio production, video production, video editing, web design, web development, app development, marketing, and copywriting.

In addition to being the best in your class at one – or several – of those skills, you need a healthy interest in the others and you need all of the following:

• An honest interest in excelling at creative work,
• A willingness to work hard, and
• The recommendation of a professor, boss, teacher, mentor, or co-worker.

We’re willing to work with the requirements of the school where you’re studying. In fact, school credit is required. We don’t care whether you’re on quarters or semesters, what forms we have to fill out for your career services department, or whether you have to leave at 4:00 on Tuesday for a chemistry lab. We do care that you’ll commit to communicating proactively with your RKC mentor, that you’ll work to excel at the projects we give you, and that you’ll keep the promises you make. We’re willing to help set up a plan that helps you get what you want out of a creative internship as long as you’re willing to put in the work.

There’s no pay, and this isn’t charity for either of us: We’re looking for help making awesome stuff, and we’re looking to identify people we might like to hire in the long term to make RiverKey big and strong. We’ll ask you to commit to putting in 10–20 hours per week during your internship.

RiverKey Creative is a Kansas City design firm specializing in computer animation, video production, and interactive design. Our marquee clients include both local and national companies as well as a broad roster of dozens of professional sports teams in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and the National Hockey League. We’re a company willing to give an inadvisable amount of leeway and responsibility to those who impress us.

To apply for an internship at RiverKey, send us:

1. A statement about the skills you bring to the table. It could be a resume, but it doesn’t have to be.
2. A concise statement about what you hope to get out of an internship at RiverKey creative. It could be a cover letter, but don’t bore us.
3. A sample of something you’ve made. It could be a link to your online portfolio, but we’d love it if it were tasty cookies.

The written recommendation of a professor, boss, teacher, mentor, or co-worker. We’ll throw your application away if you can’t find at least one other person to recommend you who isn’t your mom.

Presentation counts. Spelling counts. Your personality and attitude count.

Send all that stuff in one (1) email to interns@riverkeycreative.com, and make the subject line something that won’t confuse our spam filters.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

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