For those of you coming to the Open Coffee mornings in London, and if you didn't already know:

"Starting from this Thursday, every 10-12, we'll be having London OpenCoffee at the very cool 5th View Bar at the top of Waterstone's at 203-206 Piccadily. See the Trustedplaces review here.
"
more info from localglo.be

From my good friend Tom Whipple over at The Times:

Google directions to San Francisco. Very clear, detailed and diligent and as you would always expect with Google.

Except step 37.

1. Head south on A3212 toward Great College St 0.4mi 1 min
2. At Horseferry Rd, take the 1st exit onto A3203 0.2mi
...
...
33. Turn right at Quai Colbert 358 ft
34. Turn right to merge onto Rue Marceau 0.2 mi
35. Take the ramp onto Quai Frissard 0.6 mi 2 mins
36. At the roundabout, take the 4th exit onto E05 0.6 mi 2 mins
37. Swim across the Atlantic Ocean 3,462 mi 29 days 0 hours
38. Turn left at Long Wharf 0.1 mi
39. Continue on State St 427 ft
40. Turn left at John F Fitzgerald Surface Rd 0.5 mi

I'm flattered by the pace they think I'd hit.

Love writing great code?

Want to work on a game changing OpenID app in a Y-Combinator team this summer?

Ready to up sticks and head to Boston in four weeks?

If the call appeals and you can code like a demon then we'd love to hear from you. We'd like to recruit one and possibly two more people onto our team for Boston this summer.

What you'll be joining

We're currently a two man team with two more employed on a contract basis. I am a long-time developer and founder of Webkitchen and Sitefire, a successful web development company.

My co-founder and partner is Pete Couldridge, an old school friend and the founder and owner of two profitable bricks and mortar property companies.

We are not releasing huge amounts of information about what we're building at this stage but we can say that it's in the field of OpenID and that everyone who we've spoken to so far smiles very, very broadly when we finish the demo.

We're still in the process of building the team but aside from myself and Pete, we can confirm that the very talented Denis Radenkovic is going to be working on our branding, our law firm and one of our investors is Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati whilst Simon Willison will be counsel on matters of OpenID. We've raised investment from Paul Graham, as well as several UK individuals and companies.

Who we need

The most important thing is that you're a great developer, that you're keen and that you've got a track record of delivery. If you have experience in and passion for the technologies we're going to be using that would be better still:

At the moment the technology stack is the insanely fast development platform Zimki on the backend with Flex up front. I cannot recommend this combo enough for developing very rich applications, very quickly.

Various issues further down the line mean this may not be exactly what we launch with and we will probably move to a Python/MySQL, Java/MySQL backend for core elements of the service. Flex is still the framework of choice for the front but it'll degrade to static HTML for non-equipped clients.

I would ideally like the next person on board to be a Python guru with a load of browser & Flex experience who hacks the Linux kernel in their spare time but I'm prepared to compromise.

What you'll receive

Well we can offer you an immediate position on YC for a start. In addition to that you'll also receive:

• $50,000 salary (equates to ~ £40k lifestyle in the UK)
• Company stock
  
• A shiny MacBook (if you need one)
  

If you're the type of person we're looking for then you've already got a lot of options but they probably won't all offer you the chance to:

• Experience living in Cambridge Boston, next to Harvard Square for 3 months
• Live in the heart of San Francisco, the hub of the software world thereafter
  
• Be surrounded by 19 other teams of incredibly smart ambitious, passionate and energetic hacker-entrepreneurs
  
• Get constant feedback on code and strategy from people who've done it before including Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston and Robert Morris (as well as drop-in advice from people such as Paul Buchheit, the architect of GMail)
• Work with a very talented team of developers and designers
• Go sailing and skiing at weekends
  
• Build beautiful software
  
• See your software actually used
  
• Influence how the software's built, the hardware we'll be using and our business strategy
• Be a part of the Silicon Valley experience and meet some of the biggest names in the business
• Help to make the web a more powerful, flexible and secure place
• Generate a life-changing sum of wealth*
  
• Be rich, famous and swamped by hot Californian chicks or chaps*
  

If you're good and the above appeals then get in touch with me. Please send us your CV, your core technological skills, links to any online profiles you have - blog, LinkedIn, Flickr, Twitter etc. and a paragraph or two explaining why you'd like to join us.

If you know someone else who fits the bill then please forward it to them. We're leaving on the 28th May and we're planning to be a bigger family by the time we do.

Peter Nixey - peter at webkitchen dot co dot uk