The zinc Roe team comes from a very diverse background in terms of education and work experience. We value portfolio and personality above all other considerations. Show us what you’ve built. Tell us how you built it and why.

Candidates must have
• Hands-on experience with game development for the iOS platform.
• Proven experience with XCode, Obj-C, and related technologies.
• Solid understanding of fundamental programming concepts.
• Experience preparing and compressing audio and visual assets.
• A hungry mind eager to learn new skills.
• Good verbal and written communication skills.

Experience with Cocos2d, box2d, openGL and Adobe Flash are not required but would be a definite asset. We promise a rewarding job working on creative projects for kids with some talented folks. This is a full-time position based out of our office in downtown Toronto.

zinc Roe is an award-winning studio specializing in creating engaging websites, games and activities for kids and youth. Our goal is to raise the bar for quality interactive media for children. Our clients include Teletoon, Playhouse Disney Canada, Toronto Public Library and the 2010 Winter Olympics. Take some time to browse our portfolio and learn about the kind of work we do. As long as you have enthusiasm and sound technical foundation we are happy to provide opportunities for the right candidate to pick up specific skills.

Please send a resume and include details of recent projects to jobs *at* zincroe.com. Do not call. No recruiters please.

Candidates must have:
• Hands-on experience with game development using Adobe ActionScript.
• Solid understanding of fundamental programming concepts.
• Experience working with audio and visual assets.
• Appreciation of interactive design principles and web standards and best practices.
• Good verbal and written communication skills.
• Passion for producing solid, well-crafted code.

Experience with box2d, iOS development, and game theory and design are all desirable but not required. We promise a rewarding job working on creative projects for kids. This is a full-time position based out of our office in downtown Toronto.

zinc Roe is an award-winning studio specializing in creating engaging websites, games and activities for kids and youth. Our goal is to raise the bar for quality interactive media for children. Our clients include Teletoon, Playhouse Disney Canada, 2010 Winter Olympics, and the Toronto Public Library. Take some time to browse our portfolio and learn about the kind of work we do. As long as you have enthusiasm and a sound technical foundation we are happy to provide opportunities for the right candidate to pick up specific skills.

Please send a résumé including details of recent projects to jobs *at* zincroe.com. Do not call. No recruiters please.

Skills required:

• experience with small business accounting practices
• bookkeeping experience using QuickBooks
• excellent knowledge of MS Word and Excel
• positive, mature and professional attitude
• solid written and verbal communication skills
• organized and detail-oriented

Also valuable:

• experience working in television or new media industries
• experience preparing tax credit applications

Responsibilities:

• track cheques, invoices, credit card and bank statements
• reconcile bank statements, monitor cash flow, and produce cost reports
• work with producers to establish budgets, financing plans and cost reports
• work with accountant on tax filings and audits
• liaise with our external payroll service and group benefits provider
• prepare tax credit applications and associated paperwork
• code project income and expenses
• research new funding opportunities
• address building, security or cleaning issues with the landlord
• maintain office filing system and order office supplies

This is a 20 hour per week position based in our office. Specific schedule is flexible within our normal business hours. We offer competitive compensation and a friendly work environment. Please send a résumé along with a cover letter outlining how you feel you can contribute to our company to jobs \at\ zincroe.com. No phone calls please.

I’ve had my share of experiences with the Ontario college system. I taught Flash programming at Centennial College and George Brown and I’ve given workshops at SUNY Buffalo, Red River College and Seneca@York.

As an employer I’ve also hired my share of Flash programmers. And I can assure you competent Flash coders are few and far between. The same could be said for people with a non-superficial understanding of CSS, JS, standards compliance and interface design.

Every year Ontario colleges turn out hundreds of grads. I’ve interviewed many and I’ve reviewed applications for internships from dozens of them. After ten years in this business I’ve hired exactly one graduate of a new media Ontario college system.

So what’s wrong? Let’s review a few of the many ways College’s in Ontario are failing.

Failing to teach students what they need to learn, not what they want to learn.

College programs seem eagre to provide students with programs sound fun and easy. Guess what? Programming is hard. It’s extremely hard.

I can safely say that the courses that made me were the ones that took my smart ass brain and put it through the wringer (that would be second year multi-variable calculus) or took my to a place well outside my comfort zone (that would have to be philosophy). Did I want to take those courses? No. But those were the courses that taught me to work hard and yes – how to deal with failure. I came through them a smarter, more confident and a more mature person.

Struggling through these courses also re-inforced something my dad instilled in me. “Just break it down to first principals” he would say. By which he meant take the problem and strip away the cruft until you get to the crux of it. What I discovered is that, although each discipline has it’s own terminology they are based on similar ideas and problems. Which leads me to…

Failing to teach first principals.

I taught one group of college students who were close to graduation. The lesson was supposed to be about manipulating media in Flash. After a few minutes I realized the students didn’t really understand the difference between vector and bitmap art, RAM vs hard drive storage, or lossless vs lossy compression. I was dumbfounded. I tossed my lesson plan out the window and gave a rapid-fire class in digital media first principals.

The great thing about these basic principals is that they don’t change over time. Learning Flash MX programming was only ever going to be useful to these students for a couple of years. Which leads me to…

Failing to adapt.

For better or for worse colleges don’t do change well. If nothing else, our industry is about keeping up with (and indeed pushing) change. Technologies and tools evolve rapidly. Many college instructors have been working inside that system for many years. I met my share of college instructors struggling to teach software that they had never used professionally and barely had a grasp of. The solution is to bring in more working professionals to teach the specialized skills like Action Script programming and for full-time instructors to focus on first principals and professional standards. Which leads me to…

Failing to teach professional practice.

Our industry is a wonderfully fractured, multi-faceted mess. People bounce from freelancing to small business to big business and back again. Graduates need to understand the fundamentals of doing business. Basic proposal writing, pitching, prototyping, interview skills, strategies for dealing with difficult clients and colleagues, contracting, pricing, getting paid and how not to f*** up your career before it starts.

zinc Roe is seeking an experienced project manager to co-ordinate the efforts of our production team and guide projects through to successful completion. zinc Roe is a creative studio committed to producing high-quality interactive content for kids. The project manager position will work with the team to keep production moving forward as efficiently as possible.

Responsibilities:

• Help establish project goals, timelines and team requirements.
• Manage day-to-day operations, including identifying tasks, setting priorities, and assigning resources to ensure project goals are achieved.
• Identify production bottlenecks and implement process improvements to address these.
• Guide the flow of information and content with our production partners and within the team.
• Help prepare project plans, documentation and follow-up reports for partners and funders.
• Help ensure the team is productive, motivated, healthy, happy, and communicating.
• Promote a culture of innovation and teamwork.

Qualifications:

• 5+ years experience in interactive content production.
• Proven leadership and interpersonal skills.
• Solid written and verbal communication skills.
• A genuine enthusiasm for technology, design, and people.
• Understanding of the fundamentals of online technologies.

Desirable but not essential:

• Hands-on experience in interactive design and/or programming.
• Experience working in childrens new media, publishing, or television production.
• French-language communication skills.

As a team, zinc Roe prides itself on its commitment to producing high-quality interactive content for kids. In seeking a new project manager we are looking for someone who is ready to work with our designers, developers and content experts to help serve this goal. This is a full-time position and candidates must be available to work in our studio on a full-time basis.

Interested candidates should email jobs [at] zincroe.com with an outline of their qualifications and an explanation on why they believe they would be a good fit with our team.