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Inspired of Joels blog entry Field Guide to Developers here is my job requirements list from an employee perspective sorted by importance. Side note: I am not looking for a job.

1. CI and business of the company
2. working environment (equipment, office space,...)
3. company performance in the past
4. Technologies in use
5. Salary
6. people working there (skills, social competence)
7. location of the company

I really have to emphasis on issue #2. Unlike many companies in the US, we dont have cubicles here in germany. But of course we have different sizes of ofice rooms. In my last freelance projects for Nokia or T-Mobile, its averagely 3 people in one room with about 20 square meters. Its not mainly about the real space in there but the fact that its impossible to make a clear thought when there is a discussion of a room mate with another colleague. So by reducing the number of people in one room, you are also reducing the risk of having such situations often. If i would have to take a permant job somewhere, i wouldnt take an offer where there is more than one guy in my room. I am bit more relaxed on freelance gigs.

Equipment is another sad story. I mean even companies like FogCreek are offering state of the art hardware and they dont even use all those memory sucking toys like J2EE appservers. In my situation, i am working 100% on J2EE stuff and its incredible how many companies supplied me with material in the past, i wouldnt even consider for working with on the road. Everything else as a dual core powered CPU with at least 2 gigs of RAM is laughable for serious J2EE programming. Also all those one-monitor-with-19" setups are a pain. How much more would it cost to buy another 19" or 20" LCD, not too much. From a developer performance standpoint, the ROI is IMO 3 months.

One thing is clear, if i am lucky enough to hire developers anytime soon, i will definitely not "save" (we all know thats this is no real save) on hardware for developers. The FogCreek employees are in luck, their boss is a former programmer, this makes things easy. Its different to tell this story to a MBA style guy who is instantly checking ist calculator without the slightest idea of the consequences.