22.3 MORTAL CODERS

Mortal coders are mortal volunteers who assist with coding responsibilities in the game, working with Rapture to help with coding tasks. Their roles include resolving bugs and working on new features or major game initiatives.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF A MORTAL CODER

Mortal coders generally focus on bug resolution, completing envoy reports, or progressing features. You will generally be working with coders directly to determine priority and work through implementation and testing of your implementation. A credit bounty is given for each bug in our system and ad-hoc feature mortal coders work on, generally paid out monthly and scaled based on priority and effort.

As well, mortal coders with some seniority are able to propose features for review by coders and producers. While not all of these may be accepted, those that are may be completed and added to the game.


APPLYING FOR MORTAL CODER

Applications are OPEN.

To apply for Mortal Coder, you must:
  - Be 18 or over (that is yourself, not your character)
  - Have played Lusternia for a minimum of 400 hours, total across all characters.
  - Be willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
  - Be able to work as part of a team.
  - Be able to commit time to working on Lusternia. There is no minimum, but we ask for at least one hour a week on average.
  - Have experience in the following:
    * Knowledge of at least one imperative language.
    * Basic terminal experience with Linux or a Unix-like system.
    * Ability to use a version control system.
  - Be willing and have the ability to work with Rapture, Lusternia's programming language.
    * You will be fully trained in its use. The important part is willingness to learn.

If you meet these requirements, please send your application to support@lusternia.com with the following information:
  - Real Name
  - Age
  - Your characters in Lusternia
  - A short paragraph detailing why you are applying and why you feel you would be fit for this role.
  - Any example of previous code you have written for any purpose.
    * Please either link to a hosted repository or provide a small ZIP file with a sample as an attachment.
  - Any relevant experience.
  - Anything else you feel is worth considering.

All personal information you disclose (name, age, etc.) will be kept private by Lusternia's producers and will not be given to any volunteers. It is vital you give this information accurately - please do not use pseudonyms or similar.

The next step in the process will be an interview with a coder. The interview generally takes 2-4 hours primarily due to constraints in the medium of text, but will likely be equivalent in scope to a 30-60 minute interview on a call. This interview will consist of the following:
  - Discussion of your application, including previous history with the game if relevant, and likely questions about your submitted code sample.
  - A whiteboarding assignment where you will be asked to reason about snippets of Rapture code.
    * Due to the unique environment Lusternia lives in, being able to reason about code you are unfamiliar with is an important part of the process. Lusternia's codebase has rapidly evolved repeatedly over 20 years in a custom programming language by people with varying degrees of experience with writing code, leading to large amounts of cruft, tech debt, legacy syntax, and spaghetti code. While this task seems arbitrary, it is to evaluate a skill that will be practiced every time you open your editor.
  - A quick examination to determine other basic skills if necessary.

Please keep in mind that onboarding a mortal coder is a large amount of work, and we have limited availability to take on new coders as a result. Any rejection may be due to resource constraints rather than your ability, and we do encourage you to apply at a later time if you are still interested.

If accepted, you will receive a non-disclosure agreement to sign by a producer and be given instructions to start onboarding.


ONBOARDING PROCESS

The onboarding process will generally consist of the following.
  - Mortal coder policies and limitations.
  - Access and permissions setup.
  - Bug system training.
  - Basic OLC training.
  - Test server setup.
  - Basic introduction to Rapture and bug resolution.

The majority of these tasks will take place with a coder, often over multiple sessions. Due to the nature of this onboarding, it may take a number of days to get through it based on your availability and the availability of coders who can train you.


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q: How much are mortal coders compensated?
A: This is difficult to answer as it is entirely dependent on the impact, effort, and priority of any work that is done. The majority of what this entails also requires context of how we work with bugs that is given in training. We generally expect most mortal coders to be compensated between 100 and 500 credits per month, but this number can be higher or lower based on the mentioned factors.

Q: Are mortal coders able to influence envoy reports/make changes for their own class?
A: All changes made by a mortal coder are both subject to pre-approval and review before being added to live game code. All mortal coders and non-senior volunteer coders have all code strenuously reviewed by a senior volunteer or producer.

Q: Are mortal coders able to interact with the live game?
A: The answer is complicated here. Mortal coders do have to be able to see the bug list, which requires access to the live game. They also have special privileges that allow them to see the availability of volunteer coders and producers when logged onto their shell. Any further access is highly limited, and any suspected abuses of it are taken seriously, undergo audits, and are subject to a zero-tolerance policy.

Q: Am I allowed to tell people I'm a mortal coder?
A: No, and this is primarily for your safety rather than any reason on our side. Knowledge of who is or isn't a mortal coder often leads to situations where you may be asked by other players to provide information and violate your non-disclosure agreement, and harassed if you refuse. If this information does somehow come out and harassment occurs, however, it holds the same zero-tolerance policy as harassment of volunteers in general.

Q: Will I be able to work on fixing quests as a mortal coder?
A: Short answer is no, long answer is 'it depends'. Our quests are not coded in Rapture, but in another language called Prog which mortal coders are not given access to and is not enabled on test servers. As such, no quest code is available to mortal coders at any time. However, Prog interfaces heavily with Rapture and often quest bugs that stem from a Rapture issue will be referred to coders.

Q: Am I allowed to reveal current projects, skill numbers, which volunteers are coders, etc. to my friends?
A: No. This is considered a violation of the non-disclosure agreement you sign upon being accepted.