This is the repository for the business side of CoVoucher20. For the technical side, see the private repository.

We truly believe that this pandemic is the fight of our lives. If you haven't yet, please visit our website.

We are mitigating the economic effects of lockdowns to support local businesses and their livelihoods. From the example of the Great Depression, millions of people are at risk of losing their homes, and they need those homes to contain the virus. To avoid that, we believe that that software and the internet are our best weapon against the virus.

In peace time, we may pivot towards helping local businesses fill their spare capacity.

In the words of Kate Atkinson: when this pandemic passes, let it be said that the CoVoucher team rose to the challenge and we were not found wanting.

We select the right people into our team by requiring initial volunteer work en route to part-time or full-time employment. Employment is remote-only and will involve substantial freedom and autonomy, and thus require substantial initiative and creativity.

If you want to join the cause with our own dedicated slack workspace, please message contact us at our website including:

• your CV
• a track record of your portfolio
• what is it, deep down, that motivates you
• "proof of work" and time invested in it

Proof of work ability is the most important element: a hire takes 6 months on average---a luxury we don't have---so we decided on this proof of work is a taster for what the job will be like in the first few months, which gives candidates and us a measure of the fit. We don't require a definite amount of time; as guidance, 30 min is probably too little, and 6 hours is probably too much. For transparency, we also would like to know how much time you spent on it.

We can't give specific directions on what we want for "proof of work" because usually conditions for startups evolve faster than the timelines for publishing job descriptions, and because the virus has pushed the speed of development and adaptation into overdrive. So we can only say what we expect in general terms: something concrete and tangible that improves CoVoucher20 in some way, such as a change in the CSS code of our website, a typo we should fix, an idea for advertisement, etc. If you can astonish us with the creativity or ingenuity of your contribution, you will do well.

If you submit code, the following guidelines may be helpful:

• We will assess the application by first looking at the result, and then assessing the changes with a git diff, so include the date from which you are making changes (or, if you have access to the source code from our repo, the commit hash).
• Keep your code DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). Code is more often read than written; while code is initially an asset, it quickly becomes a liability when we need to maintain it.
• Always use the latest version on the website, for example the CSS file from our public server (or the source code if you have access to the our repo), so we avoid merging two branches of development.
• Inspect our style and copy it, so your changes are 100% related to features and we spend our code review entirely on your real contribution (we will not review changes from tabs to spaces, for example).
• We frown upon the use of front-end javascript, which we view as an accessibility barrier and an attack vector; you may break this rule, of course, if you are creative enough to make it worth considering and if you keep "progressive enhancement", i.e. making sure that the website works well without javascript.
• Include the sentence "I assign the intellectual property of this contribution to CoVoucher20.org and The CoVoucher Authors." so we are legally allowed to integrate it into our code base.