I visited the open house of Fog Creek Software earlier today, the personal company of Joel On Software.com, and even though I was expecting a giant room of nerds, my expectations didn’t turn into reality and I definitely enjoyed going!

So yea, what else would I have expected? Joel has set himself up as quite a guru of programming and the software process, and giving out an open invite to any worshipers in the NYC area would definitely lead to a room of showered nerds. Walking it around 5:30PM and taking my first glance, I wasn’t that bad. About 3 women in the crowd, a few pony tails, a few people in shorts, but mostly a varied crowd of ties and professionals. I grabbed a glass of wine and mingled around. The office takes the entire floor, with an interesting slanted-wall desk arrangement. Every office gets 2 windows so that the sunlight can be seen from anywhere. Large dual screen monitors were abound and the bright green walls, along with the wooden floors were a nice touch. Also a lunch table with an xbox360 and HDTV are cool.

As for the crowd again, I don’t mean to insult, but programmers in general do have an assumed unkempt look and anti-socialness to them. I definitely try to break from that mold. You might be a genius but if you don’t know how to communicate that knowledge, what good is it? I met a visiting IT guy from Tampa who was in town, a few guys from the NYC Google offices, one individual who works in finance who was really a surprise for being there, and of course plenty of Fog Creek staff. I had several lengthly discussions with them about the working environment, most of them were happy to talk tech about the FogBugz software they write and the work that they were doing. I also managed to meet up with Joel himself for a brief moment. He was making the effort to go around and meet everyone, which was quite nice. He seemed a bit scatted, but some of the smartest people that I know are that same way.

Overall, several things resonated with me. The open office environment, both online in discussion and code and in the physical space of the office is a very nice environment to work with. Everyone seems very friendly and the fact that they are even holding an open house, yes, everything in the office was open, is very cool. I have to admit, I’m pretty clueless about their software, but it still looks like an awesome place to work. I am definitely gonna apply for their internship program next summer! Thanks Joel!