Pencils Down

In our group we had a very successful round of user group meetings.  The feedback prior to coding made a big difference in the overall acceptance of the product.  Our experience was then used as a role model for other teams.  Sounds pretty vanilla.

We are in the midst of designing the next release of the software.  The expectation is we would be able to get the same kind of user feedback as the first time.  However, management has decided since the human factors budget is limited and our project is doing well, we will not have any user feedback this go around.  Upon further questioning it was learned that if we were in trouble, on fire, behind schedule, etc… we would be the first in line for this funding.

So, think about this: 

- Teams that are horribly mismanaged are rewarded with all kind of funding (not just human factors).  Although you could argue that management involvement at at detail level in your project is not a reward.

- Teams that are managed well and performing well are short-changed.

What kind of message is being sent to the masses?

I see a lot of these types of ads recently:

- we need a god (not just good, but a god) programmer

- must know every programming paradigm known to man

- you will be responsible for all of us making a living

- oh yeah, we are just about out of seed money since the owner’s went to that off-site in Banff

There is never any mention of the employer’s skill set.  I understand they need a good developer, but there is no mention of whether any of the owners have a clue about running a company.  There is no balance of skills/work between the employer and the employee. 

Maybe this is just the latest version of failing to outsource for cheap labor in the Far East: if we have to pay an American make sure we are getting our money’s worth.

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Date: 2010-03-08, 1:18PM EST
Reply to: x@craigslist.org

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Full Time PHP Developer 

(Our) specific homepages serve tens of thousands of students throughout the country and provide single-click access to email, Facebook, classes, athletics, food, news, and entertainment. We are looking for the following…

- A highly motivated person.
- An excellent working knowledge of PHP/MySQL and web application development.
- A minimum of 2 years experience in PHP development and preferably a computer science or related degree.

Proven excellence in the following technical skills:
- PHP
- MySQL (optimising/scaling)

Additional experience in the following areas would be a huge plus:
- CodeIgniter
- JavaScript (jQuery)
- Adobe Flex
- Experience building scalable web applications
- Amazon Web Services
- Apache 2.x
- Some Linux Server Administration
- Web Application Benchmarking
- Data Mining
- SVN
- Experience with APIs (Google, Twitter, Facebook Connect)

• Location: Boston, MA
• Compensation: Competitive + Full Health + Stock Incentives
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

A lead developer with expertise in database systems was recently promoted to project lead working in a team that was short-handed.  It seemed like a reasonable fit, at first.

Since then Ihave learned:

- The project is a modern Java web app (they hired 2 junior C (not C++ or GUI) developers from other units)

- There is no architecture, so the developers are doing things like investigating the use of Spring or not.

- The project must be shipped in a few months.  This appears to be a collosal communications screw up: the contract says delivery so many days after signing, the client delayed signed for months, once signed the client assumed the clock had been ticking all along the signing was just a formality.

- The company we work for is strictly waterfall development with very long test cycles.  Given the expected ship date the project needs to go into test phase in a couple of weeks in order to meet their delivery date (per contract) or face penalties.

- Since our company is very concerned with security all 3rd party software used (tomcat, Spring, commons library, etc…) must get approval from lawyer types who go over the specific license agreement for the software involved.  Especially of interest is anything developed by non-US parties.

- There are no written requirements beyond a few paragraphs in the contract.

- There is no UI-design, it is being done by the aforementioned C developers.

- Like everyone else in the world there are constraints on hiring, so it is likely the project will not get a Java developer to help out.

That’s about all I can think of so far.  I am always amazed this kind of silliness still goes on in the world.