Pencils Down

My underline and bold in description below.  I thought these kind of posts evaporated.

Makes you wonder what the rest of the employees are bringing to the table if this person knows everything and does everything.

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VP of Web Application Architecture for a fulltime position with our client in downtown <city>.  (he or she must be hands on)

Objective:
Provide technical architecture and design leadership for large scale digital marketing campaigns and technology solutions

Skills:
10-12 years of Application Development experience

2-4 years of Complex Application Architecture and Design

· Expert J2EE developer and architect; formal certification is preferred

· Significant experience architecting and developing web applications

· Demonstrates expert knowledge of relevant technologies and architectures including J2EE Application Servers and Content Management including experience with one or more industry leading products (e.g. Vignette, Interwoven, Fatwire, Alfresco, OpenCMS)

· Expert knowledge of Object Oriented programming and associated methodologies such as data/object modeling and pattern based design

· Expert knowledge of XML and the associated technologies (e.g. XSLT, FOP)

· Expert knowledge of Unix (Linux, Solaris) and good working knowledge of Windows

· Experience in legacy systems integration

· Able to define hardware requirements

· Expert knowledge of software engineering methodologies

· Working knowledge of security concerns for web applications.

Responsibilities

· Stays current with emerging technologies and contribute to overall technical direction of Technology

· Responsible for setting Coding standards

· Perform code reviews

· Clarity and consistency of code; code well documented with minimal bugs and errors

Client:

· Excellent client facing skills

· Strong presentation and documentation skills

· Nurtures relationships with technical clients

People:

Helps mentor Web Developers, Software Engineers, Senior Software Engineers and Principal Software Engineers in technical skills

Strong written and verbal communication skills

Works with others to provide technical direction and efficiency

Leads technology shared learning sessions

Business:

Lead and architect technical direction of one or multiple projects

Identify and champion client technology synergies and optimization

Propose and support incorporation of new technology

Test new ideas / product for applicability to project goals

Document functionality and designs at an architectural level

Knowledge in vendor negotiations, vendor evaluations, specifically geared towards technical evaluation of software and organization

Participates in new business pitches when required

A recent poll shows a Computer Engineering/Science being in the top 10 for starting and mid-career salary.  So, that’s good news – might still have a job for several more years.  The starting looks like $50,000+ and mid-career of about $100,000.  Still sounds good.

I know I am old, but when I went to college it was $3,000 a year and the starting salary was in the teens.  So, without any financial aid you were in the clear immediately.  I am not so sure it is still so obvious.

I start wondering about the cost of a bachelor’s degree these days and the associated financial aspects.  So, just focusing on the degree costs I am using a ballpark figure of $50,000 per your (tuition, board, books, travel, etc…) for 4 years.  Assume your parents saved something and can cut the number by half.  At the end of 4 years you would have a $100,000 loan.  Using a student loan calculator that comes to about $1,150 per month.

So, if we round up to $60,000 per year that means $5,000 per month gross.  Less about 1/3 for federal and state taxes leaves you at $3,300 per month.  Sounds good we have a little over $2,000 a month free.

That’s not enough to buy a condo or house in a city (especially where you would not have a down payment), so you are renting.  A good apartment runs about $1,000 a month.  Utilities, internet, etc.. probably tack on another $500 a month.  Now we are down to $500 free.

Oh, you want a car.  Nice toyota runs $300 a month.  Down to $200 month free.

You want to eat?

I think I was a little generous above, but not too far out of the picture.  Heaven forbid your parents don’t have $100,000 saved for you or you decide to get a Master’s degree or you have a girl friend or …

I was momentarily assigned to a secret project, as in DOD clearance type of work.

While there I was told that the tools being used on the project were classified as secret.  This is interesting.  If notepad.exe is a tool on a secret project, the the name of the tool itself is a secret and falls under the classification of DOD secret and you are in violation if you devulged such information to anyone out of the project.

So, assume you are working on a secret project, using tools x, y an z for the typical contract of 6-12 months.  On your resume you can not state what tools you were working with during that time.

Further lets assume at the end of that period you are looking for another project.  The current environment in the industry is have you had recent (read yesterday) experience using tools x, y and z.  You can not tell anyone that you have.  Therefore you will probably not be hired or even approached about the position as you do not meet the requirements for the position.

Interesting…

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.

Our team lead just hired another contractor from the same agency I am working through.  The contractor went through the interview rounds (full-time’s only) including the team lead and group lead.

Per the team lead the developer has lots of experience with Java, JSF, SOA, etc…  All the stuff we need on the team

The guy talks, a lot.  This is just a personality trait that irks me.  So, maybe he’s ok anyway.

Then I overhear the conversations he’s having with other developers (see talks a lot above) and some of the questions he has asked me:

• When a screen (from the functional spec) has multiple checkboxes does that mean the user can select multiple items?
• Similar when a screen has multiple radio buttons does that mean the user can select only one?
• Do I need the JDK installed to compile the application?
• Are all of the user actions affecting the database?

I guess the worst part is I bet he is getting the same hourly rate (or better) than I am.

JavaScript developer (Davis Square)

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Reply to: gigs@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2009-01-13, 12:43PM EST
Hi! We’re looking for a JavaScript developer to help us out with various features on our website.

So here’s your first task We’d like to see the most elegant solution to this problem:

We have username and password boxes on our website. But, we don’t want to have external labels (next to and outside the boxes) as we do now.

Instead, we want to make the labels appear inside the text fields, and have them disappear when you click inside them. The labels should reappear if the user doesn’t type anything and clicks outside the field, but should not overwrite anything the user types.

We’re looking for a smart person who knows his JS, so send us your solution to this problem (HTML plus whatever scripts you used), plus a short description of your background. Hours are flexible, payment is negotiable. (If we choose you, we’ll compensate you for your time spent on this problem too.) We prefer local candidates (we’re located in Davis Square in Somerville) but we’re willing to accommodate the right person.

Thanks for looking!

Location: Davis Square
it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Compensation: negotiable
PostingID: 9999999

So, why do people think that a qualified developer will do this? It’s typically a non-trivial task that would take a few hours. It’s going to be very specific to the client and non-portable. The client has no reason to acclaim someone’s response as correct – they can just incorporate as needed. There is no recourse as there is no info on the client to see if they stole your code.

The words a contractor does not want to hear.  I know the company has a full-time need that I can’t support, but it did feel better knowing that there was a gap.  I asked about the new guy. 

Oh, he’s an old friend.  Lots of C/C++ work on Unix.  Some Oracle work.

But, the shop is all Java against SQL Server.

Oh, don’t worry about that.  He’s a good, long-timer.

Any web work?

No, but that won’t be a problem.  (The shop produces web applications)

How about he works on the current software to kind of see how things work?  That’s mostly SQL work at this point.

No, we were thinking he would jump in on the new product (A Java Spring app with every bleeding edge Java tool known)

Great.  Sounds like it will be a perfect fit.