Telus: Sr. J2EE Architect

Telus is looking for a Senior J2EE Architect:

Key responsibilities include IS strategic planning, IS architecture blueprints, product research and evaluation, application development standards and frameworks, data architecture, technology infrastructure planning and design.

My biggest fear with a role like the one they’re describing is that you’ll be asked to develop and refine an architecture in isolation from the business concerns and implementation concerns.  To be honest, I’m not sure that I really believe that it’s possible to do a good job of that.  Evaluating technologies is one thing, but attempting to architect a solution unless you know the business requirements very clearly and can get involved and stay involved in the implementation effort:  “Oh, I see, I guess object-centric SOA has more pitfalls than was evident in the trial project we conducted.  Maybe we should make message objects to help compensate for that?” Without a good feedback cycle, most efforts are doomed to repeat their mistakes.

Although Telus does attempt to tell you a little about themselves in the posting, and I’m glad they’ve tried, it’s deeper in  marketingese than I can really buy:

Our team members include people like you - enthusiastic, innovative, passionate and energetic. We believe that you’ll find our high-performance culture personally fulfilling, professionally challenging and financially rewarding.

That may all be true, but I guess it’s just a little hard to take at face value.  Anyone reading this work at Telus and want to comment?

Development Manager (Company Unspecified)

An unnamed company on Craigslist is looking for a Development Manager to  “oversee several new business development initiatives”:

As Development Manager you will oversee several teams of Senior Technical experts in a variety of Web Technologies. The primary systems are multi-layer Web presentation applications. Additionally you will manage the Data Warehouse, Business Intelligence systems.

There isn’t a lot of information about the company; they leave it at:

This is a busy, fast paced technology company going through a significant growth phase. We need a seasoned manager to lead multiple initiatives.

Finally, the compensation for the role is acceptable, but not, by any means, stellar: 95-105k.  Ultimately, it’d take more money and more information about the company, technologies and projects to really grab interest, but the role is senior enough that some people might want to check into it anyway.

Little Bites: Rock Star, L2EE

Although I imagine that prospective candidates find if flattering to imagine themselves as a “rock star” programmer in a field that is really low on rock-star glamour and street-cred, I have to say that I’d rather have slightly less flattery and slight more information on the role, project, company and compensation.  The phrase “knows C#Net, and has extensively written Windows Threaded Services and has written serial port communication software” is not really a lot to go on.

Although it’s possible that this job posting meant to refer to something real when it makes reference to ‘L2EE’, like this paper on Lightweight Process Coordination and J2EE, but … I think they just made a mistake, and then repeated it.

CIBC: Senior Manager, Application Services

As bank jobs go, CIBC’s posting desiring a Senior Manager, Application Services is really not so bad:

Manage a small team of developers in delivering the design, development, and implementation activities for the ICIF/OMNI services using SOA.

Key Activities/Accountabilities:
- Deliver SOA services within budget and on time.
- Oversee the development, testing and implementation of multiple, complex, organization-wide systems.
- Define and manage resource requirements and allocations, monitor and improve quality, and ensure ‘best practice’ development techniques.
- Work with client departments in development, testing and implementation of application programs having impact on improving the business by advising application owners on the technology possibilities and requirements.
- Direct, motivate and develop staff, maximizing their individual contribution, their professional growth and their ability to function effectively with their colleagues as a team.

Although working with EJB and SOAP is perhaps not everyone’s favorite technology stack, the rest of the requirements are pretty reasonable.  I’m given to understand that bank jobs are well-suited to those who want a nine-to-five, serenity-prayer career, although I haven’t personally held a bank job in Toronto.

Intelliware: Technical Architect

Intelliware is looking for a Technical Architect again / still.  There’s very little sense of what the particular job might be, but they’re an agile shop, close to High Park and the subway, typically Java.   Having worked with a few ex-intelliware people, they had both positive and negative things to say, but that’s at least as good a report as most companies get, so there’s room for some cautious optimism.

More clarity on the nature of the initial work, compensation and even the company wouldn’t hurt to make the position more appealing.

Little Bites: BiblioCommons DB, 2/3 PHP, Devlin, PHP ‘Gaming’, Corba

BiblioCommons is also looking for a database developer. I don’t feel like I can represent what a database developer would find interesting, so I won’t post a full summary, but I will say that working on “several terabytes” of data should make this at least mildly interesting.

Someone’s looking for two-thirds of a PHP programmer in what sounds like a very sketchy deal, to me that gets massive morbid curiosity props. $20/hr contract is pretty low, particularly for someone who has built “the next ebay” which is “roughly 95% finished” when you get paid after all work is complete, and have even your lunch schedule worked out in advance. Color me suspicious, but if you’re two thirds of a PHP programmer, by all means, this may be your thing. (Yes, I know they probably mean ‘two or three’).

Devlin is still looking for that tech lead / architect, as I mentioned before.

Someone’s looking to find a PHP developer for web-based ‘gaming’. In Toronto, that typically seems to mean gambling, otherwise that might actually be interesting.

Nubase is looking for web developers who want to do CORBA. If that sounds appealing, you’ll be pleased to know that EJB makes an appearance too.

ATC-Onlane - Senior Software Developer

ATC-Onlane has been looking for a senior software developer for a few months now.  They claim to be late-stage Pre-IPO, which could be a good time to ‘get on board’:

With more than a 50% growth rate this year (to over 350 employees), we are currently looking for new, talented team members to grow with the company. This is a great time to join ATC-Onlane because we are experiencing such growth and plan to go public this year.

Ultimately, though, those kinds of potential benefits are secondary, to me — good straightforward compensation and a good fit jobwise are more important — if you can get some kind of IPO payout, that’s a nice perk.  That said, the rest of their job description sounds interesting in its own right (agile: +1.  struts: -1)

InformIT: How to Survive in a Turbulent Job Market

I’m mostly going to focus on actual jobs, but occasional analyses of which skills are called for in the market has some merit to potential job-seekers, so here’s an article on the subject that crossed my path sometime today.

Mobile Payments: Dev Manager

A “a technology startup firm which provides application software and associated services to the financial industry, with a focus on Mobile Payments” is looking for a development manager with, an agile approach:

- Facilitate team activities like iteration and release meetings, stand-ups, retrospectives, etc.
- Interact with Product Management Team to understand the business strategies and initiatives, short- and long-term priorities, in order to make effective trade-offs and decisions
- Interact with Operations Team to deliver maintainable software for live environments
- Provide high level estimates under uncertain conditions
- Proactively manage progress and status of project deliverables
- Ensure high quality results and maintain software in a constant “ready-to-release” condition
- Help the team to build the best solution that satisfies business requirements
- Help the team to consistently and constantly strive for process improvements
- Assist the team in refining tools, technologies, practices, etc. Actively scout for advancements at all levels

It’d be great to know a little more about the company and its products as well as the compensation, but ultimately, it sounds like an interesting role.

Update
This seems to be CPNI, out in Etobicoke.

Mysterious J2ME/BDJ

Someone’s looking for Java developers to do some Java for Blu-Ray:  “Experienced java developers needed for amazing job.
Details to come.”

I think at one point I’d heard that all blu-ray disc players would be Java devices, but I’d forgotten.  Does anyone use BDJ for anything?  Is it an exciting new area for Java developers, or an evolutionary dead-end?