Destiny Solutions: Director of Software Development

Destiny Solutions is looking for a Director of Software Development to:

Take ownership of our implementation, customization, maintenance and new product development. You will report directly to the President, on initiatives to fulfill our client’s complex requirements while continuing to develop and hone our methodologies. Your ability to effectively communicate with and lead our delivery team will contribute to our continued success and growth.

Destiny describes themselves as follows (abbreviated):

Destiny Solutions is a leading provider of enterprise level applications for Educational institutions. Our primary product, Destiny OneCE, is designed to unite staff, instructors and students in one seamless process by providing a web based integrated business solution to streamline administration and operations. Our client list includes the continuing education divisions of Duke University, University of Toronto, Stanford University, University of California, Santa Cruz extension.

The Good
It’s a product company, the location’s not a bad one, and the role is pretty senior. There’s a fair amount of information about the company and the product.

Neutral and Mixed
The technology list is not horrible, although it’s also not exceptional. JSP and Struts rate mentions, so there’s probably no modern web framework, let alone Ajax. Tomcat and Hibernate are pluses for me, although I’m slightly surprised that there’s no mention of Spring. The role probably doesn’t involve a great deal of detailed technical work (like coding).

The Bad
As with Decisioning, Destiny mentions both PMP and Agile in the same breath, which makes me wonder somewhat about their approach to agile, although I don’t consider the two completely incompatible. Likewise, I’m not entirely sure that Microsoft Project fits into my normal agile toolset, but without knowing what they have in mind, I’m not going to pass judgement.

There’s very little sense of the compensation. I’m not personally very fond of the company name.

Summary
Located at Yonge and Eglinton, the location is likely to appeal first and foremost to those in midtown, uptown and out-of-town homes, although a reverse-commute to Yonge/Eglinton is not totally out-of-the-question for those in the downtown, or east and west.

Candidates should probably look into their take on process and probe a little further on the technology stack and the team, and definitely learn more about the compensation.

This seems like a good fit for someone in mid-town or up-town looking to find a director-level position in a product company.

Decisioning Solutions: Senior Java/J2EE Developer

Decisioning Solutions is looking for a Senior Java/J2EE Developer:

• Translate functional and non-functional requirements into robust implementations
• Enhance the design of the existing code base
• Perform implementations to specification in a timely fashion
• Ensure exceptional code quality and thorough testing (both at unit and system integration level) on every newly developed feature
• Participate in the design and planning process with the Development Manager and the rest of the Development team
• Regularly liaise with Project Management and Senior Business Analyst teams to ensure customer needs are met and highest level of service and support maintained

The Good
The location’s pretty good. Central and easily accessed by TTC, good shopping and food about. Not ideal for motorized transit (or cycling). The compensation is, they claim, industry-leading. There’s some implication that the process might be agile: “Extreme Programming (TDD, Continuous Integration/Build, Weekly Iterations, Retrospectives, …).”

The Bad
There’s not a lot of detail there about the compensation, beyond the ‘industry-leading’ bit. There’s not a lot of detail about the project work involved.

The company website looks as if it’s been populated with stock photos and gives the impression of a small company that doesn’t really know how to market itself (company name, product names), but at the same time, they seem to be successful enough, at least from their news feed. It’s hard to really get a feel for the company and their work.

I’m a little worried that the developer position talks about agile methods, but the IT Project Manager position doesn’t seem to have the same kind of descriptions. Hard to imagine that it’s easy to do a good job of XP if you’re being project-managed by someone with PMP education and no agile leanings.

Conclusions
Although the compensation is claimed to be ‘industry-leading’, there’s not a lot of detail about what that actually means. Personally, I think salary has to be >= $100k to justify that title, but that’s because I know there are occasionally developer postings listed (and accepted) at $110k-$120k in Toronto. Alternately, the remainder of the compensation has got to be pretty stellar, say six weeks vacation and RSP matching.

If you’re looking for a senior developer position, this is a moderately interesting one. If the compensation is, as they suggest, ‘industry leading’, then it might well be worth closer examination.

Mackenzie: Career Centre Manager, Systems Architecture

The Mergis Group is helping Mackenzie look for a Career Centre Manager, Systems Architecture:

Mackenzie Information Services (MIS) is part of the Information Services (IS) Organization that provides information technology solutions and support to Mackenzie Financial, Investors Group, and Great-West Life, London Life and Canada Life.  The career centre structure supplies skilled practitioners to the IS organization. At MIS, there are five career centre information technology disciplines: Project Management, Systems Analysis, Systems Architecture, Software Development and Corporate Technology Specialists.

• People leadership responsibilities including hiring, coaching, performance management, and training plans.
• Matching work assignments to staff skills or developmental opportunities
• Managing the development and deployment of Systems Architecture best practices
• Managing relationships with external vendors to contract high quality external staff to augment internal staff as required
• Managing overall operations of the career centre including accountability for the budget, compensation management for staff, development and execution of an operational plan, development and execution of an annual training plan
• Active member of the IS Management Team and contributing to the growth of the entire IS Division

The public posting I found was posted in January, but the Mergis Group has a recent version of the same on higherbracket.ca.

The Good
A pretty senior role.  Possibly too senior for some who’d like to spend more time working with technology.

The Bad
Although they claim good compensation, there aren’t very many specifics.  It looks to be senior enough that there may be less technology, mostly management, which may or may not be good depending on your own feelings. A greater understanding of the location would be nice.  I don’t get a strong sense for what the role will be like on a day-to-day basis, but I don’t think this is a case where more information about ‘the project’ is necessary, it’s just something that will require discussion with Mackenzie during the recruiting process.

Conclusions
Mostly, I think this one depends on what you’re looking for.  If you have management experience and you’re looking to move into a full management role, this might be a good position for you.

Little Bites: .NET/Java Technical Lead, Intelliware Architect, Java Developer

Robert Half is looking for a Technical Lead with good experience in both .NET and Java, with decent listed compensation. There’s not a lot of details there, and the technology stack leans toward .NET, but if that’s your bent and you’d like to consider getting paid $90-115k, I’m sure Robert Half would like to hear from you.

Looks like Bevertec is trying to help Intelliware find that architect.

This posting seems to be casting the net pretty wide.  A Java developer looking for a fun working environment with some basic technology requirements.  If anyone responds to this, do let me know what it is, I’m morbidly curious.

CIHI: Technical Lead

Canadian Institutes for Health Information is looking for two technical leads, each of whom:

leads/coordinates all applications development activities. Activities include, but are not limited to, participation in requirements identification and feasibility analysis, generation of technical solutions and design, coding, testing, quality assurance, implementation and all supporting project artefacts and documentation.

CIHI says, about themselves:

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that provides essential data and analysis on Canada’s health system and the health of Canadians.

They seem to be looking for people with both .NET and Java expertise.

The Good
This is mostly interesting because it’s a moderately senior role in a not-for-profit organization dealing with something positive (health), which isn’t always that easy to come by. The role and responsibilities sound reasonable, if you can stomach the kind of working environment that makes reference to PMP documentation.

The Bad
There’s no information about the work, the compensation, and limited information about the company.

Although I understand that CIHI collects health information, and may well use software to do so, the posting says almost nothing about the nature of the work with which the candidate will be involved.

The location is unknown; it may be the Toronto office at 90 Eglinton Avenue East, or could be somewhere else. There’s not much information about the working environment or the compensation. Given that most of their funding comes from the government, I’m not sure if their compensation can afford to be above-average at least in salary, although the inclusion of a pension plan might be interesting for some. Since an application development services manager makes under $80k, my hopes for a good salary are not high.

Conclusion
If you’re not too hung up on salary, and working for a not-for-profit health organization with a good pension plan sounds like your cup of tea, this might be just the place you’re looking for.

On the other hand, if you’ve got fair experience and you’ve gotten used to private sector pay, I have the feeling you’re going to find the salary disappointing, so you’d want to make sure the rest of the benefits and compensation plan make up for it sufficiently.

Technical Lead (via Dunhill)

Dunhill is helping someone (company unspecified) look for a Technical Lead:

• [T]o manage an existing software development team building large, high volume solutions using J2EE technologies
• A SCRUM-Master certification, XP-coach, or other experience with agile methods is necessary, complemented with software engineering knowledge
• Extensive experience with Java, J2ME, JUnit, Fitnesse, JMS, EJB, Web Services, Web Applications, Hibernate
• Strong technical and non-technical communication skills: familiarity with presenting and explaining technical concepts to a variety of audiences
• Experience working with company executives, shareholders, and directors an asset

The Good
There’s not a lot of detail about the technology stack, but what’s there looks good, for the most part.  (I’ll touch on EJB in the next section).

It looks as if they take testing seriously, and agile methods, both of which are positive signs.

The Bad
The base problem is that there’s not a lot of information.  What’s the company?  What do they do?  What’s the project?  Is there an existing team?  Are they any good?  What are the details of technology and process?  What’s the location?  What’s the compensation like?
As far as technology goes, there’s a reference to EJB here.  EJB’s not a technology I’m overjoyed to use, although if it’s EJB 3.0, I could possibly live with it.  I’m not sure if this is legacy code they have in place, or a long-term technology choice.  If they take testing seriously, EJB is a bit of a bear because it tends to require in-container testing, or strategies to mitigate the fact that it’s difficult to test enterprise java beans.

I’m also a little concerned about this phrase: “excellent opportunity for a highly skilled technical person with some management skills to move to the next step.”  That phrase could imply that they’re looking for someone with less experience that they can get at a lower cost.  Or they may just be willing to consider people with more talent than experience, it’s hard to say.

Conclusions
Not much detail here, but what’s here is interesting, for the most part.  You’d need to probe more to form an informed opinion: learn about the company, the project, the team, the location.  Still, if you can get past EJB, it feels like the basics might be sound.

Merrill Lynch: Java Technical Lead

Merrill Lynch is looking for a Java Technical Lead to work at their Toronto Technology Centre of Excellence (250 Yonge, the Eaton Centre):

The Good
Merrill Lynch is a well-known financial company, and in the long run, financial companies often do well (although I’m not sure this the the right time to join one, what with subprime, but that’s another story).  The job seems to relate to securities trading and messaging, which could be interesting technically.

Although ‘centre of excellence’ is a little over-the-top, it does sound as if this’ll be a location of some importance for ML, so working there is perhaps a good thing.

Merrill also claims to be a bit of a meritocracy, although I’d have to talk to someone who works there to get a sense for how real that is (or isn’t):

Merrill Lynch places a high value on talent and on maintaining a culture defined by meritocracy. For these reasons, it is deeply committed to professional development, opportunity and accountability at all levels of the organization.

Having worked at 250 Yonge for four years, I can say that it’s a nice location, if not perfect.  It’s pretty central, there’s lots to eat in the area, getting a little shopping done is dead easy.  Transit access is good, although the TTC is always crowded and somewhat unreliable.  Surface routes are pretty congested, but it can be done.

The Bad
Nothing leaps off the page as being horrible.  Typically, financial institutions in Toronto don’t pay all that well, and the work can be dull, and process-bound.  I can’t argue whether or not that’s true for Merrill Lynch.  It sounds like a background in order management systems and the FIX protocol wouldn’t hurt, which I imagine some of you don’t have.

More of a sense of the project, the existing team, and the processes at work in ML would help a lot.  Some sense of compensation would also help.

Conclusions
It’s a little spartan, as postings go, but there’s no huge red flags either.      I’d certainly want to probe on compensation, process and culture, but if you’ve got the background in OMS and FIX they’re looking for, this seems worth a look.

Deloitte: Senior Manager J2EE/.Net Consulting

Deloitte is looking for a Senior Manager J2EE/.Net Consulting:

As a Senior Manager, the successful candidate will hold a key leadership position within our practice, responsible for leading large-scale technology projects. Our client’s technology environments are complex, therefore the candidate will need to bring experience in similarly complex environments and understand how to coordinate across many applications and teams as part of a single effort.

The Good
It’s a pretty senior role. I’m given to understand that Deloitte tends to be a decent employer, although that’s third-hand information at best.

They are certainly a large employer, with “6,800 talented people in 51 offices dedicated to helping our clients.” That might strike you as good or as bad, depending on your background and preference.

The Bad
It’s not clear to me how close Deloitte imagines a Senior Manager being to the implementation efforts. It’s difficult to manage a technology project if you’re disconnected from the implementation, unless you’ve already established a great working relationship with people who are part of the implementation effort, so depending on Deloitte’s culture around this, you could be getting set up for failure. That said, this is something you could ask them during the interview process, and change, if need be.

The travel requirements are unclear; it rates a mention, but no specifics. It’d be good to know more about the compensation. The reference to offshore development doesn’t score many points with me either.

Sidebar
It’s amusing to me to see paragraphs like this one:

Due to the ever-expanding inventory of IT systems within most large organizations, clients are increasingly looking for ways to leverage and expand existing systems while avoiding duplicate or “throw-away” solutions. Current vendor offerings are rising to this challenge by supporting functionality re-use through “Service Oriented” architectures (SOA) and technology standards.

You could replace ‘Service Oriented’ with ‘Object Oriented’ here and turn back the clock ten years and it’d be like you never left. Practically speaking, developing large systems is hard work, and the code isn’t always re-usable. Architecture can aid in this area, but ultimately, nothing as vague as a grand architectural style like OO or SOA will, in and of itself, promote re-use, and many of the people spending lots of money retooling their systems with SOA are simply repeating the same mistakes they made when they rebuilt their systems in object-oriented code.

But, hey, I know I’m in the minority here; vendors are good at making new things sound important in order to sell you the latest technology stack, and business gets up in arms, and of course, consulting organizations respond to that. It’s not Deloitte’s fault, they’re just filling a market need.

Conclusions
If you’re in, or would like to be in, a pure management role in a large organization, this could be an interesting opportunity.  If you’re looking to do some coding, or find a niche in a small company this clearly isn’t your bag.  Those of you in the middle might want to talk to Deloitte and see whether you feel there’s a fit.

Sr. Java Solutions Architect

3k Consulting is helping an unspecified company look for a Senior Java Solutions Architect (devbistro, craigslist).

The Good
The listed salary range is pretty solid, so as long as the rest of the compensation matches up, the compensation is attractive. The only references to processes are agile ones. The requested technologies are often relatively modern ones (although it’s often quite a mix, e.g. “Axis, JSON RPC, SOAP, WSDL, REST, XML-RPC”).

The Bad
Well, as is often true of a posting listed using a placement agency, there’s very little detail about the company and the job, which could make the difference. Surprisingly, there’s also almost nothing about the role, so the candidate has to read into the required skillset in order to imagine what it is the company would like you to do. Unless, of course, you’re of the opinion that “Senior Java Solutions Architect” is a concrete, well-defined role, which I would certainly argue isn’t true.

And ‘CA Harvest’? Really?

Conclusions
It’s hard to read much into this, to be honest. It’s mostly a list of requirements, and you can decide easily if you meet those requirements. However, beyond that, there’s really only ‘reasonable compensation’ to recommend it.

Device-Side “Social” Java

This posting on Craigslist (and devbistro) is intruiguing, although there’s not enough information there to get really excited.  The company is described this way:

With a history of developing revolutionary wireless solutions, this
booming Canadian company is a world leader in mobile communications.
Boasting millions users worldwide, our client needs creative team
players who have the drive and professional skills to take their data
products to the next level in the global wireless market.

Which sounds interesting, and could be, say, RIM or Android work, but ultimately there’s just not enough information here to really understand who this company is and what the work would entail, beyond:

Our team’s goal is to develop robust device-side applications offering Web 2.0 type
collaboration and social networking opportunities.

That said, despite the lack of detail, the detail that is there is pretty interesting.  The listed pay ($80-95k) is a little lower than I might hope for, but it’s not completely out of line as long as they’re not looking to hire the best-of-the-best.

The Good
The work sounds both novel and challenging.  The area, device-side Java, is not incredibly common, and is an area that will continue to be of greater importance, although it’s still heavily held back by the stranglehold that carriers have on services.  The technologies (REST, ATOM, AJAX) are of interest to many.  There may be some upside in being in a growing market.

The Bad
The pay isn’t high enough to attract the best-of-the-best, and the posting itself is missing the kind of detail that might compensate for that (who the company is, what it’s like to work there, what their growth is like, what the team’s like, etc.)   That’s not a horrible thing, but it does put an upper bound on the developers who’ll respond to this posting, imo.

Conclusions
Job sounds interesting.  Pay’s decent, but not stellar.  More detail would make the posting more attractive.  If you’re into device-side Java, this may be pretty interesting to you.