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.