Zazengo: Senior Ruby Developer

Zazengo is looking for a Senior Ruby Developer

Zazengo is seeking the right person to take our technical team and
platform from pre-beta through launch and scaling to sustainable
profitability. The right candidate will combine the following:

• An excellent working knowledge (and love) of programming in Ruby and
Ruby on Rails. Up-to-date on latest Edge Rails technology and tools

• A strong understanding of emerging web technologies and practices
including widgets, advertising engines, RSS/Atom feeds, CMS tools,
social network connectivity, APIs, and standards including OpenId and
OpenSocial, especially in regards to their implementation using Ruby
and Rails.

The Good
There’s a lot of interesting bits in the posting.  It looks like Zazengo is into empowering not-for-profits, so, again, a good cause.

They’re working with interesting technology: Edge (Ruby on) Rails, Git, OpenSocial, OpenId, RSS.  They’re looking for someone with good writing/speaking skills, so community involvement may be a factor.  They seem to be test-driven, with mentions of Test::Unit and RSpec.

Mostly, it sounds like fun.

The Bad
There’s not much information about compensation.  Since Ruby jobs tend to vary significantly in compensation, I inquired, but received no response.  I’m not sure if you should read into that, so I’ll let you decide.  They’re looking for someone senior, current with edge rails, and up to speed on a lot of technology, so I’d hope they’d compensate accordingly, but not all startups can afford to, particularly those working with not-for-profits.

There’s not a ton of detail about the process or the company, so you may want to probe on those.

YMMV
They’re a distributed/virtual team, and that might mean working from home.  Some people will love the idea, others will dislike it.

In Summary
If you’re looking for edge rails work and willing to work in a distributed team for a good cause, it’s worth having a deeper conversation with Zazengo about their compensation, process and the company.

World Vision: Director of Support and Infrastructure

World Vision is looking for a Director of Support and Infrastructure:

• Define the enterprise technology architecture and strategies, and set all associated policies, standards, and guidelines.
• Define technical evaluation criteria and participate in product selection for technology architecture domains.
• Ensure that proposed architectures are sound and aligned with corporate assets and competencies and provide guidance to ensure proper technical partner / vendor selections.
• Identify and understand trends in the IT landscape.

The Good
It’s a senior role for an organization focused on the protection of children, which most people would agree is a pretty noble goal.

The Bad
They’re large enough to think that PMP certification and ITIL are useful approaches in the management of IT, which may not be to everyone’s taste.

There’s not a ton of information on the work, process and technology. I’m guessing about the location for the job, and I’ll put in a similar guess for compensation: not exceptionally high. Honestly, if money is a key factor, I’m guessing that World Vision can’t compete, and to a certain extent, may not want to. That said, if this opportunity excites you, I suspect you’re better off talking to them than making assumptions.

YMMV
The location is out by 410/403 and the 401. That’s probably best for those of you in the West, or possibly the North, and certainly for those of you already highway-commuting.

Some of you are probably thinking that PMP and ITIL are good signs, I’m just not necessarily in agreement.

They’re self-identified as a Christian organization. Not everyone has a Christian background, and/or would be comfortable working for an organization that does. That said, I know someone who’s worked with them directly, and who would be happy to say that they’re a nice bunch of people, as you might expect.

In Summary
Seems tailor-made for a highway commuter (or someone already in the Northwest) looking to improve the world, rather than bring home the bacon, and willing to do so within a Christian organization.

Cirque du Soleil: IT Architecture Director

Well, Cirque du Soleil is in Montreal, rather than Toronto, and so’s this opportunity to be their IT Architecture Director:

Reporting to the Vice-President of Knowledge Management and Information Technologies, the IT Architecture Director sees to the production of corporate architecture and ensures its evolution within the company, and conducts opportunity assessments of business cases.

I don’t know what it’s like to work for Cirque’s  IT department, but they’re obviously both visible and interesting/unique.  I won’t analyze it in depth because it’s not local, but if this is your bag, it seems like an opportunity that doesn’t come around every day.

Sr. Developer (’Multinational Investment Bank’)

A “multinational investment bank” is looking for a Senior Developer:

This position requires the ability to come up with independent ideas and work effectively within a global team to rapidly implement solutions and deliver production quality applications that are highly supportable and maintainable.The goal is to implement a scalable solution, which is responsible for connectivity to external ECNs, low-latency electronic trading and global inventory distribution. The candidate should be able to easily translate business strategy into scalable technical solutions, which could be leveraged globally.

The tech (Swing/RCP, Message Queues, JUnit, Ant) sounds reasonable.  But who is this, where are they located, what are they paying?

Logitech: Sr. Manager, Software Program Management

Logitech is looking for a Senior Manager, Software Program Management, and apparently feels strongly about Scrum:

He/She will be responsible for building a high performance, agile project management and engineering services organization. This senior role is a member of the Customer and Platform Services group building leading edge internet-based customer services for the Logitech Harmony Remote product lines.

The Good
It’s a chance to work closely with a large company on a successful product line. It sounds like a serious and transformative role where you may get the opportunity to really drive Scrum at Logitech, or at least at this location. Assuming you do so successfully, this seems like a good resume-builder.

The Bad
As far as I can tell, you’d have to work in an industrial park in Mississauga. I’ve worked in that area before, and it’s a bit of a wasteland. You’d have to be a vehicle-commuter, and you’d probably want to be coming from the west or northwest.

If you’re willing to work out there, you might also want to ask yourself if you’d rather work for Wishabi, or RIM.

Then there’s the usual lack of detailed information. The role, process and technology have some definition, although not tons. The work, compensation and location are almost completely undefined, although I’ve obviously guessed about the location.

YMMV
There’s a .NET reference in there. Some of you might be enthused about .NET, some not.

If you’re coming from the west or northwest, possibly even the north, this might be a convenient, if dull, location. For the rest of us this location is both very inconvenient and dull.

I don’t imagine there’s much hands-on development in this role. For some, that might be a concern.

In Summary
If you believe strongly in agile processes, know a bit about Scrum and .NET and live in the west, north or northwest, this may be just the thing for you.

The Hive: Senior Mac Java Developer

Brunel Multec is helping someone to find a Senior Mac Java Developer.  Actually, a little digging turns up that it’s our “old friends” at ‘The Hive’ (original posting):

The successful incumbent requires a rare combination of experience developing software for Java, Mac OS X, user interface design experience on Mac OS X, well-versed in Apple Human Interface Guidelines, networking programming experience -including clients and servers in Java, experience with Tomcat and Hibernate.

The Good
Well, there’s the obvious: the posted salary goes up to $200k.

And then there’s how they describe how they’d like to kit out your work environment:

The successful candidate will have their home office outfitted with dual 30″ inch Macintosh monitors, high-end Mac desktops and laptops, your choice of ergonomic chair, an executive-style desk, highly competitive compensation with full benefits and the opportunity to work with the brightest minds in the software development industry.

And their described philosophy on software ‘intellectual property’:

Unlike many other companies who wish to patent most, or all, of their code, this company believes strongly in the benefits and philosophy of open-source software.

The Bad
It’s a short posting, not much meat on the bones.  Who are you working for, and what are they like?  What exactly will you be doing (role, work)?  The compensation range is huge — where would you fall?  What’s the process?

You can get some of that information directly from The Hive’s website, but even that lacks a lot of detail.

YMMV
Working from home is not for everyone. It can be convenient, but you have to remain disciplined, and stay focused, and you may not have a lot of human interaction, which can drive some people ’round the twist. It can also be problematic if you have, say, three small children, a variety of pets and no locking door to keep them out.

First and foremost, anything that sounds too good to be true probably is.  If you dig around on the ‘net, you’ll find a few people skeptical that this is a real company, and very little to contradict it.

The Conclusion
If you’ve got that skill-set, and you’re willing to work from home, you might consider talking to The Hive, see if they’re all that they say they are.  Color me skeptical for now.

Survey: Little Bites - Digest or One-at-a-Time?

When I’ve got a bunch of postings on which I’d like to make minor comments but not do the full treatment, I currently batch these up in a Little Bites posting.  Over time, I’ve wondered which would be better:

• individual very-small posts which would allow you to look at them as they come, and track them individually, get unique tags, etc.
• batched digests to reduce the overall volume when each one is small (what I do now)

I’m open to either approach, so if you’re following regularly, just lemme know which you prefer.

Little Bites: ‘Teach’ Lead, Sapient, Rails, Police

Agilon puts a lot of effort into their job postings.  For instance, they’re looking for a Teach Lead in TorontoUS, ON, CA which is apparently another way to say ‘Detroit, MI’.

Sapient is always looking for people in Toronto, it seems.  They’re still looking for a Solutions Architect and a Manager, Technology, both of whom should apparently be open to frequent overnight travel.

Someone is looking for Rails developers with PHP experience in Toronto.  If I had to guess, I’d say this sounds like Avid Life Media still.

Being a senior developer for the Toronto Police sounds like an odd but possibly interesting experience in its own way.  Unfortunately, it’s public-sector, so senior developer means $70-$80k here.

On Startups: Key Takeaways

For those of you considering another path, perhaps you should read the key takeaways of Startup School.

Little Bites: Domainer, GAP Adventures, Scotia Algorithmic Trading, Microsoft Security, Informiam/Genesys

Domainer’s looking for a “web developer“. Without a listed compensation range, my first instinct is that “web developer” often means “cheap developer” in the Toronto job market, particularly for startups. G.A.P Adventures looks more interesting but suffers from the same problem.

Personally, I think algorithmic trading systems sound like an interesting domain, but I haven’t explored the space in enough detail to argue the point. The technology mix of C++ and Java both is an interesting and unusual one.

Microsoft Canada wants someone to change the country’s perception about their security? Sounds like a dangerous mission for only the bravest of soldiers.

Informiam, bought by Genesys, is still looking for some creative developers up at Yonge and Finch. If you’re already up north, this seems like it could be an interesting place to work.