Like Joel’s test, I think you need to read it with a grain of salt, decide how many of those conditions you truly believe in, but, like the Joel test, it’s a good starting point for you to decide what kinds of things you might need to look for in a company.

You may be above average, you may be a good place to work, financially healthy, growing, and everybody gets along. That still doesn’t mean you’re stellar or world-class or even a/the top <anything>. By piling on the superlatives, all you’re doing is encouraging me to roll my eyes at your posting. Even if your company really is that special, you won’t convince me by shoving a bunch of meaningless hype at the beginning of your posting. Rather than tell me that your company is world-class, tell me why you believe that’s true. Tell me something about your compensation plan, the recent growth of your stock, how your company offers RRSP matching and tops up maternity leave. Or tell me about the cool technologies that you use, or how your company is using technology to make the world a better place. Tell me something real.

Your Job isn’t that Special

It might be above average. It might be an interesting job, a senior position or or a very interesting product. It’s still probably not a once-in-a-life-time opportunity or the world’s best <anything>, it’s probably not going to be world-changing, ‘the next big thing’. And even if it is, you’re going to have to convince me that your job is better than all the other jobs that claim to be extra-special. So tell me something real. Tell me about how I’d be working on a great team of senior people who get along really well, have compatible opinions about software, really enjoy what they’re working on and they’re working to realistic timelines. Tell me that you have an opening for a really senior position where someone can really blossom and advance their career. Tell me enough about your project that I truly believe you’re going to succeed.

Your Candidates aren’t that Special

They might be above average. In fact, considering how many sub-par candidates float around the job pool, they might be the top five percent of the people actively looking for employment right now. But they’re not rockstars, ninjas or superstars. They’re probably not hardcore. They probably don’t need mastery of anything, they just need to be able to get the job done. They’re probably not the best of the best, world-class talent. If you really are looking for world-class talent, then convince me of that. Tell me the qualifications you expect to have, and that you know that in order to attract that kind of talent you’re willing to pay really well, relocate people or allow them to work remotely, explain how your project is so amazing that you need and can attract that kind of talent who might otherwise be working at Google, at Apple or on their own killer startup.

Drop the hype, and tell me something real.

They’re a client of mine, and I wrote good chunks of the posting, so I’m not unbiased about it. Accordingly, I won’t give it a full review treatment, but I will say a few things.

They’re a good client; I’ve been happy doing work for them, and I think that if we do a good job finding the right person for this job, they’ll be pretty happy too. It’s a small technical team with some fairly senior people, and we’d like to find some people with good skills and limited experience who can grow with the team, but are unafraid to take on new responsibilities. Of course, we’re not going to turn you down if you have deep experience, but we might not be able to afford you.

I know everyone you’d be working with closely, and I can say they’re basically all good people who are going to be working together with you to try and make things happen. The company’s also doing fairly well, growing and expanding as I’ve been working with them. The projects have good technical challenges, and you’d get to work directly with the users. There’s more work than anyone can possibly handle, so you won’t get bored.

Of course, these are insurance software products, so the domain isn’t probably going to be thrilling for most of you, but the work itself is interesting anyway. The location, at DVP & Eglinton, would probably work really well for some of you (as it does for me) but if you’re in the west end and travelling on TTC or you live downtown and you’re used to working downtown, it might not be a perfect fit.

What can I say? It’s a good gig, and I’d be happy to talk to some of you about it, or answer questions posted here if that works.

We are currently looking to hire software development rock stars to help us move the processes of our design customers to the cloud.

- Will design, architect and implement an enterprise grade cloud application
- Development of multiple web-based applications
- Active member of a highly skilled and motivated agile development team
- Work closely with product design and product management to collaboratively define and build elegant user interfaces
- Collaborate with other developers and colleagues to validate your designs
- Drive adoption of standards and common UI components across multiple teams

If you don’t have enough experience to position yourself as an architect, you could try for their Sr. Java Developer or Java Developer positions, also for their Enterprise Cloud.

The Good
Autodesk is an established player with a big client base. If you build something good for them, it will probably get used by lots of people. It sounds like a reasonably senior position. They’re willing to make lip service to agile at least — although there’s no detail on that point.  Cloud technologies can be interesting, although they don’t talk much about what Cloud means to them.

They certainly believe their compensation package is a good one:

Autodesk provides one of the most exceptional compensation and benefit packages, including stock options and employee stock purchase plan for all regular employees, RRSP matching program, generous vacation policy, ongoing employee training and development, flexible work hours and more!

The Bad
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I find the ‘elite’ metaphors for technology positions to be annoying. They’re not looking for a rock star, they’re looking a Java architect. If you’re looking for a really great one, make that clear, and make it clear that you’re willing to pay accordingly, otherwise you’re just “fluffing.”

What’s Missing
More detail on almost all fronts. Where’s the Autodesk Office? What does Autodesk pay a Java Architect, and what’s the net effect of all their compensation programs? What does cloud mean to them — AWS? Rackspace Cloud? Or just “a client-server system we can sell to our clients as ‘the cloud’”? What’s the software they’re trying to build? What does agile mean to them? Why do they want both GWT and Struts/Tiles?

The Location
Although Autodesk doesn’t mention the location, their primary Toronto office seems to be near King and Sherbourne. It’s not a terrible area, moderately central, walkable (although far) from Union Station, accessible via the King Streetcar and not terrible to get to via the highway. If you’re in the Beach or Leslieville (hi!), it’s probably a pretty great location, but if you’re north or west, it’s probably just ok. There are good shops and restaurants around the St. Lawrence Market, and over to Yonge, although it’s not as close to the shopping core as many central offices.

In Summary
If ‘Java Architect’ sounds like something you’d want to be, then a Java Architect for Autodesk’s Cloud is probably appealing. And if you’re not sure that you can pull off Architect, it sounds like they’re hiring for the rest of the team too.

Every member of our tightly knit development team has full input into every stage of project architecture, design and implementation. We own our projects and get shit done that has real, meaningful and measurable impact on sick people’s lives.

• Have enough experience in Java to be sick of it
• Have experience with the JBOSS stack
• Have professional experience with a dynamic language such as Ruby or Python or Javascript
• Be a UNIX weenie
• Have open source contributions they can show us
• Have mobile app development experience, on any combination of the iPhone, Android and Blackberry platforms, or on Titanium, PhoneGap, or other cross platform tools
• Be comfortable working in a Scrum process
• Be fanatical about testing

Grant McInnes, who sent in the posting, adds:

we do everything from hardware development, up the stack through software development, to UX evaluation and finally randomized controlled trials on the built products

The Good
It sounds like a great cause:

We have good results. In a randomized controlled trial, our applications have been shown to significantly improve heart failure outcomes, in patients with Congestive Heart Failure. In another we’ve demonstrated a 10 point drop in blood pressure for hypertensive patients

How often do you get to look at a software job where you can contribute to saving lives?

It also sounds like they use a fair number of technologies and have pretty sound processes. There’s not a ton of detail there, but what’s there sounds good.

YMMV
Who is the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, to which the Personal Health and Innovation department belongs, anyway?

The Centre for Global eHealth Innovation is “a joint effort of UHN and the University of Toronto and was built with funds from the Canadian government, through the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the Ontario Innovation Trust”. Phew. And then of course the UHN is itself a bunch of different entities working together. The Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Ontario Innovation Trust are both government organizations created to foster innovation at the Federal and Provincial levels. So, basically, take a university, several hospitals, two branches of government and assorted others and put them together and you have the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation.

It sounds like the possibilities for endless meetings, paperwork and mayhem abound without even talking about how Conway’s Law fits into this. Of course, universities, governments and hospitals can be fulfilling places to work, so maybe your mileage may very a little, and you’ll find the combination appealing. It sounds a little scary to me.  The posting talks about some of the upside of this arrangement:

Being in a research environment, we are able to concentrate on this goal without being distracted by short term profit motives, or keeping investors happy.

The Location
Sounds like they’re in the Toronto General Hospital, over by MaRS, Hospital Row, etc. There are restaurants and shops around, although it’s not overflowing with great eats and hip places from my limited experience in the area. It’s very transit-accessible, but it’s not ideal for go train (you’d want to take the subway, at least in winter) or driving. The location is probably neither off-putting nor exciting for most of you. On the upside, you could take in events at MaRS pretty easily.

What’s Missing
What’s the compensation like for a Researcher at the Centre for eHealth Innovation? What’s the size and composition of the team? How would you fit into it? What’s that crazy organizational structure like in practice — does it get in the way or is it something that you’re barely aware of?

Is there a particular project that you’d be starting on? What are the technologies and platforms you’d likely be working with right away and what is the mix going to be like over the long haul?

What are their development practices like? There’s a mention of Scrum, but in practice companies vary quite a bit. It’s hard to get too deep into specifics without knowing more about the technological mix but: do they do pairing? Do they use digital issue tracking or card boards (kanban, etc)? Is there a build? Continuous integration? How often are deployments/releases made? What’s the workspace like?

Maybe Grant can answer some of these here, but these are the kinds of questions you might consider asking them yourself.

In Summary
If you’re looking for a good cause with decent technology and practices, this sounds like it’s worth further investigation.

I won’t give it the full review treatment because I can’t be unbiased about a posting I wrote.  I will comment a little on the pros and cons, but you should read the posting for yourself and form your own opinion.

The Good
CPP’s been a client of mine for more than a year now, and they’re a great client.  I can’t swear that the experience of being an employee will be exactly the same, but I’m inclined to believe it’s close enough that this will be a pretty decent place to work.

They’re building new products and using decent technology to do so.  As the first permanent technical employee, you might have the chance to really shape the technology practice here.

I’m a part of the current team, and I can vouch for the two others you’ll be working with initially.  It’s a good team, and that’s something you won’t find everywhere.

What’s Missing
We’re considering people with a wide range of experiences, so I can’t be too specific about compensation — that’ll probably depend on you. I’ve tried to talk about the company, the projects, the challenge and opportunity involved, and the team, but there’s only so much I can write without making it a massive posting. If you apply to the job, I encourage you to think about the things I might not have already talked about, and ask, and I’ll be as candid as I can.

The Bad
It’s going to be a pretty quiet team at first.  There’s already three of us working on software for CPP, but we’re consultants, we’re not onsite every day, and so you won’t be immediately surrounded by tons of other software developers.  Some people would have trouble with that.  I’m expecting that the team will grow, and that the first employee will be a key member in recruiting the rest of the team, but for the first little while you’ll probably need to be comfortable with having days where you’re the only software developer onsite.

YMMV
The location is pretty good for me, since I live in the east end of Toronto and I can drive there quickly. Another consultant I’m working with lives on the waterfront and can get there in ten minutes by car.  If you’re mid-town near the Yonge line, I imagine the shuttlebus makes the trip palatable, although I haven’t tried that myself.  On the other hand, if you’re coming from the west end, or fighting through a ton of traffic to get to the CPP office, it might not be your cup of tea.

There’s three restaurants in or very near the building, as well as a GoodLife fitness.  There’s free parking.  If you’re willing to walk a little, there’s a grocery store, a few more restaurants and the Science Centre (if you have children and a stay-at-home partner, that might be appealing, as it is for me).  On the other hand, there aren’t a pile of restaurants around or very very close, so you’ll probably end up bringing lunch and eating in the cafe.  Depending on your perspective, that might be a good thing or a bad one.

The goal here is to get someone who can really own these applications and the practice of software development for CPP.  Someone who’s in it for the long haul, at least by comparison to the consultants already building software for CPP.  We don’t expect you to make any guarantees, of course, but if you’re not interested in being that person, then it’s probably not going to work.

In Conclusion
CPP needs to build an in-house software development team.  If you’re interested in being the first member of that team and taking increasing ownership of software at a growing insurance company, this might be a good fit for you.

Disclaimer
I wrote the job posting.  CPP is a client of mine.  If you were to be hired in this position, you’d be working with me.  As a result, assume that I’m somewhat biased about the role, and be sure that you do your due diligence.  Of course, you should do that with every position.

PharmaTrust (PCA Services Inc) is a cutting edge dynamic start-up in the field of telepharmacy, producing the MedCentre remote medication dispensary. The MedCenter provides pharmacists with the ability to remotely counsel and dispense medication using IP based audio/visual conferencing and a remotely controlled dispensary robot system.

Platform Services develops and supports the PharamTrust Platform and provides shared enterprise services to the PCA Services group of companies.

The Platform Service Developer has the responsibility for developing the PharmaTrust Platform Services, integrating other systems applications and databases (both internal and customer), and evolving the Platform Train of the MedCentre application software.

They’re also looking for a Platform Technical Support & Maintenance Specialist.

The Good
These robot dispensaries seem like a good idea to me.  The Albany Medical Clinic had one, and it was interesting.  IP-based audio/video conferencing and e-health all rolled into one project.  There’s definitely some interesting elements to this, and these dispensaries are new enough that PharmaTrust might be on a good trajectory over the long haul.

YMMV
It sounds like they’re in the middle of a technical overhaul from a .NET system to a Java/ESB system (and the support/maintenance specialist would continue to maintain the existing .NET side, looks like).   That means there’s an opportunity to really get in on the ground floor of the new architecture, as long as the architecture sounds like something that would work for you.  Personally by the time you throw ESB and BPEL together, I’m already starting to get nervous, let alone combined with WS-*, a platform shift and technical challenges like SIP.  Your mileage may vary significantly from mine, but I’d want to get a stronger sense for the architectural direction, and whether or not there’s any astronautics involved.

On the other hand, if ESB and WS-* sound like the right way to build a robust, enterprise-class, scalable system with all the -ilities you need, by all means, this might be the perfect fit for you.

What’s Missing?
Why the architectural shift from .NET to Java?  What are the driving factors behind the choices of ESB, BPEL, WS-*?  What’s the current size and composition of the technical team, and how will that change on the new platform?  What’s the compensation like for this position?  What’s the growth and outlook for MedCentre like?  (It seems promising to me, but if this is going to be your company, you might as well have more details than I do.)

I don’t really expect a company to describe the reasons for their technical decisions in a job posting, but it seems like the sort of questions you’re going to want to ask.

The Location
It’s in Hamilton, Mississauga, Oakville or Toronto?  I’m going to assume that’s a result in trying to cast a wide net for candidates in any of those locations.  Their office seems to be in an industrial park in Oakville, which means that if you’re not already in the west end of Toronto or out of town, the location will probably be too far out.  I don’t know much about the area; if that area is somewhere you consider, you probably already know more than I do.

In Summary
Looks like it’s be well-suited for someone with enterprisey leanings, health-care and some exposure to both Java and .NET, in the west end.

• An integral member of the team that makes sure we release the best quality software. Period.
• Work cross-functionally to define testing strategy. This is not an order-taker testing position. You will have ownership of the test/release processes at Rypple.
• Build the necessary frameworks, infrastructure and tools to increase the speed of releases and consistently deliver high-quality software
• Leading automated testing efforts
• Developing tools to improve product quality and automate processes

The Good
Rypple is a Toronto startup with good funding, founders and funders with a solid track record, and they seem to have managed to get some marketplace traction.  The technologies they use seem pretty solid, and they make the right noises about process, near as I can see from the outside.  I’ve spoken to the founders in the past, and they seemed like good guys.  I don’t know any of their staff well enough to really comment, but at a distance, they seem like they’ve managed to hire a pretty good team.  Ultimately, it seems like a good place to work in a company that may well “go places.”

Things to Investigate / Ask
What’s their QA team look like now?  What’s the size and composition of the team that you’d be joining?  What kind of testing approaches and technologies are currently in place?  What’s the culture of developer testing like at Rypple?  What’s “competitive salary” mean, and what’s the rest of their compensation package like?

Are they profitable?  If not, what’s the burn rate like, and how long does their funding take them?  What’s the plan for profitability?  If they’re currently profitable, how long have they been so, and do they plan to stay that way, or to do more R&D than their profit can sustain?  These are pretty normal questions to ask a startup, as far as I’m concerned.

YMMV
I’ve talked to a couple people who interviewed there within the last couple of years, and they felt it was a pretty tough interview.  Depending on your view of things, that might be great (“Everyone I work with will have been carefully screened!”) or  bad (“I get nervous in interviews, and they’re going to exacerbate that!”).  I tend to like tough interviews, but your mileage may certainly vary.

Google Web Toolkit is a bit of a pain, from a testing perspective.  It’s very ajaxy, which not all testing tools are good at, and it’s not always amenable to JUnit testing of the internals.  That said, it also means that QA can be more important on a GWT project than some comparable technologies.  Just be prepared for the challenges inherent here.

It’s a startup, so their definition of ‘competitive salary’ may not be yours.  If you expect your mileage to vary here, don’t wait to long to clarify.

The Location
Yonge-and-Eglinton.  There are lots of shops and restaurants nearby, from Yonge to Eglinton, Bayview, Mount Pleasant.  It’s pretty accessible by subway, and not completely insane by car, although the traffic in the area tends to be sluggish, so TTC is probabliy the preference here.  If you live downtown, you might prefer a job downtown, but for most of us, Yonge and Eglinton is a totally reasonable location.

In Summary
If QA’s your thing, then Rypple’s probably a pretty good place to do it.  Do take the opportunity to learn a little more about how they’re doing QA right now, where they are in the startup phases and who you’d be working with.

The Practice Manager, Development reports to the VP, eBusiness and Call Centre and provides leadership in people development and talent management along with technical excellence and innovation to Java, Microsoft and Vignette practice. This manager has a demonstrated track record of working effectively within a shared services environment (matrix model) and is a strong people manager.  The successful candidate will work closely with Delivery Managers & Director PMO & BSA to allocate developers across projects.

The Good
It’s a senior role for a well-known, large company with an $18B market capitalization.  They seem to be doing well enough financially.

The Bad
I’m personally slightly biased against Vignette, having had some awkward experiences in the past.  I’m vaguely surprised they’re still around, although perhaps they’ve made progress since I last used their technology.  That said, it’s not like they’re hiring you to be a vignette programmer.

What’s Missing?
How big are the team(s) you’ll be managing?  What’s the corporate structure — who are you reporting to, working with, and who’s reporting to you?  How exactly are you working with the PMO, Delivery Managers and BSA?  What’s the technology mix really like?  Is it mostly Vignette, heavy on the Microsoft, or a 25% mix of each plus a smattering of others?  What are the challenges facing sun-life and the role you’d be filling?  What’s the compensation for a practice manager at sunlife?  Where’s the office located?

YMMV
This role looks like it’s all management, no tech.  If you’ve got the technical background they’re looking for, this will either be interesting or horrifying on that basis alone.  Some of you might be looking for a less hands-on, more upper-management role, others of you really like to get your hands dirty and you’re not going to get the opportunity to do so in this role, I don’t imagine. Your mileage may vary when it comes to working in insurance.  On the other hand, if you want to be a manager in a big company, you’re somewhat less likely to be cuddling kittens, saving the world, or working on cool technology, so some of you are well-prepared for this already.

The Location

The only office that I know Sun Life does development work in is at Yonge and Front, which is a pretty solid location, easy to access by go train and subway, reasonable selection of food and shopping around, including the St. Lawrence Market and Esplanade.  That said, the position doesn’t specify a location.

In Summary
Seems like managerial role for someone with a background in tech but without the need to be very hands-on.

In this case, I think the sheer volume of open positions is also a strong positive.  Although I doubt the need to hire a lot of people would cause FreshBooks to hire people they don’t really want, it does mean that if you’re one of five worthy candidates, they could hire all of you, instead of just the one they like best, so it’s a good time to be interviewing at FreshBooks.

Disclaimer
Although I’ve found FreshBooks an interesting company for longer than I’ve been doing Toronto Tech Jobs, in the last couple of years, FreshBooks has given me a couple of referral rewards, so you’re welcome to consider my opinion biased.