Garner: Sr. Software Developer

Garner (website, linkedin) is looking for a Sr. Software Developer:

You are proficient in at least Java, JavaScript and SQL. You have several years of experience developing server side business logic and web-based GUI components. You are familiar with Agile planning and XP engineering practices, especially TDD, refactoring, mock objects, pair programming and continuous integration. You have a mastery of design principles and the object-oriented paradigm of software development. You know the basics of shell scripting, jQuery, AJAX, HTML, CSS and HTTP.

You are curious and always striving to get better at your profession. You know that you will work in a totally different way 10 years from now and you are not scared by it. You like to experiment with new languages, tools, and libraries, applying your new knowledge to your everyday work.

Garner makes a platform called exdocs, and they used to direct people to exdocs.com; you’ll still find links pointing there. The new Garner website is still relatively young, I gather, so it’s a little lean on content, but it’s not hard to find out more about their product and company with a web search. You’ll even turn up ancilliary sites like specializedbid.com and their old exdocs.com site (which redirects now to the Garner site).

The Good
First and foremost, this is a posting written by (or at least heavily influenced by) someone who understands technology and what developers care about. It’s written with care, and this makes it stand out over the vast majority of job postings.

As a result of that, you can get a much stronger vibe for their development culture than you can for most postings on areas like software quality and agility. The passion for software comes through. I like that the posting mentions technologies but isn’t pedantic about them.

This posting was given to me directly, rather than something I found on my own, by someone who I’ve known for a while. He’s looking for strong candidates and I hope that my posting this will help him find them. If we’re lucky, he’ll be able to respond to some of my points here to help clarify anything.

Garner’s industry focus on Oil, Gas, Mining and Pipelines mean that their market is an important one in Canada and one that has been doing pretty well over the last few years. Some of their older pages talk more generally about logistics, freight, land management and other sectors, so I suspect these growth sectors are becoming (or have become) their primary focus.

I’ve been curious about Continuous Delivery techniques for a while, but haven’t had much experience with them. I don’t get a strong sense from the posting of what they’re doing with continuous delivery, but the fact that it  gets mentioned at all is appealing to me.

The Location
Their Toronto office is near Queen and Spadina. It’s a nice area, and not terribly difficult to get to by TTC, GO or road vehicles. Lots of tech companies there, so many of their potential candidates will already be working in the area — if that’s you, then getting yourself into their office for an interview should be pretty easy.

Basically, this is one of the more common areas for tech work, and you probably already know the tradeoffs of this area well enough that I needn’t bother speculating on your behalf.

What’s Missing
Garner is privately held, so I don’t know much about how the business is doing, growth, finances.

The redirection of the website and refocusing on growth industries seem like normal business changes, but it’s hard to really assess those kinds of changes from the outside — you’d have to be really immersed in the company to understand the impact. Is this a recent and significant change or just gradual business evolution. Are people inside the company happy with these changes?

What’s the size and composition of the team? What would you be working on? What’s the compensation like?

What are they doing with continuous delivery?

How do they manage the mix of user experience design and agile approaches?

YMMV
Your mileage may vary when it comes to working on a platform for capital projects in the oil, gas, mining and pipelines sectors. It won’t be everyone’s perfect job. If you’re looking for a consumer-focused startup, this isn’t it.

I know people who’d never take another Java job at this point. Even for many dedicated Java developers, the bloom is off the rose. The technologies they talk about sound like solid ones, but you might not be hyper-excited about the technologies themselves.

In Summary
If you’re experienced with Java and the Web and you’re looking for a new position, I’d guess this is likely to be interesting.

UPDATES
I’ve made some minor edits based on minor changes since I started writing, or things that I learned after posting. I don’t think they affect the content in a way that’s worth describing in detail.

Canada Protection Plan: Software Developer

Canada Protection Plan is looking for a software developer.

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.

Sun Life: Practice Manager, Development

Sun Life is looking for a Practice Manager, Development:

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.

FreshBooks: TeamLead, Developers, QA, Designer, etc.

FreshBooks is hiring a boatload of positions including two enterprise developers, five software developers, a QA analyst, senior designer, web developer and more.  I’ve talked about the pros and cons of working at FreshBooks lots of times, so if you’re a new reader, do feel free to read over some of my past postings.

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.

FreshBooks: Enterprise Developer & Bounty

First of all, congratulations to FreshBooks on another successful hire via Toronto Tech Jobs; I’m happy it worked out.

Secondly, I’m also happy that FreshBooks is again offering me the referral fee, and as I’ve said before, my current stance is that it’s ok for me to take them as long as I’m pretty clear on the fact that I’m doing so.  If anyone wants to start a dialogue on the subject, now’s your chance, I’m listening.

And, co-incidentally, I saw another FreshBooks job posting go by today, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and take a quick look at the posting.

FreshBooks is looking for an Enterprise Software Developer:

If building out super-reliable, high-performance applications in a disciplined, agile manner is what you love, drop us a line and let’s see if there’s a fit.

We NEED you to have:

* 5 years’ experience building enterprise-class applications
* 3 years’ experience working with ORMs and DAOs
* A demonstrable passion for unit testing, continuous integration and code coverage
* Communication skills like whoa

The Good
The usual for FreshBooks.  I like the company, they’ve got a good product, a clear profit model, a sizeable customer base who is generally pretty happy, an interesting company culture and some good people, some of whom I’ve been fortunate enough to help find homes there.  They’re a real product company with real customers, not a banking business, marketing company or insurance agency, which already sets them apart from a lot of the jobs in Toronto.  It’s a product that you can run out and try before you even interview, get a sense for what they do — that’s a great way to get a sense for whether or not it’s something you could be interested in building.  Some of the technologies they’re using appeal to me.

The Bad
Some of the technologies they’re using don’t immediately appeal to me.  Their largest codebase, last I heard, was PHP, and while I respect the fact that PHP powers much of the web (anyone heard of LAMP?), it’s not a language that makes me perk my ears up out of excitement.  I’m told that there are some challenges in the codebase, although I also believe that they’re on the path to something that I’d be happier with, and that they seem to know where they’re headed and why.  I don’t want to say too much more on the subject because I don’t know the extent to which the conversations I’ve had were in confidence.  For some of you, the location will be the strongest detractor, but i’ll come back to that.

What’s Missing
What’s the compensation like at FreshBooks for an Enterprise Software Developer?  Why the relatively new ‘enterprise’ tone in the posting?  What technologies will you be working with?  What’s the size and composition of the team, and where would you fit into that?  Do the languages and tools in use at FreshBooks really support refactoring in anything but the most basic of forms?

YMMV
Your mileage may well vary when it comes to the technologies, but you’d definitely want to get the full story from them on what they’re using before making too many assumptions; it might appeal more than you think.  And my mileage definitely varies when it comes to the location.

The Location
Their location is off the beaten path for transit users up at Dufferin and Glencairn.  It’s about a 15 or 20 minute walk from Glencairn station, or you can take the Dufferin Bus up from Bloor.  If you’re coming in off the 401, it’s probably pretty reasonable, and there’s a fair number of food options in the area if you have a car.  The options are somewhat less exciting on foot, but there’s still food options and shopping around.  For some, this location is normal, possibly even better than some because you don’t have to fight your way to the core.  On the other hand, if you’re out in Pickering and you like to take the Go train, this is probably not something you’d even consider.  For me, the location takes just long enough to get to from my house that it would be a constant, if minor, irritation.  So in this case, your mileage really will vary.

Disclosure
And, in case you missed the first paragraph and any previous posts on the subject, you should know that FreshBooks has twice offered me a bounty for referrals, which I’ve accepted.  I don’t think that unduly biases me towards the company, but it’s important that I be clear about it.

In Summary
If FreshBooks sounds like your kind of company, and you’ve got a background in enterprise software development, there may be a good match here.

Fuel Industries: Server Programmer (Ottawa)

Fuel Industries is looking for a Server Programmer in Ottawa:

We are looking for someone who is well versed in both Windows (ASP.NET, C#) and Linux (PHP) development environments. A better than basic understanding of the various OS platforms, web servers and networks is required as well.

You will be involved in all aspects of the business from project briefs, risk assessments, setting milestones, assessing resourcing requirements through to sign-off and delivery. This will involve building trusted and respectful relationships across the company. All this while providing continuous up to date commentary and forecasts to all levels of the business.

It looks to me like Fuel Industries is a cross between an advertising agency and a game company (advergaming? gamevertising?), using games to build branding for companies and/or products.  Scott Hunter from Fuel Industries contacted me directly to say they were having trouble finding good people and suggested I take a look at their posting.  I’d just about finished with the writeup when it finally clicked that this was in Ottawa; for some reason I’d deluded myself into thinkin that Fuel Industries /also/ had a Toronto office.  As a result, most of you have already stopped reading.

The Good
It’s not banking or insurance, so it’s already slightly more interesting than your average tech job in Toronto.  Social/casual games and facebook integration seem to be big for them and it’s definitely a growth segment, so even if you don’t end up feeling like Fuel Industries is your long-term home, this might be a good company at which to hone your social gaming skills that you’ll use to launch the next Zynga.   It also sounds like some of their projects may have significant scale-out, which is a good skillset to pick up if you don’t already have it.  Also, if Fuel Industries is having trouble finding good people, and you’re “Good People (TM)” then presumably you’ve got a good shot.

It sounds like it’s a small enough place that it’s all about getting things done and less about heavy formal processes and “but that’s Steve’s job”.  I count that as good, although some people are more comfortable with the latter.

It looks like Scott’s got a passing interest in JVM languages, and you could learn a little bit about him since I imagine you’d be working with him.  He seems sane.  Fuel Industries also has a helpful list of twitter users that you could use to learn more about your potential co-workers, and it also implies they know a little about social media, which should be in their wheelhouse.  Heck, they even have a Wikipedia entry.

The Bad
It’s basically advertising.  I’ll touch on that again in YMMV, but I know a lot of people who’d be happy for me to place that directly in the ‘bad’ category.  Then again, if you can find a well-paid job in Toronto curing cancer with your favorite programming language, you wouldn’t be reading this, right?

They mention a wide array of languages, some of which you might not have.  It sounds like they do a lot of PHP, which is not surprising for a company with tie-ins to Facebook, although I don’t know that many people that really love working in PHP, despite the fact that a lot of serious internet companies are powered by it.

What’s Missing
How many people are there?  What’s the size and composition of the team you’d be on?  Who would you be working with?  What kinds of projects will you be working on?  What’s the mix of technologies likely to be in practice, and how hung up are they on you having experience with all or most of their stated platforms?  What’s the compensation like?  Would you be doing any mobile work?

The Location
It’s a little farther out than most of the jobs I post.  It’s in Ottawa.  :)  I won’t claim to know anything about the area.

YMMV
Your mileage will definitely vary if you want to commute to Ottawa.  If you’re willing to consider relocation, you’d need to understand how they’d support that kind of a move.

Not everyone wants to work in what amounts to advertising, even if it’s building games.  Your mileage may vary as to what Fuel Industries does, so if that’s a concern for you, then you might want to look over their portfolio in detail and talk to the company about the sorts of work they do, and where you’d fit into that.  Then again, that’s a good idea for any company at which you’re considering applying for a position.

This sort of work is often a good environment for trying new technology, as the projects you’re working on may be short-lived.  It’s less likely to be the kind of place where you build a massive code-base that you have to support for five years.  This may be good or bad depending on your point of view.

In Summary
If you’ve got the skills you’re looking for, the location isn’t totally out of the question, and you’d like something a little fast paced, and/or to get into gaming and facebook integration, then this might be a good fit.  Submit your resume to fuel industries via their website or get in touch with Scott Hunter.

CPNI: Manager of Software Development

CPNI is looking for a Manager of Software Development:

We are seeking top candidates for the position of a hands-on Agile Software Manager to Lead and Mentor a Team of Java Software Developers. The position is of prime importance to the company; the selected candidate will be responsible for development of new products or extensions of existing products. The Manager of Software Development will receive specifications from the Product Management Team and translate them into software fully and thoroughly QA tested and delivered to the Operations Team.

This might be a replacement to this earlier role that CPNI posted.

The Good
A friend interviewed there once, suggested that the people he spoke to seemed intelligent, that the interview process at least was thorough and seemed solid.  They seem to be agile, which I find appealing.  Their technology stack sounds like it has some reasonable points, although there’s not a lot of detail there.  There also seems to be some mobile work, even though it’s J2ME.  Mobile payments is certainly a space that people continue to believe will grow, although it still hasn’t gathered a lot of traction in North America.

Rumors
A source implied that he/she couldn’t come to terms on payment with CPNI, so their pay scale might not be the best in Toronto.  Then again, this is a pretty senior role, so it might be better-compensated.  A recent commenter suggested that he/she would rather have ebola than work for CPNI again.  There’s not a lot of information in that comment and I’m pretty sure it’s hyperbole, so it’s hard to read much into it, but it’s a pretty passionate statement.  In response to that comment, someone I know contacted me directly to suggest that that comment is ‘unfair’.  While he/she didn’t provide much additional detail, “definitely better than ebola” was made clear.

The Bad
As far as mobile work goes, J2ME is increasingly not seen as the area of expansion, with Android and iPhone capturing a lot of attention.   I’m personally not fond of using EJB, although if it’s EJB 3.x, I might consider it tolerable.

What’s Missing
What’s their approach to agile?  What are they using for web services?  What’s the compensation like at CPNI?  What’s the size and composition of the team?  How is CPNI doing in the mobile payment marketplace, and what are the challenges they and their products currently face?  Why are they looking for another dev manager already?

YMMV
Your mileage may vary when it comes to Fitnesse; it was de rigeur in agile shops for a while, but it’s never really excited me.  Then again, a company that takes testing seriously is always a good thing.  And then, your mileage will vary if you need to drive out to …

The Location
CPNI’s out at 427 and Burnhamthorpe, which is not a particularly exciting neighbourhood.  If you’re already in the west end of the subway line, the transit route might not be that much worse than downtown, and if you’re west and used to driving, it might be fine, but for most of the rest of the city, it’s pretty far west.  I commuted from the east end to an office north of there for a few months for a contract, and I can’t say that I’d be anxious to do it again, all other things being equal.

In Summary
This is a fairly senior role for a company that claims to be operating in an agile way.  If you want to be in a management position at an agile shop, and the location doesn’t throw you, then this would probably be worth a look.  Try to coax additional information out of past employees who might give you a better sense for some of the rumors above.

Reconsidering Direct Leap

I’ve mentioned Direct Leap before, as some of you will remember.  Recently, Simon Rowland of Direct Leap has posted to the comment threads in previous posts and sent me a few emails to try and share his side of the story, and I’ve been doing some re-examination of what I know, what others have said, and what I’ve said, and it seems worth trying again to be as clear as I can.  It’s hard to be really clear in this scenario, because I don’t know much and what I’ve heard is both suspect and confidential.

What I Know
Nothing.  I haven’t worked with Direct Leap or Simon personally.  I’ve heard several stories from both sides now, and I don’t have anywhere near enough evidence to form an opinion, let alone suggest that the matter is clear.

What I’ve Heard
I have heard a caution from more than one source that claims to have had dealings with Direct Leap that didn’t go well.  Each of these sources has talked to me claiming that they hope I can protect others from going through the same.  It’s motivated by that desire that I’ve been moved to talk about a subject about which I know nothing.

Simon Rowlands, acting on behalf of Direct Leap, argues, as you might expect, that these sources aren’t to be trusted and may be suspect in motive.  Perhaps more interestingly, I’ve also heard from another unrelated source that it’s not black and white and that there’s enough blame to go around, and that potential sources might also have axes to grind.

What I’ve Said
Mostly, I’ve just tried to communicate that I’ve heard some things that give me pause, and that if you’re considering working with Direct Leap, you should do your research.  I’ve used a lot more words than that, but I hope that’s what it comes down to.

Bias
It’s true that everyone in this mess is probably biased in some way, the more so the more directly they’re connected.  Even though I’m not connected in any tangible way, I’m trying to err on the side of the candidate, since that’s really why I’m talking about Tech Jobs in Toronto.  That is itself a bias, though, and one that factors into my willingness to say anything at all, but also something to bear in mind when considering Direct Leap.

What Does That All Mean?
Not a lot.  This is the breakdown, as I see it:

• I’ve heard some negative things thrown towards Direct Leap and towards people who once worked for direct leap in some way.
• I don’t have any evidence or first-hand knowledge with which to confirm or deny the things I’ve heard.
• Business relationships can be complicated and messy, particularly when things go wrong.
• Most of the people involved in this discussion has a bias and an agenda, even if they don’t mean to.

What am I not suggesting?

• That I recommended that anyone should definitely work for, or not work for, Direct Leap.
• That Direct Leap is a good or bad employer.

What am I suggesting?

• Anyone considering working for Direct Leap should try and do research before getting too involved.
• Talk to your friends, put out feelers and find out what you can.
• Talk to the company, talk to past employees and contractors, if you can find them.
• Frankly, that’s the same advice I’d give you about any company you’re considering working for.

I’m not sure I can be any more clear than that.  As always, I’m happy for Friends and Foes of Direct Leap to get their words in edgewise below, because my opinion, even when I don’t have one, is not the only word in the subject.  Similarly, if you have a question that I can answer, I’ll give it a crack.

I’m also going to go back over what I’d written previously and make sure I haven’t erred to much in one direction or another, but I consider this to be the most complete statement on the subject anyway.

Tucows: Sr. Ruby Engineer

Tucows is looking for a Sr. Ruby Engineer:

Work as part of a small Agile team (2-3 developers) to deliver and improve RoR/AJAX/DHTML/Javascript based systems and interfaces that help us meet our business objectives and support an excellent customer experience.

The Good
Tucows is a pretty well-known company, and you can get a glimpse into their finances (they seem to be doing well enough).  They imply they’re small enough that you can make an impact:

We’re a small team with a big mission. Come prepared to hit above your weight.
We believe in taking the time to do it properly while working in a real-time environment. Launch, learn and iterate is favored over taking too long to find the perfect answer.

There are also not a ton of Ruby jobs in this town, so if you’re really into Ruby, there’s no point in leaving stones unturned.

You can also get a little view into Tucows from reading Joey DeVilla’s blog (or go talk to him at one of the many events he attends in town).

What’s Missing?
A fair amount.  What exactly would you be working on?  What are tucows online retail services applications?  What are the other team members like, and what’s their experience with Ruby on Rails?  What’s the compensation like?  Is this at the 96 Mowat location?   What’s the office and work environment like?  What are the challenging problems you’d solve in Tucows retail services applications?  Is it likely that you’ll be proud describing retail services applications, as they suggest?  How do they empower the developers to be creative?

There’s a lot of information in the posting, but most of it just raises more questions for me.

YMMV
My mileage would definitely vary with this location; that won’t be true for everyone.  It’s not bad if you can get on the gardiner or the lakeshore without too much effort, but there’ll still be days when traffic is evil, and there isn’t really free parking in the area.

The Location
Probably in the King/Dufferin area:

View Larger Map

Parkdale has its moments, there’s some good food around, but if you’re not somewhere in the area already, it’s pretty far west for a TTC commute.

In Summary
If you’re interested in doing Ruby on Rails, it’s probably worth talking to Tucows about this position.   Otherwise, I’m not sure there’s enough of the right kind of information to really draw me in.

CTVglobemedia / The Globe and Mail: Systems Integrator

CTVglobemedia is looking for a Systems Integrator for The Globe and Mail (TGAM):

• Analyze business and technical requirements with Partners who want to build or enhance web and data integration solutions;
• Engage Developers, Data Analysts, and QA to build, modify, install, deploy and manage components of data and web solutions using a variety of technologies including HTML, XML, JSP, and possibly Java and Oracle as appropriate;
• Maintain integrity of interface definitions (API’s) between the Globe and Mail and Partners.
• Monitor implementations where Partner sites have integrated Globe content for reliability, integrity, and performance;
• Represent Partners within Globe QA and change control notification processes;
• Provide first or second level support of Partner solutions in conjunction with Customer Support Representatives.
• Identify opportunities whereby the Globe and Mail can leverage common development to the benefit of Integrated Solution Partners and Globe public sites such as reportonbusiness.com.

The Good
The Globe and Mail is a well-respected newspaper, and some of their staff (e.g. Mathew Ingram) are clearly in tune with the kinds of technologies cultures they’re going to need to survive the turmoil of the newspaper industry.  Integration is increasingly a part of many enterprise applications, and that’s true in the media world as well, so this could be a good opportunity to make a real impact at The Globe if they’re serious about integration.

The Bad
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ve heard the newspaper industry isn’t in great shape, and television looks like it’s going through some challenges as well.  This may not be the best of times at CTVglobemedia.  And, despite some of their more recent digital features, I’m not sure the Globe is well-known for it’s APIs.  The technologies they describe are pretty basic; that could be good or bad depending on your viewpoint.

What’s Missing?
What kinds of integration is The Globe doing right now?  It sounds like at least some of it will be financial/securities, although it’s not clear if that’ll be most or all of it. How does it expect to continue to expand the integrations it offers and consumes?  Does your role offer a chance to have an impact on that?  Would you be the first of your kind, or part of a larger team?  What approaches and technologies are they using for integration right now?  How is this role likely to expand within The Globe?  What does The Globe pay for a Systems Integrator?

YMMV
Your mileage may certainly vary when it comes to working in media, and particularly the newspaper industry.

The Location
Unclear.  Could be Queen & John, which is a great building, a fun area, and pretty easy to get to; could be front and spadina, not a bad area, easy to reach by vehicle and not totally off-the-grid for transit riders.  Could be something else entirely.

In Summary
If you’ve got a background in integration, this might be an interesting opportunity to focus on it in a challenging industry.