July 28, 2004
Superheroes
Me and Ian are due to attend a wedding party on Saturday; the dress code is superheroes, and though this may be interpreted loosely it cannot be ignored. Our intention, albeit a fairly panicky, last-minute one, was to be Spy vs. Spy, on the grounds that it wouldn't involve lycra, but it turns out to be a lot harder than expected to construct matching black and white spy outfits. My back-up plan is to have Ian as Dr Manhattan (in suit-wearing press-conference mode) and me as Rorschach, but Ian doesn't seem very keen on that idea. Anyway, time is running out.That aside, today was a truly frightful day. The details aren't important, although I can't forego one venomous mention of the company that I had a telephone interview with on Friday, who finished up ultra-enthusiastic, "must get you in for a face to face interview as soon as possible," had their agent call back right after to say the same thing just to prove they weren't fobbing me off, fell silent, and now have decided they don't want to proceed after all. Thanks so much, motherfuckers.
On the other hand, I've just applied for this, which has to be one of the best job adverts I've seen in ages and ages:
We are currently looking for Senior Developers with proven experience in a 'commercial environment' to join this dynamic and forward thinking IT company.
General Requirements
You should have all of these skills:
- good knowledge of algorithms, data structures, complexity
- experience in multiple programming paradigms (e.g. functional, logic, OO)
- experience of all stages in the software product and project lifecycle
- versed in several (>3) programming languages
- good Unix *and* Windows (and other platforms) skills
Other areas of experience are likely to include:
- web application development
- databases / SQL
- XML, XSL, XML Schema
- web services
- mobile devices, J2ME, Symbian
- concurrency theory, process calculi
- type systems
- virtual machine and compiler implementation
- O/S implementation
- distributed systems, messaging, transactions
- UI design
- sys admin skills
- IT security
- IDEs
- Java, J2EE
- .Net, C#, VC++, COM
- scripting languages
- UML
- test-driven development, RAD
Other characteristics we are expecting of applicants:
- you take responsibility seriously
- you are considered to be opinionated about at least one tech issue
- you are sometimes observed to be laughing without good reason
- you're not the kind of person that will reply complaining about how unrealistic this job spec is
I think I might even stand a fair chance of getting this; of course, it will probably turn out to be working for a truly evil company based in some utterly godforsaken place four hours commute from here, but at least the advert is appealing. That's a start.
Posted by matt at July 28, 2004 08:55 PM
