blacklab is hiring

[blacklab]

stuff is moving forward and we're going to have some money soon and we're going to start hiring. we are looking for:

Senior Programmer - 5+ years experience coding. We do perl, php, flash, javascript.

Junior Programmers - looking for 2-4 junior guys. Young, eager, ready to learn. Would like to find guys about to graduate that would like to work part time and grow into full time.

IT - we need someone to manage our servers and technology. FreeBSD, mysql cluster, apache, experience preferred.

GIS - help us make our maps better. experience in arc gis, kml, google maps, tile stream preferred.

Sales - inside and outside sales reps. Prefer oil/gas/energy experience.

send resumes with expected salary range to bob at drillmap.com

[Heel06]

Do you need any overpaid yes-men?

[RexWilson]

Will reading Shaggy at work be allowed?

[housious]

Do you drug test your employees?

[Mr. Peabody]

Chad Briscoe would make a fine Senior Programmer. You can send the headhunter fees to me.

[the_ruby_man]

Did you guys get some funding?

[Luke Duke]

Would I be working on Eddie Money's website?

[tx 3 putt]

Would I be working on Eddie Money's website?

i want in on this assignment. show up, take a nap, lunch, take a nap, time to go home !

[blacklab]

Do you need any overpaid yes-men?

no

Will reading Shaggy at work be allowed?

yes

Do you drug test your employees?

no

Chad Briscoe would make a fine Senior Programmer. You can send the headhunter fees to me.

no thank you

Did you guys get some funding?

We're about to. We also have several big deals in the pipe.

Would I be working on Eddie Money's website?

no

[Heel06]

No yes-men? Surely you need a couple of cronies, or at minimum a goon.

[GSU&UT]

I did 3 semesters in undergrad of computer science before switching over completely to Bio instead of double majoring. Can you take 10 hours a week out of your schedule to train me to do object oriented programming again, completely paid training of course, and then bring me on at over 60k a year?

[Ruffian]

Will you hire someone to fix chat?

[ndawg]

You had me at senior programmer and lost me at php/perl/flash.

[Heel06]

I actually do have a good bit of experience in programming, but it's the brainwashing kind.

[blacklab]

You had me at senior programmer and lost me at php/perl/flash.

We have contemplated a move to java. I know one of the candidates I'm looking at wants to go there.

[ndawg]

We have contemplated a move to java. I know one of the candidates I'm looking at wants to go there.

Having played the role of startup CTO several times now, I have found that it's actually best to find your talent first and pick your platform second.

But, yeah, php and perl suck for actual engineering.

[Michael Knight]

Are you looking for someone with no qualifications and zero experience?

[Used2b]

Do you need a lobbyist?

[5280]

i manufacture and sell internets


what salary range can you afford?

[blacklab]

Having played the role of startup CTO several times now, I have found that it's actually best to find your talent first and pick your platform second.

But, yeah, php and perl suck for actual engineering.

it really depends what you're doing. For scraping data off of websites I don't think perl can be beat.

[ndawg]

it really depends what you're doing. For scraping data off of websites I don't think perl can be beat.

Yeah, perl is very practial for extracting and translating textual data. About it, though.

[the_ruby_man]

Congrats on the funding.

[phdhorn]

I'd like to head up the FORTRAN Punch Card Division. That 360/90 is a beast and takes just the right guy to deliver. That's me.

[Luke Duke]

Would I be toy's boss?

[immamac]

Yeah, perl is very practial for extracting and translating textual data. About it, though.

http://perldancer.org/

some people seem to disagree.

[SPII]

I'd like to head up the FORTRAN Punch Card Division. That 360/90 is a beast and takes just the right guy to deliver. That's me.

nice. if you need a COBOL guy, just holla!!!!

[MP5]

Is a fully stocked wank room part of the office perks?

[Brock Rockswell]

Let me know when you need actual petroleum engineers.

[pantone159]

You had me at senior programmer and lost me at php/perl/flash.

Ha ha, same thoughts from me. Good luck though.

I can't argue that perl is very *useful*, but I do hate it personally.

[5280]

signing bonus???

[beer]

pro tip: put this somewhere in your resume

[GeorgeXPD8]

if i get fired, do i get banned from the shag?

[ndawg]

http://perldancer.org/

some people seem to disagree.

Meh, looks like a sinatra clone. Call me when perl implements and builds a stable community around Gerkin based acceptance testing, MVC design, and a modern ORM.

[OklahomaHorn60]

I'm assuming you'll pay my moving costs and set me up down there.

[CaptainEd]

Meh, looks like a sinatra clone. Call me when perl implements and builds a stable community around Gerkin based acceptance testing, MVC design, and a modern ORM.

what does this have to do with little pickles?

[Durant Durant]

are you guys just building websites for your clients? do you need help with online marketing?! specifically SEO/SEM. UPSELL BABY!

[ndawg]

what does this have to do with little pickles?

Lulz. Sarcasm aside, immamac is correct that perl can do some cool $#@! and I'm being a pedantic elitist.

[MissingInAction]

Id be interested in Sales bob. Ill kick you my resume this weekend.

[King Neptune]

If I can fart in a jar and sell it. Does that meet the oil/gas/energy experience requirement?

[DFWBear]

We have contemplated a move to java. I know one of the candidates I'm looking at wants to go there.

PM sent

[BatesHorn]

Do you need a lobbyist?

This would be my question.

I'm also available for lickspittle, hanger on, posse member, and/or gad fly.

[Rimbo]

We have contemplated a move to java. I know one of the candidates I'm looking at wants to go there.

Only if you want the site to be a complete cluster$#@!... :)

(I am generally language-agnostic as a programmer, but I've never seen Java wasn't a nightmare to deal with.)

[Rimbo]

Having played the role of startup CTO several times now, I have found that it's actually best to find your talent first and pick your platform second.

This is very, very true.

But, yeah, php and perl suck for actual engineering.

If you have good engineers, it doesn't much matter what language they use; they could make BASIC work well. The problems with Java and Perl largely are what you get when you have to deal with something badly-engineered.

The main problem I have with Java is that its class hierarchies seem to be singularly inflexible, that there's little way to do anything quickly in it. As a result, doing anything in Java ends up being more expensive for what you get than the same work in another language.

[bigup2dahorns]

Let me know when it's time to go public

[The University]

But, yeah, php and perl suck for actual engineering.

wait...what?? $#@! that.

[DFWBear]

If you have good engineers, it doesn't much matter what language they use; they could make BASIC work well. The problems with Java and Perl largely are what you get when you have to deal with something badly-engineered.

The main problem I have with Java is that its class hierarchies seem to be singularly inflexible, that there's little way to do anything quickly in it. As a result, doing anything in Java ends up being more expensive for what you get than the same work in another language.

Great post.

On Java, there's a quote ( attributed to James Gosling, or one of the other Java fore-fathers ) where he stated that if he could change one thing about Java, it would be to remove all that Object Oriented bull$#@!. Gosling himself has stated that he feels it was a mistake to make Class Hierarchies so rigid, and that a proper redesign would have emphasized Interfaces instead of inheritance. Java gets a bad rap in a lot of ways due to its sheer ease of fairly complex development. For every 5 senior dev Java guys I meet, maybe one of those guys will be capable of writing highly quality, clean robust code. The other 4 just know which apache frameworks are currently popular, and how to use the IDE to automagically write their .equals() / .hashCode() methods.

I think this factors in to the "expense" part as well. When one of your five Senior guys is really good, but you're paying all 5 of them roughly equal salaries, expenses build quickly without a lot to show for it.

[DFWBear]

wait...what?? $#@! that.

script kiddie amiright?

[DFWBear]

Only if you want the site to be a complete cluster$#@!... :)

(I am generally language-agnostic as a programmer, but I've never seen Java wasn't a nightmare to deal with.)

As I guy that's done a good amount of Java work, I wish I could say this isn't true, but I can't.

Java is a double edged knife . . . it's hard to do a simple thing, but its easy to do a complex thing. This leads to a large amount of laziness by developers, all experience levels, when it comes to writing robust code, clean code. This is particularly a problem in enterprise work; I can't tell you the number of times I've heard a senior level guy say something like, "I don't know how it works, we use Spring / Hibernate / GlassFish for that".

Well written Java is elegant . . . to go full nerd, I think its beauty is only surpassed by Haskell and C++ meta templates. Again though, when you have some many components that hold your hand, its easy to get lazy.

True story: at my last job, I was working for company whose website ( all Java based ) generates an enormous amount of traffic for its industry. I was sitting at lunch with two architects ( one of which was a UT grad, the other was a Stanford grad ), and they were bemoaning the fact that their performance on the appserver was mediocre. I asked them what their JVM profiling was telling them. They looked at me like I had three heads . . . "Why would we profile the JVM?"

[Rimbo]

The real magic trick is knowing what the best tools for the job are and using them. A good programmer can learn something quickly if he doesn't know it. Using the wrong tool creates more work than it takes to learn a new one.

Which gets back to: "Find your talent first and pick your platform second."

As a corollary, if your talent is insisting on the platform they know outside of its appropriateness for the problem domain, they aren't good enough. And I just don't think Java would be a good fit for ShaggyCode. It's popular because it's what they're teaching in a lot of schools nowadays, but meh.

[The University]

True story: at my last job, I was working for company whose website ( all Java based ) generates an enormous amount of traffic for its industry. I was sitting at lunch with two architects ( one of which was a UT grad, the other was a Stanford grad ), and they were bemoaning the fact that their performance on the appserver was mediocre. I asked them what their JVM profiling was telling them. They looked at me like I had three heads . . . "Why would we profile the JVM?"