Some Job Openings

Fri Jan 9 17:49:33 PST 2004

Job openings should go to baylisa-jobs, but I want to go on at some
length about this situation because it's a little different and so I didn't
want to violate the baylisa-jobs charter.  Since almost anything goes on
this list, I figured I'd mention it here.

So first, a summary:
fi.com, the company for which I work, has three IT positions open.  They
are:
Trading Technology Support Analyst,
http://recruit.fi.com/candidates/default.cfm?szCategory=jobprofile&szOrderID=204

Software Engineer 1,
http://recruit.fi.com/candidates/default.cfm?szCategory=jobprofile&szOrderID=208

And a third one that's probably fairly similar to the SE1 position but
hasn't been posted yet.  In general, the difference between the two SE
positions is that one is focused on support of our CRM application, Onyx,
and as such ideally would involve someone who knows a bunch about sprocs
and SQL (the M$ kind, unfortunately) and, ideally about Onyx; the other
would be focused on support of our automated document management systems
and would ideally have lots of knowledge of Cardiff, fileNet, and document
management in general.  Oh, and have some Python || VB || sproc knowledge.

Why am I mentioning this here? Well, partially because if I refer someone
to here (and they don't end up reporting to me -- we're not clear who these
people will report to yet) I get some money out of the deal. 

Partially, it's because I know there are lots of people in our industry who
are looking for jobs.  At the same time, I didn't just want to drop a "here
are the job descs, mention me as a reference" email to the baylisa-jobs
list because this company is sufficiently different, in both good and bad
terms, that I thought it'd only be fair to disclose more fully what kind of
environment you'd be stepping into.  With that said, and keeping in mind
I'm going to try to avoid saying anything I wouldn't be willing to say to
my CIO's face, here's the good, the bad, and the ugly:

Bad:
	The company is about two miles south of 92 on 35.  This means that you
*WILL* drive to work.  There's no public transportation.  And there's
pretty much one and only one way to get here (at least the last four
crucial miles).  
	We're high up on the hills, which means we often get fog and rain
	Because we're about six miles from the closest place that sells food
(modulo vending machines), you're either going to bring your own or go in
on one of 2-3 lunch runs daily.  There's not a lot of "going out for an
hour and a half to some restaurant with the coworkers going on" (especially
given the relatively low grade of these positions).
	Management, in general, has never worked elsewhere and is prone to
occasional amazing bouts of ... well, behavior that leads me to wonder what
cave they grew up in.  But IT is an important exception to that -- see
below.
	The company, IMHO, doesn't all that much appreciate its employees, 
doesn't treat its employees well, doesn't trust its employees to any
significant degree (I'm a senior software developer reporting directly to
the CIO.  I don't have remote access.  At 8pm nightly, my ability to do anything on
our network is interrupted until 6am the next morning.  And the access
I've gotten in the six months I've been here has been UNPRECEDENTED.  I'm
*ahead* of the curve).  Despite the CEO's words that we're somehow all in
this together, you're likely never going to forget that he owns the company
and you're disposable.  Again, IT is a huge and very important exception to
that -- see below.
	We're Windows-only, for now.  There are, actually, two UNIX back-end
sytstems used for email, but the number of people allowed on them is
measured ... well, it's a two-digit number.  A binary two-digit number :).  
	Assume there's no telecommuting or flexibility when it comes to comp
days.
	Mandatory overtime -- hourly employees (and these guys are almost
certainly going to be hourly) work 50 hours a week.  Yes, you obviously get
paid overtime for these 10 hours, though since it's a fixed number, they
pretty much just work back from what annual salary they want to pay you, so
it's not all that impressive (Did I mention the company's regard for its
employees?).  
	This company is not all that fond of paying high salaries.  As an
example, the CEO likes to mention that he makes $250K a year.  I, by the
way, make a lot less.  Forgive me, that should be spelled "A LOT."  Oh, the
CFO? His wife.  The president? An old high-school friend of his.
	Vacation is weird -- the official word is that you don't get paid
vacation for the first year.  What happens is that you get two weeks of
vacation to use after every year you work there -- so if you leave after
364 days, you'll have gotten no vacation.  If you leave after 365 days,
you'll have gotten two weeks of vacation.  Oh, and there's no accumulation
of vacation time.  Oh, and you get two weeks of vacation per year.  Worked
here a year? You get two weeks of vacation per year.  Worked here for five
years? Well, it's two weeks of vacation per year.  Worked here for ten? ...
You see where this is going.

Good:
	Parking is easy, free, and plentiful
	It's never all that hot up here
	The weather never gets all that hot
	The view is breathtaking.
	The IT group here is, frankly, the most functional and pleasant group
I've ever worked in.  It's a very small group -- Aside from the Helpdesk
and Infrastructure people, there are only twelve of us, and the longest
reporting chain to the CIO is two levels deep (everyone either reports to
the CIO or reports to someone who reports to the CIO).
	Our CIO is amazing.  He's the single biggest reason why IT here is
nothing like the rest of the company.  He's relatively young, though with
significant experience in financial IT.  Huge open source fanatic (would
love nothing more than replace every single desktop we have with a Linux
box); still very technical, though he's managing to balance the management
part with the coding he's doing; mostly development-focused.  
	While our basic infrastructure is currently Windows-only, that's
currently under review, and it doesn't mean we're trying to be an M$-only
shop.  Our choice for programming language is Python; our web servers are
Zope, fronted by Apache.  The internal issue tracking system we're
deploying is RoundUP.  We *heart* open-source.  The highlight of my CIO's
year, probably, was his attendance at the OSCon.  
	More reasons why he's great to work for (directly or indirectly):  He's
one of the two best managers I've worked for (and I've worked for a whole
bunch of them).  Never loses his cool, always manages to deliver feedback
in a constructive way, great sense of humor, a really wonderful nurturing
guy.  He's the reason why a bunch of us are here, and the reason why IT is
quite unlike the rest of the company.  If he left, it's likely a bunch of
us would leave also.  Thankfully, he's been very successful here -- he's
got incredible cachet.  
	The company is INCREDIBLY healthy.  We've never had a negative growth
year, despite being tied to the market and the last three years being what
they've been.  We've grown 25% this year, and the last official
publicly-disclosable figure for our AUM is $17B.  We're unique and do
something that, IIRC, nobody else does.  And, to the best of my knowledge,
that's done without Enron-class accounting :)
	The people who work in IT here are some of the most cooperative,
pleasant people I've worked with.  There are 2-3 people who are a bit, uhh,
gruff, but in general everyone's a sweetheart to work with.
	The hours are -- for some definition of the word -- really quite
reasonable.  Coming here from Macromedia where I could count on at least
one weekend interruption has been a change.  You come in at some time (for
the trading support person, that's an obscenely early time; of course, I
still think of 8am as obscenely early, but that's a different issue).
You're going to leave at about that time+10 hours.  You're not going to
stay late, unless you for some reason want to (and you can't stay *that*
late -- most people's net access expires at 8pm).  You're not going to get
called at home, or on the weekend.  It's not one of those "sacrifice your
life for the job" places.  

There you go.  I cannot say enough good things about IT, but at the same
time, there's no denying that IT works within an organization that I find
... distasteful.  To whatever degree he can, our CIO protects us and makes
this a pleasant tropical island in the middle of an ocean of depravity
(give me a break, I'm not a writer), but when it comes to some company
stuff (e.g. benefits), obviously he doesn't have all that much power.

So ... there you go.  If this sounds ambiguous, that's intentional.  If it
sounds like this place might be good for you, go ahead and apply, let me
know you've done it, and mention my name in your application.  If you have
any questions, let me know.  If you think this has been a waste of list
bandwidth, my apologies.

-roy 