Slashdot Mirror
Are There Any Fun Tech Jobs Left?
er0ck asks: "My first job out of college was working for an Internet Startup. They gave me some books and told me to learn Perl. Our office was a refurbished factory, with lots of light and open space. Best of all, we could bring our nerf toys in to work (and use them!). Four months later, the company went under. Several dot bomb jobs later, I work for my state government. Is anyone still having fun at their tech job?" I think that with the economic downturn, more companies are concentrating on survival more than being "fun". Are there any "fun" tech jobs left, or have they all suffered from the Economic Darwinism of the early 21st century?
"[Government work is] steady work, but boring at times. (I don't think they'd approve of the Nerf guns). Without the pressure of staying in business, projects sometimes stagnate, leaving us with little to do. During these slow times, I help behind the scenes at NerfCenter.com; It's a fun site, and they are switching to Perl for their admin backend. It keeps my skills sharp, and wards off the boredom.
My questions to the Slashdot community are:
- Can you have a fun tech job, without the worry of being suddenly unemployed?
- If you are you forced (as I am) to get your fun on the side what are some good projects to get involved in?
- What do you to unwind and have a bit of 'fun' in the workplace?"
Gee, imagine that.
Playing with nerf guns in a converted factory is fun...but is it a job?
My job is as a programmer/admin. I enjoy it and the company receives good value. Pre-1995 this would have been defined as heaven. To you dot-bomb losers it is apparently hell.
324006
She's a fresh-out-of-school programmer, and she's been looking for C/C++/Java work here in Chicago. Three months of firing off resumes in every direction, and she hasn't gotten so much as a single interview.
It seems like nobody is hiring programmers fresh out of school - or not in Chicago, at least!
What's the experience been like for others who have just graduated? Is this something of a fluke, or something more to do with her gender than her experience? (I don't know if I want to believe that in this day and age...) Or does the surplus of available tech workers from the dot-com fallout mean trouble for entry-level programmers?
"Are there any more Fun jobs?!??!!"
Yes, there are. For years people have been loving their jobs because they enjoy what they are paid for. Not for playing around in a sandbox like you are in Grade 1.
And its not only tech people who enjoy their job. Its doctors (excitement/feel like they are helping people), ministers/counsolers (spiritual fullfillment) and even fishermen (enjoy the surroundings/hard-work enjoyment).
I think this guy needs an attiude change/reality-check.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I'd have to say that I have a pretty fun job. I'm the network administrator at a small but growing publishing company in Akron, OH. Fortunately when I graduated 2 years ago, I didn't succumb to the temptations of a .com. My company isn't quite as relaxed about things as a .com was, but we have gym facilities, a lake with tables and umbrellas, a softball team, our fair share of little toys in our cubes, lots of company outings that are actually fun, flextime, etc.. I mean, a job isn't supposed to be fun 24-7. There's stress and some not-so-fun things, but for the most part I really enjoy my job.
Some people take their .sig way too seriously
Being a student at this point, I don't have any absolute need for income. I work with my own company out of my friend's basement. We manage enough income to pay for the power bills. Our current goal is to learn as much as possible about both computers and electronics as well as business that we can have a workable product out the door by the time we finish college. The best part is that by the time we actually expect income off of this we will have made many connections inside the business world and gained enough experience that we will have a better chance of success. Hopefull y the economy will be a bit better in 4 years when we get out of school.
I am !amused.
I ended up working at a bank. Yeah, you'd think it'd be the ultimate suitplace, and I'm not even really sure why I went in for the interview, other than the qualifications were exactly me.
It was one of those fun group interviews, and it started sounding like a fun place to work, but the clincher was when it came time for the other managers to ask me their questions, and the programming manager's question was "Rubber bands: office supply, or weapon?"
I got the job when my answer was "Office supply. I have *Nerf*."
The rest of the bank viewed the MIS department with tolerant amusement, but they weren't quite as stuffy as you'd expect either. (Each department had goofy "Camp" signs. Computer Operations was Camp Kickalottapeopleoff or some such, Foreclosures was Camp Usendadamoneyukeepadahouse, things like that.) They're still in business, though I quit to become a SAHM, after corrupting all their RPG programmers by teaching them Perl.
My husband, on t'other hand, works for A Really Big Airplane Manufacturer Who's Laying A Lot Of People Off Next Year, and it's definitely big-company mentality, even in the various IT departments. You can still be a nonconformist, though; I just bought him some Frigits, which he's using on the metal cube-dividing cabinets, and he came home and reported that he's now "famous."
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
Nope, I just don't get it. Lots of light and a technical job are two terms that just don't mix. Lots of light means reflections on your screen, which leads to increased headaches. Any real techie lives in a darkened room/area. I'm having a constant running battle with others in our office to have the lights kept off at my end of the room.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Instead of lining the pockets of greedy company owners/CEOs, I work for a non-profit organization which is there to support you, rather than hinder your progress. Layoffs? College enrollments are on the rise due to the massive numbers of IT layoffs! Have you ever heard of a college instructor getting laid off? It simply doesn't happen, because of the inverse relationship between IT employment levels and the need for college-level IT instruction.
Plus, I find teaching to be immensely satisfying, both on a personal and spiritual level. What more noble endeavor is there than to help others? I can safely say that I've never felt "personally satisfied" at any consultant gig I've done.
If you're happy following all the other unemployed IT sharks that are being chummed by headhunters with no jobs to offer and companies intent on building their resume files for when the "turnaround" comes, more power to you. If you're looking for something that's not only fun, but honorable, check out your local colleges.
I'd just like to point out two oft-overlooked facts here.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I have a bit to comment on this. I've heard way too many people equate jobs where you get to do whatever you want, with jobs that are fun. Job enjoyability very little to do with a lot of the things tech guys harp about.
;)) makes me feel good.
For me anyway, an funfactor of a job has very little to do with foosbal tables, or nerf guns, or anything like that. A job is enjoyable if I get to do work that's enjoyable. For the past few months, I've been working at an embedded tech company that's somewhat prosperous.
At the beginning of the term, the boss just came over, dropped a couple specification manuals on us (me, co-worker), and told us to implement it. That was cool. No micro-management - we went to him when we had questions or doubts. For starting from scratch, and not knowing the hardware or the codebase, we got a decent amount of work accomplished.
The answer to your question is YES. There are really nice, enjoyable jobs out there. Find a company that's doing interesting work - no, not the next e-business we're going to revolutionize the world with our web-frontend loss-leader 'solution' funded on venture capital and no chance of profit.
It's about the work man. I became a programmer because I love programming, because solving hard problems using logic (I love math too
So what sets you off? compilers? virtual machines? optimization? datbase? graphics? ai? infrastructure? app-coding? embedded systems? low-level?
There's tons of companies out there doing interesing stuff, that need good people to work on interesting problems. So find one and get in.
If you're not into your work, no amount of nerf playing will take away the fact that you don't enjoy your work - it just means you'll get less done, and be dead weight for your company and get fired, or not be fired (which indicates bad management and that the company is headed nowhere fast).
-Laxitive
You wouldn't think that there are any positions like this left.
I'm a webmaster/artist for a medium-sized company in Texas that handles financial data. My duties range from in-company photographer to web design to server administration. I don't make *quite* as much as the developers we employ, but I do make quite a bit more than 'industry standard'. Also, I get to delve into all aspects of my job, unlike the developers who are stuck coding Java 40 hours a week. I've become siginificantly more experienced at photography, and I've increased my art skills. I was strictly an Apache admin before I started, but now, because this is a '31 Flavors' shop, I know as much about IIS as I do about Apache. (And yes, I keep the MS servers patched against things like Code Red and Nimda.)
If you can find a position like this, I highly recommend it.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Working in tech should be fun without screwing around. I work as a *NIX admin because I love working with Solaris and Linux. I like hacking at shell scripts, trying to make windows work with Samba, and finding clever ways to lock my servers down.
If you don't consider the work itself to be fun, you really need to find another line of work.
That said, I just found a job with a small government contractor. We get free food and drinks, shoot huge rubber bands at each other, chill on the patio, etc.. So yes, those jobs still exist.
, I never hear those two words in the same sentence. Unless someone is saying "My job is not fun.
I hear these whiners all the time. I wish they'd shut up and stop whining or get a job the do like. This is America. People are free to find a job that they're happy in (assuming it's legal). If they can't find one, maybe it's not the job that's that problem.
It was actually really nice -- two or three times a day you could play a quick game or two, each time taking maybe five minutes. It was a great way to get away from your desk and get the blood pumping a little bit (nothing like some activity to get the brain working again).
Then our managers decided that we shouldn't play during the work day anymore. It was like night and day for me -- I couldn't get past the after-lunch sleepy feeling on most days, I didn't want to stay at work late anymore. Ironically, the amount of time I spent at my desk actually producing dropped dramatically.
It was just ping-pong, but I think it marked kind of a turning point in terms of morale at work. I know I wasn't the only one who felt that way.
A lot of the reactions I've been reading are reacting to the excesses of the dot-coms, like that "Generation Now" commercial where nobody in the office is actually working. That's fair, but it's important to remember that there's a lot of room between that extreme and a boring, soulless workplace.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Well no, not really. It is increadably rewarding for those that are good at it though, and they wouldn't do anything else.
They work their tight little asses off though.
This is going to sound trite, especially considering all the other posts saying essentially the same thing, BUT. . .
You are basically still a child. You have now had your first *jobs,* but have yet to have any actually experience of working.
Give up the idea of "fun" at work. Find a job where you enjoy doing the WORK and bust your ass at it, eight hour a day. Then go HOME to play, with your paycheck.
How about starting your own company? Work 16 hour days, seven days a week, only to have nothing because your employees take it all while bitching about you. I used to tell people, " I don't work for myself. I work for my lawyer, insurance company, phone company, landlord, power company, etc. They don't let me keep anything for myself."
You'll probably go under just like everyone else, but just might have the time of your life anyway. Funny how "fun" works sometimes.
By the way, if you manage that you're doing better than the 99.9% of the population who end up performing work functions because they like to eat better than the alternative. You just might have to grow up and get used to that idea.
KFG
For the most part, all employers... corporations in particular, have declared war on their labor.
I'd list the reasons but the apologists would just deny them. :-)
Rich...
Ignore Alien Orders
I spent some time in industry, but for me nothing beats acadamia. No, you won't be a millionare but it is way more fun. With the IT glut there has been a shortage of hackers staying at universities. Almost every department is in bad need of someone to code for them. And not just database front ends, fun stuff.
Financial agents for the Economics department. Star models for the Physics department. Biologists have so much data on their hands right now you could data mine untill the cows come home. Chemists are figuring out computer models are much easier to work with for many problems. No matter what kind of hacks you like to do a university would be more than willing to pay you for it. And the best part is you can get your masters/PhD degree in Uber Geek studies on the side.
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
I'm working at a company that's still growing.
It's great. I love my job. I also managed to get in right before the floor went out from under everybody.
My company is still fun. We had a doughnut-eating competition to raise money for the WTC bombing. Pranks are still played.
The problem is, there's a dotcom backlash. The real reason why dotcoms failed is because they weren't making any money. But people see the fancy chairs, the quirky offices, the couches, etc. as a symptom of the problem that there was. So the remaining tech companies are trying to show that they aren't like that.
I have to dress professionally to work, which means that the FCUK t-shirt, the OpenBSD t-shirt, the tie-dye t-shirt, and so on all have to stay home. Everybody wanted those funky mesh chairs, but we got Leap chairs instead. We have nice offices, not warehouse/factory space. Each office ends up with one hard leather couch set, not a fluffy funky couch set.
I guess the main thing is that the fun is between you and your cow-orkers, not a corporate mandate.
Gentoo Sucks
You may find that nobody hires "C++ developer"'s but they do hire "MFC" developers or "CGI" programmers or some such specialty. Having the magic acronym on that resume can get you into an interview.
Once you can get an interview, you can sell yourself. You *have* to seem enthusiastic and optimistic. Ive also found that swagger helps. You should be self confident to just shy of arrogant. And never bullshit- speak your mind.
After that, well you've overcome the old "22" barrier and now find that there are more jobs than ever. (Especially if you can get the job done)
And as for the corny nerf-toy stuff, that was always just superficial.
I hate "fun" work environments, because they're usually not very fun and are focused on pretty lame people pursuing lame activities.
Nerf toys, "group happy hour", "group lunches", yuck. I have plenty of friends that match my interests and values outside of work. The LAST thing I want at work is having to try to fit in with the "fun group". Sounds like high school to me.
I get my "fun" at work by being challenged by the work, not enthralled with the people.
That being said, I have had fun with the people I worked with at every job, but it happened in an organic way, not because work was a "fun place".
warning: asshole alert
enjoying your job has nothing to do with hippy-dom, new flavors or old flavors alike.
it's about mindfulness, and life positivity.
d. Taylor Singletary,
reality technician techra.el
I work in IBM's Linux Technology Center. I get paid to work on the Linux kernel. Our mission is simply: "make Linux better."
I spent the first few weeks just familiarizing myself with the kernel's internals. Now, I spend my time communicating with maintainers and producing patches to fix SMP locking issues.
I'm 22 and just out of college, so these dream jobs are waiting somewhere for some of you.
Part of my interview is just that- questions about how the languages on their resume work.
Ive generally found that a poor programmer is also a poor software engineer, so i really want to ask these question to weed out chobo PHd's who couldnt hack their way out of a bubble sort.
So I have an alternate gambit: I say that there is a technical part of the interview- but since the candidate obviously has so much experience it is unnecessary- unless of course they want to try it.
Invariably they say they'd like to try it anyway, and then the atomsphere is right. I tend to find that 66% of candidates really shouldn't have C++ on their resume, because they dont know the most basic things.
Sadly, a good indicator of this is extensive education, and a job history riddled with positions like "software analyst", and "systems architect".
I work part-time on campus for slightly more than minimum wage with the people who make sure the dorms are up and running. I'm around to make sure their network and computers are up and running and everything gets along. I didn't have to implement anything, I just maintain. It's simple, the people are nice, and I pretty much make my own hours.
So yeah, there cool jobs out there but they are usually higer up in the ladder.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
"... or have they all suffered from the Economic Darwinism of the early 21st century?"
It wasn't "Economic Darwinism" that killed the dot-coms. It was utter foolishness.
Violence is not Religion. Religion is not violence: What Should be the Response to Violence?
Bush's education improvements were
Why are you burnt out? Why do you dislike your work? Is it because of the current job, or because you feel that your career is at a dead end?
An IT union... absolutely not. Are you mistreated in some way? Is the company screwing you over? why do you need a union?
Insane hours? Who is setting your hours? You know, most state laws have rules regarding working hours....
There's quite a lot of jobs that are fun that don't need to have toys and foosball tables prominently displayed to achieve official FUN status. I used to work for someone who thought that way, and would get boxes of cheap toys and bottles of bubble soap (might as well just pour that straight into the keyboards), and it wasn't fun, it was a gimmick to distract people from her shit management skills and the fact that she ran the department ragged and understaffed for stupid political reasons. It's easier to buy your employees a happy meal than actually create a decent work environment for a hard-working staff.
Now I work for a "straight" company (or three, if you count how many times it'd been bought out). CEO's a jerk, there's plenty of horrid little petty policies bouncing around other departments, but I'm having fun because I'm doing the work i want, have the opportunity to work on interesting projects, and work with a kickass team of ass-kickers and has a boss who knows how to play politics effectively to get us what we need. Decent management and decent coworkers make for a considerably more fun job than just having toys littered about.
Another damned comic
+++ NO CARRIER
There are lots of fun tech jobs out there. I have one, at least most days. However, only last week I was talking to my dad about troubleshooting hardware, and we got off on a tangent. It seems that in his department at the University, the electronics shop guys have been feeling the changing times. Ten (20, 30, 40) years ago they were given hand-made, one-off controller cards to design, prototype, and build for all sorts of bizarre instruments. Then of course, they had to repair them when they broke, as well as maintaining the instruments themselves.
Now they're a crack team of highly experienced, low-level electronics guys who are reduced to swapping power supplies in PCs, and _maybe_ replacing filter capacitors in them. They're all looking forward to retirement because the fun has gone out of their jobs. About the only place advanced electronics will get you an interesting job now is in chip design.
The point? Fun moves around. (Note here that I'm talking about the fun that's inherent in the work itself) In 20 years, my SA job may be utterly dull, and reduced to clicking buttons. My hard-fought skills will be almost useless, except perhaps in OS/device development environments. That's the sad way it often goes.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Real Geeks have Koosh guns. ;)
I'm speaking to myself. For the past few years I have given up all but the most important aspects of my life (my wife and two kids) in order to devote more time to work. For the next two weeks I'm in lock-down to finish a project.
Leave on time. Spend time doing something else with people you love.-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Working at a job that is interesting is FUN! But if you aren't making a marketable product, that job will soon disappear. That was the main reason most of the dotcoms went under. They weren't making anything that people would buy. Who buys a web page?
There are fun jobs out there. But before you take one, make sure that it has a positive revenue stream. Stock prices are meaningless, so go for the wage and benefits. And get the experience, which is the most important. When you're fifty in the tech field, the only advantage you will have is experience.
p.s. It sounds like you're still young, so let me clue you in on an important universal law of reality: nothing is perfect. You can find a good job, but that job will have crap mixed in with the ice cream. My current job is interesting, challenging, and productive, but it comes with a lot of crap known as PHBs, lawyers and long distance micro-management.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Of course, we have fun doing technical things, not learning Perl or playing with Nerf toys.
have they all suffered from the Economic Darwinism of the early 21st century?
Suffered? I think it's good that dot-coms with almost no technology and almost no business plan have disappeared. Real technology often takes many years to develop; how are sound technology companies supposed to compete for funding with fast talking CEOs for startups?
It amazes me what people in the new economy have come to expect from their jobs. Some perks are a benefit to the company and the employee and that's great. Happy employees are more productive, but that's a business descision. A lot of new economy employees got spoiled by lots of perks and high salaries, and in the end, the new economy business couldn't afford to stay in business.
It is good to have a job you enjoy. That means you enjoy doing the work that the employer is paying you to do. It is good when you have bright and interesting coworkers to work with and learn from. You're lucky if that happens.
Enjoy your job, but remember it is a business. The company is paying you to do work that they sell to pay your salary and make a profit. They are not paying for you to play. If you're not working a full day; you're not doing your job. It isn't your employers job to entertain you.
Also keep in mind that there are many many people who aren't as fortunate as those of us in the technology industry. They go to their job for 8 hours and do work they don't like, because they have to make a living.
Enjoy what you do. If you want to have fun, have a life outside of work.
On the flip side of the coin are the people who think that you are unqualified for a particular project because you haven't learned a particular language or flavor-of-the-day API. As you did an excellent job of pointing out, software engineering skills are by far the most important factor that determine the quality of a developer's work and these skills are largely language and API independent. This (among other reasons) is why MIT teaches (or used to teach anyway) their computer science courses with obscure languages like CLU and SCHEME - because it is the engineering principals that matter and not the language.
So to the original poster who chided the company for hiring somebody who didn't know Perl to write Perl, that may have actually been a very good decision if the guy had substantial software engineering skills. It takes a few days to pick up a new programming language, but years to develop good software engineering skills.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
...even though we don't do the nerf thing much any more.
I work for MontaVista as a Geek Of All Trades (yup, the documentation for the last product I worked on lists that as my title) and love it. Nowhere else have I had as much flexability to see a problem that needs to be addressed or something that could be automated or a new feature that would be helpful to the customer and go out, design it and write it. There are lots of one-man projects up for the taking, I'm allowed to use whatever scripting language I want except where it matters (kernel code, customer requirements, teammates who need to maintain it, whatever), and yes, we have some fun (a company band, free sodas, and pretty damn clued management).
Even better, I have the most brilliant coworkers I've ever worked with. Anywhere. Ever. Talking with these folks is enlightening, and there's always new stuff to learn. I've gone from porting and packaging to kernel debugging and writing internal testing software. If I get bored of one job, as soon as I finish the project I'm on I can always get assigned to something else.
We don't spend unnecessary money on toys (no company-issued PDAs, except of course for those working on a PDA-related project) but nonetheless, working there kicks ass.
Plus they let me telecommute while I'm attending school. WooHOO!
Thus, let me assure you -- Nerf guns aren't necessary to having a cool job. I'd take the brilliant coworkers, clued management, interesting projects and job flexability that MontaVista offers me any day.
After nearly 6 months without a paycheque things are looking up again
Buddy you need to quit that job NOW. You are working for free, McDonalds pays better than that. If you believe you are ever going to be compensated, you are wrong. If you ever recieve another paycheck it will be for muchless than what you are suppose to be making and your chances of getting backpay are nearly zero. Don't listen to your manager when he tells you, new funding is just right around the corner, because it isn't.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
Check your facts, please. The result of += 1 on a bool in C++ is perfectly well-defined by the C++ standard. Like the man said, it's legal, if obviously bad style.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Whilst demand exceeded supply for programmers things were pretty cushy for those with tech skills. Those that took the risk and participated in the revolution reaped the rewards. Those who stayed in 'safe' jobs they hated busting their butt in 9-5 for little reward looked on in jealousy. At the company I worked for we had nerf wars, played footie in the office, had a company Nintendo/Playstation room, free beer and pizza from Fri 4pm onwards, bar tabs at the best bars in the city... and you know what? The work was challenging and fun. And we got responsibility we wouldn't have got working as a 'cog' in a large corporation. Personally I had an amazing time and still got to write some kick-ass content management systems. Then work slowed down so I moved to an established media company where they promised me more interesting work. But the office was still relaxed and we had fun. I now run my own company which is far tougher but the only way to make significant money. Should I have to go back to working for someone else then being good at my job I won't have any problems finding employment... despite having had all the 'superficial perks' and being 'bought off by the management'. And you can't take those days away from me :-P
To sum up, don't live in the past: just look back in wonder at the amazing time you had, it'll be something to tell your kids as they struggle to find work in a world recession. It'll never be as good again until the economy is.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Here's a recipe for a job lifestyle that doesn't suck. Comments are welcome to improve and sharpen this idea..
1.) Live a simpler life; do with less. There's no happiness in posessions. You don't need to buy a shiny new house in the suburbs--find a nice plot of land in a more rural area and build your own small, efficient, eco-engineered dwelling. You don't need a brand new car. You don't need to buy every latest piece of super-fast hardware the day it comes out. You don't need to buy goofy little geek trinket items from online vendors. You don't need Cable TV or satellite. You don't need to order out--learn to cook instead.. You don't need a huge stash of caffeinated beverages--water is much more healthful. You don't need to go to Starbucks, Panera, or other trendy shop every other day. You don't need to buy your clothes at fancy shopping malls. I could go on and on but you get the picture.
2.) Now that you don't need $60k/year to support your lifestyle, do whatever the heck you please. You can easily make enough to support yourself by doing contract work, consulting, etc. and have plenty left over to put into savings. You don't have to figure out the latest and greatest radically new business idea to be self-employed. Go with something that works and have 6 months of living expenses in a seperate bank account in case of rough times. Focus on zero-debt. Get rid of any car loans or mortgages ASAP. (you didn't waste that much on a house/car did you?)
3.) Now, all of a sudden, you also have lots of free time because you're not stuck in a 9-5. What better way to use that time than to contribute to lots of Open Source projects. Work with the idea that better OSS will expand your opportunities in a consulting job.
4.) Save Save Save. Make $20k/year your goal. Invest it wisely. Retire early. Kick back and relax. Enjoy the easy life without being filthy rich.
5.) On the other hand, working for a big established company is a way to build up enough money to launch yourself into the position I've described, especially if you're just getting out of school and need to pay off your loans.
Do what I did at a previous job - take out the lights from their sockets in your part of the office. Others get their lights, you get your darkness, and all is right with the world. I had to argue a bit with the maintenance people who kept replacing the bulbs, until I left a note there saying NOT to replace it. Then much eye relief ensued.
The small companies doing the interesting stuff don't advertise job openings on the big job boards (mostly, there are occaisional exceptions). Basically the job finding (and from the point of view of employer, the people finding) process is what is flawed. The big job boards are 95% jobs that are handled by recruiters, who spend about 1/4 of the space promoting how great their job placement company is. Most of those jobs are stuff big corporate jobs for small peons, and lately at pay levels unrelated to the skills and experience people really bring to the job (because they decide in advance what the pay is, and try to find someone that will take it ... which works in this market right now).
I'd like to see a job board set up that's restricted to just really cool jobs. It would have fewer recruiters because they have few cool jobs, but it shouldn't restrict them. And it would be important for the search on it to be smart. On the major boards, if I search on a keyword like "unix" it matches up ever jobs for Windows NT programmers that say "some exposure to unix would be helpful", but that's not what I put the search term in to find. And there needs to be as much focus on what kind of job is involved (the role, what the work is) as the skills. Just because I listed skills in programming a few languages doesn't mean I actually want a job doing programming all day long (hey, many admins can code, too, but maybe they don't want to do it all day long).
Such a job board MUST be free for not only job seekers, but also employers. Companies are faced with many boards to post on, and when there are costs involved (usually a few hundred dollars), they simply cannot post on them all (and many small companies can't even post on any). Revenue to support it should come from impression advertising and highlighting extras (for those companies that do want to pay something to make their posting stand out).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I am a college student. One of my jobs outside of my classes is some undergraduate ecology research. Fun stuff. Basically, I write code to analyze various ecological datasets. Interesting stuff. While I don't shoot nerf arrows at the scientists who work around me, I get to go camping occasionally as a part of my job, in addition to doing something that fascinates me. For me, this is a lot cooler than being just another capitalist whore with a bonus of nerf weapons... But that's just me.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
I work for a startup which is now a bit less than 2 years old. We have about 70 people. I am the CTO which for me is my dream job - it involves a wonderful variety of things from the deeply technical to the purely business oriented. The best days are when I cover the full spectrum of the role; dealing with vendors, whiteboarding with senior engineers, some people stuff, and a bit of pre-sales chalk talk.
Building a startup company from scratch is a tremedous personal growth experience, and I've gotten a lot out of it. It's extremely hard work, but extremely rewarding too.
In contrast to the dot-coms, we have been very conservative with spending our modest venture capital investment, and have concentrated on steady success - we have put out three software releases, we have successful paying customers to whom we deliver real value, and a 99.93% (and growing) uptime.
It's the company culture which is most important to me - we value people most highly. We have an open information culture (and after all, everyone is a shareholder). Mutual respect, integrity and a work hard play hard attitude are all important to us. We have a highly capable technical team, and many of them could easily find a higher paying job with a larger company even in this market; the reason they are with us is because they believe in what they do, and they enjopy the contribution they can make and impact they can have at a small company.
A lot of people posting in this forum will spout a lot of wibble about how everything should be run by techies and how marketing and sales people aren't as important, yada yada. Get this - a company needs to be strong in all areas to be successful, and the folks who produce the glossy collateral slicks are just as important as the Java coders. We succeed because we are one team.
We also have the usual little things that help alleviate stress: the junk food stocked kitchen; ping-pong, pool and foosball tables. When people are as driven as our team are, they need to unwind too.
We're not hiring techies right now, we're in a phase of focusing on growing revenue, but there are still good startup opportunities out there, and I'd advise anyone to give it a try. Even if the company isn't successful, you'll learn a lot and have a good time doing so.
Having gone myself from a 50,000 person company to a 1,000 person to 2 person startup (myself and our other founder) I can say it's truly unique and worthwhile career move.
H1B amounts to "slave labor". The workers can't risk losing their jobs for fear of being deported, so they will take whatever crap the employer forces on them, and the employers know it, so this dish it out thick.
H1B workers can't very easily change jobs, because the new employer has to already be willing to do the government paperwork to hire an H1B. The market for job hopping (which would help prevent abuses by employers) is pretty much closed to H1B workers.
H1B workers are underpaid for their jobs because the H1B job only requires they be paid at least the average pay for the job classification, and the government classifies all software engineering into one single job with one average. Since that average takes into account all the really lame programming work, too, it's a lot lower than what a really good programmer would and should make.
H1B workers hurt the US economy because they buy less here with what little money they do make (on average). Many send all their excess back home (because they aren't planning to stay), or save it up and take it back when they finally leave (even if they'd have preferred to stay and become citizens).
I say the H1B program should be dumped. Those who want to leave, go back home. Those who want to stay should be given permanent resident status (and they are welcome in our country) and be free go find a better job than the one they are stuck in. That is what a free market really is.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
At the same time there are lots of people who do know the stuff who are out of work. The problem is hooking truly good people up with truly good jobs ... while keeping a high signal to noise ratio. Big job boards really only have a fraction of the jobs available (and stuffy boring jobs no one wants so the employers have to hire expensive recruiters to find some shmuck to take it). Looking on the "careers" section of all the companies isn't really practical, either, given so many of them around (and most with nothing listed right now). Lots of advice given to job seekers doesn't take into consideration that it isn't practical given then scarcity of jobs today.
The question is thus, how to connect up the good people to the good jobs. If someone creates a new job board, will they come (even if it's free to post jobs)?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You mean you didn't try to corner 30% of the national web development market, get hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital and IPO funding, and overexpand yourself aiming for 30% when only 0.5% was the practical limit in a market with thousands of developer companies? You mean you didn't end up being a dot-com-bomb like the others who wanted to become billionaires and ended up being thousandaires?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
However, most of the delivered systems are on WinNT and Visual Studio is where much of the programming takes place. The Unix boxes and Linux clusters are used for proof-of-concepts, prototypes, and sys-admin. However, there are a lot of Linux supporters high up in Management and they could switch over anytime soon.
Keeping
The ohert 1% is don't work for process bound systems liek millitarycontarcting or our governemnt :)
I work at Sun. I love wokring at Sun. Right now I'm choosing between enxt assignments and any one of them looks fun, though theyta re very different.
Having fun at work isn't about Nerf guns and free Jolt, its about loving what it is you do.
Fun tech jobs?! No, the only tech Jobs that I know, Steve, isn't that fun of a guy. He rules his company with an iron-fist, and I would NOT want to be on his bad side. (groan)
-bugg
One thing about Microsoft that you have to understand is that each dept. can be like working at a different company. This being said, multiple dev's that I've talked to have nerf football indoors, sometimes nerf wars, and many times supersoaker fights in the summer. I know someone else who is a Sysadmin for MSN, and although he says the working conditions aren't as good as other departments there, he says that network games (read:CS!) are acceptable to the management.
Personally, when I am grinding over some piece of code, I NEED to have a ping-pong or CS break every once in a while. I think it improves my productivity, and my moral. I figure that as a developer I'm responsible enough to get the job done, and since I spend most of my life at work, I should be allowed to have a life at work.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Indeed they do still exist. Consider my place of employment, where I have worked now for just over three years. At this outfit every employee has his or her own private window office with walls to the ceilings and no cubes. Employees are treated to significant free food and drink and one probably could live for a while just migrating around the buildings snarfing up the freebie lunches and dinners for those who work hard. We play with nerf guns, water guns, yo yos, and even have little nerf turf wars going on between groups. There is a foosball table on floor #1, a pool table on floor #3, and a ping pong table in the next building. Elsewhere you can find free arcade games. And it is not uncommon to see long haired geeks clad in t-shirts and hawaiian straw hats walking barefoot through the halls. In addition, this place where I work provides me with extreme technical challenges and difficult problems that require me to grow. We work on projects that affect thousands, tens or thousands, or even millions of people depending upon our area of focus. Because of this we have issues related to security, deployment, and scale that dwarf those faced by most tech workers. In my position I have had to go from zero to expert not only in areas such as security, XML, and networking, but also in the area of managing conflict and engaging others to work towards goals. Finally this business provides its employees with astonishing resources and is unlikely to vanish for quite some time. In case you haven't glanced at my email by now, this business is Microsoft. :-)
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
You're right in that the fancy chairs, quirky offices, and freebies were simply symptoms of the disease that killed dotcoms, but America is all about treating the symptoms.
But there's no way I am giving up my funky mesh chair.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
No, it doesn't. In C++, if b is a bool then b += 1 always sets b to true, which seems to be entirely what the user was trying to do, albeit not as clearly expressed as it might have been.
Since you don't seem to believe me, here's the technical reason. b is first converted to an int, with the value 0 if b == false or 1 if b == true. That integer is then incremented to have the value 1 or 2. Finally, that value is converted back to a bool and assigned back to b. Since any non-zero integer converts to true, the effect is that b is always set to true by the assignment in question.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Not to pick on the questioner (too much ;-), but if you want to play with Nerf toys at work, see if Nerf has any openings. Me, I'd head for LEGO if I wanted to work in the toy industry.
-Paul Komarek
Our main application was Matlab and Matlab processes didn't migrate properly. We kept those on the Origin server. For image processing and rendering, we used the mosix cluster and it worked very well. Just remember to code your program into a bunch of threads or if you are processing data, split data up and run one process on each dataset.
The program that monitors load is cool too. It monitors the loads on each node and you can watch the threads jump from one node to another.
Keeping
...just take a look at sourceforge.net. Oh, were you asking about paying jobs? Sorry...
Sure. I've written about this on /. before, but here are a few of the major points -- things that many (most?) people get wrong.
- CVs that are needlessly long. If you're looking for something like summer work while studying at university, a page will probably be good enough. For a first or second job after that, two pages is probably appropriate, as you'll need a little space to list the work experience you've got now. If you genuinely need to write more than two pages, you don't need me to tell you how to write your CV.
:-)
- CVs full of unsupported buzzwords. Agencies are great for sending these, usually on an ugly and hard-to-scan cover page that adds no value to the CV. Employers will not be impressed by your claiming to know 17 different langauges when you've only just graduated, or your gratuitous use of terms like "expert", "advanced" or (God forbid) "mission critical". By all means list your skills, but be honest, and provide objective information, such as the number of years you've been using a skill. You might include a fair assessment of your ability ("basics", "competent", "good"), which helps an employer to understand your focus if you're listing, say, three or four languages. Make sure the experience sections of your CV (work and education) show where these bits of experience happened.
- CVs with poor use of English. If you can't even write English, do you expect us to let you write C++ or Perl? Sloppy language is a sure sign of someone who doesn't pay attention to detail, and that is not the kind of person we want to employ. And of course, a professional programming job needs far more than coding skills; it also requires interpersonal and communications skills, for a start. The quality of your CV is the one way a company has to assess these skills until they meet you in person.
- CVs that use poor layout. Companies will not be impressed by pointless flash on a CV. Don't overuse things like fonts. Avoid snazzy graphics, strange formats such as 3-fold brochures, or other "distinctive" features. Stick to a clear layout that's easy on the eyes. Use bullet lists where appropriate, but don't overdo it so that your pages look "dotty". Leave plenty of whitespace; a cramped CV is hard to scan, and you've only got 30 seconds -- max -- to convince someone to keep reading.
Some things, everyone should have. For example...- Provide a summary of your skills. This comes at the top of your CV, right under the personal information. Think about what your potential employer is looking for. For example, if you're going for a programming job, you might list the languages most relevant to the job (maybe with an indication of your proficiency with them -- "Java, 3 years, competent"). You might also choose to list the major tools you've used (e.g., JDK v1.3, CVS).
- Provide your academic background in an easily-scannable chronological form. People will check this briefly, often as the first thing they read on your CV, to guage your general level of experience. Include dates and places, grades, and brief notes if, say, your degree course covered something particularly relevant to the job. If your academic career has been quite long (e.g., you've got your degree by now), consider condensing the earlier qualifications into a one liner (e.g., in the UK, 8 GCSEs: 3 As, 3 Bs, 2Cs).
- List your relevant work experience in an easily-scannable, chronological form. Give dates and places, job titles, and a brief summary of what you did, including anything that's relevant to the job for which you're applying.
Finally, certain things will catch the eye of someone reading your CV, and if they're appropriate, you can use them to good effect. For example, consider providing your home page address. If you've got some personal programming projects under your belt, you might consider making the source/docs available on-line. If your CV is read by someone technical, they probably will visit your site and have a quick look, at least long enough to say "Hey, she can really code!" or "Nope, he can't code for toffee." If your home site is full of cutesy photos of your friends, I don't recommend providing a link...Apologies for the lack of links in this post; the /. search engine doesn't seem to be working properly right now. However, one link that's definitely worth following is the one to Carnegie-Mellon's Susie the Screener page. This page may come as a rude awakening to many /.ers who think they're clever, but they'll have much, much better job prospects after reading it.
If you just follow the simple and common-sense advice above, I reckon you're already in the top 5-10% of CVs a company will receive. That alone will put your chances of getting an interview way up. Good luck.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I work in the new media dept. of a daily newspaper. My job still has its fun moments and perks. Typically, once a month or so, my boss joins me and another coworker at our adopted bar, "the new media lounge," to throw darts and share a pitcher. That's cool for two aspects. One, we can release stress outside the office w/ the boss buying. Two, it shows the boss has an interest in us as people, not merely as peons.
Quite often, I find the best work environment isn't always fun and games. It's the one that leaves you alone to focus on a large project and draw on the resources you need to make things happen. To a fair degree (but by no means universally) the managers know that frequent distractions keep me from getting my current work done and that ultimately delays the work *they* are asking me to do.
Ultimately, I find a great deal of satisfaction in my job, not because it's "fun". Quite often it isn't. But, at the end of the day, the work has kept me challenged, the boss wants me to be challenged and keep bringing new ideas to the table. The other benefit I've made for myself is not living and dying by my work. I give it due care and consideration. It is important. But it's not all I do and I won't spend more than 45 hours a week in the office unless there is a damn good reason for me to do so.
I also make a habit of not living for work out of the office. If something important happens that needs my attention, I can be contacted, but I don't go out of my way to seek contact after hours and over the weekend with work. By and large, unless I see it by 4 p.m. Friday, I'm not going to deal with it until 9 or 10 a.m. Monday.
I find all of the above are critical for contining to enjoy my work. I get close to burnout only infrequently. I tend to stay optimistic about longterm prospects. Being given an effective work environment, the flexibility to come early, leave early (or vice-versa) and not be tied down to a leash is far more powerful than being given PlayStations or having scooter races through the halls.
--Humpty Dumpty was pushed!
Every day is pretty fun for me - and most of my colleagues. We don't have nerf guns or toys, just an enthusiastic team, a good social life and enough intelligence to make any challenging task fun.
Enjoy becoming good at your job - enjoy being good at your job - andjoy getting better at your job>
Don't get too sucked into all work and no play - get your balance right. Remember the most important thing is your family, work is a way to support them so just find one which challenges you enough but isn't crappy and make it all fun.
I don't sound like I'm on Prozac do I?