Notice how their first "Company News" lists an Article-FORBES with no link. If you go to Forbes.com and search their site for "SeaCode" you get: "Sorry, your search for SeaCode did not return any Documents. Please revise your search and try again."
Besides, 3.1 miles makes no sense as your not in international waters.
Good QA people are hard to find. The best way to find good ones is through their own informal referral network. I have found that the good ones like to stick together as it never fun to work with poor QA folks (for me the poor ones have no idea of the difference between testing & QA and usually believe that finding 100's of bugs in the last few project weeks in a massive firefighting effort makes them genuine heroes.). The generic add in Monster / Craig's list will get you 100's, perhaps 1000's of responses where probably none of them are good QA. Really good QA folks have deep employment networks and generally never use these basic recruitment tools except to gage the market or satisfy some curiosity about who's hiring in their area. I personally have never used professional recruiters so I don't know if this is a valid avenue to find good QA.
Make sure that your company / department, etc actually wants good QA and not glorified test monkeys. I'm not implying that one is right or wrong, but sometimes a company / department is really not mature enough to need good QA (any software person who's been around a while has experienced the "Chop Shop" where code is hacked out in all night crazed sessions to meet insane delivery targets without any form of documentation or process beyond the cubical white board - just hack-n-compile till ya get it right.) These type of places drive good QA people crazy. Basically, you convince good QA people that they are wanted / needed by following the good design principles outlined in this thread.
I suspect that this is essentially no different than advice for finding "good developers."
In case your wondering, yes I am a QA person with 14 years experience in the QA business (ok the first 3 or 4 years I was a test monkey as I learned the difference from a couple of great mentors; but that is a different story). As to the informal networks - they exist. My 3 compatriots and I have managed to stick together through 3 companies now with brief interludes at other "jobs." It seems like eventually one us of lands at a great job and the inevitable question arises from the management team "do you know any other good QA candidates..?"
I am a Canadian living in the US and when I travel back to Canada (with my Canadian passport) I am often (not always) asked by the Canadian Border guards for proof of legal residence in the US. I asked once why Canada cared and was basically told they want to ensure that I can return to the US. It is not much of stretch to imagine Canada insisting that Americans coming into Canada need a passport because "Canada wants to ensure you can get home."
I have never responded to this sort of marketing drivel... no matter what the prize, promise, reward is offered. However, our service has slowed down considerably since the spring. Turn around was 2-3 days and it now averages about a week.
We have been high volume users for several years now and I'm thinking of stopping. The price hike did not bother me as I genuinely like its convenience. Anyway their "being slow on purpose" will make me check out BB's offering.
I agree... often amazing discoveries are found when pursuing an idea / experiment that does not make sense or seems ludicrous. And no, I'm not saying that all science should explore the bizarre but some level of exploration is healthy to the field in general.
Slashdot Mirror
This must be a fake ....
Notice how their first "Company News" lists an Article-FORBES with no link. If you go to Forbes.com and search their site for "SeaCode" you get: "Sorry, your search for SeaCode did not return any Documents. Please revise your search and try again."
Besides, 3.1 miles makes no sense as your not in international waters.
Good QA people are hard to find. The best way to find good ones is through their own informal referral network. I have found that the good ones like to stick together as it never fun to work with poor QA folks (for me the poor ones have no idea of the difference between testing & QA and usually believe that finding 100's of bugs in the last few project weeks in a massive firefighting effort makes them genuine heroes.). The generic add in Monster / Craig's list will get you 100's, perhaps 1000's of responses where probably none of them are good QA. Really good QA folks have deep employment networks and generally never use these basic recruitment tools except to gage the market or satisfy some curiosity about who's hiring in their area. I personally have never used professional recruiters so I don't know if this is a valid avenue to find good QA. Make sure that your company / department, etc actually wants good QA and not glorified test monkeys. I'm not implying that one is right or wrong, but sometimes a company / department is really not mature enough to need good QA (any software person who's been around a while has experienced the "Chop Shop" where code is hacked out in all night crazed sessions to meet insane delivery targets without any form of documentation or process beyond the cubical white board - just hack-n-compile till ya get it right.) These type of places drive good QA people crazy. Basically, you convince good QA people that they are wanted / needed by following the good design principles outlined in this thread. I suspect that this is essentially no different than advice for finding "good developers." In case your wondering, yes I am a QA person with 14 years experience in the QA business (ok the first 3 or 4 years I was a test monkey as I learned the difference from a couple of great mentors; but that is a different story). As to the informal networks - they exist. My 3 compatriots and I have managed to stick together through 3 companies now with brief interludes at other "jobs." It seems like eventually one us of lands at a great job and the inevitable question arises from the management team "do you know any other good QA candidates..?"
I am a Canadian living in the US and when I travel back to Canada (with my Canadian passport) I am often (not always) asked by the Canadian Border guards for proof of legal residence in the US. I asked once why Canada cared and was basically told they want to ensure that I can return to the US. It is not much of stretch to imagine Canada insisting that Americans coming into Canada need a passport because "Canada wants to ensure you can get home."
nuf said
Yeah ... but sometimes it is helpful to have all the opportunities simply listed together; gets the creative juices flowing.
I have never responded to this sort of marketing drivel ... no matter what the prize, promise, reward is offered. However, our service has slowed down considerably since the spring. Turn around was 2-3 days and it now averages about a week.
We have been high volume users for several years now and I'm thinking of stopping. The price hike did not bother me as I genuinely like its convenience. Anyway their "being slow on purpose" will make me check out BB's offering.
I agree... often amazing discoveries are found when pursuing an idea / experiment that does not make sense or seems ludicrous. And no, I'm not saying that all science should explore the bizarre but some level of exploration is healthy to the field in general.