[Baypiggies] [RECRUITER] Finding work - Company: Keas (S.F.)

[Elan]

Company: Keas, (www.keas.com)
Location: HQ in Downtown S.F.  (1st St. btw Mission and Market)

Keas is an early stage consumer health start-up that is still in
"stealth"/has not publicly launched.  They do have a private beta out.  The
company was founded by Adam Bosworth and George Kassabgi in 2008.  George is
a longtime entrepreneur and (among other accomplishments) was a key person
over at BEA.  Adam is the engineering pioneer who authored XML and (among
other accomplishments) developed Google Calendar and MS Access. Most
recently Adam built Google <http://www.google.com/> Health before leaving to
start Keas.  Candidates who are selected by Keas for interview will be asked
to sign an NDA after which more about the company will be divulged.  For now
one can gleen some info about Keas on Keas.com and Adam's blog:
http://adambosworth.net/2007/12/22/talking-about-keas/

Technologies used include Python with a Zope framework (Zope may have since
been replaced with Django or TurboGears/Pylons in the past few months but I
can't confirm this right now) , and in an agile (scrum) test-driven
iterative environment.  AJAX, mySQL, memcached, etc.

The Opportunity: In brief, engineers will be building a health 2.0 consumer
facing website, and designing software solutions for hard infomatics and
data analysis problems.  The company is always on the lookout for
experienced individual contributors who have deep experience with Java or
Python, have solid problem solving skills and who like to learn new
technologies and pick up new programming languages quickly.  Smart,
"young-ish"/or young at heart, entrepreneurial co-workers, who tend to have
strong C.S. fundamentals, and solid work experience building high volume,
high transaction, highly available consumer web applications.  Very
accessible hands on leadership.

Interviews: A three step process.  Recruiter screening, Manager phone
technical screening, On-site interviews.  You may also be asked to provide
code samples. They have a very rigorous on-site interview process (which is
long - all day) that Adam imported from Google (which I'm not knowledgeable
about.) It's an all day affair, long and comprehensive.  If you are invited
to interview and can't commit to a full day of interviews you can always
break it up into two days.

Compensation: Competitive salaries and in the middle to upper range compared
to other startups and still offering good equity on top of salary.  Be clear
from the beginning whether you value more salary or more equity.  They do
not like to go back and forth on offers.  This company is very fair when it
comes to compensation.

Contacts: I cannot give out contact info of hiring managers or founders.
There is a competent in-house recruiter, you can find his info on linkedin,
his name is Ricky Fiel.  Ricky is diligent and responsive but does not have
a great deal of experience and so may not be the best assesor of technical
skill and talent and will most likely rely heavily on a his managers for
resume feedback.   His email is: ricky.fiel at keas.com.  If you would like his
phone number, ask me in an email.

(note: if you are interested in this company and would like to ask questions
I'm happy to chat and provide as much info and help as I can.  I am also
happy to make a direct introduction to the founders if that is your
preference vs. connecting with the in-house recruiter as your first point of
contact.)

***** wow I may have gone overboard with the details here....  my next
posting will not be quite as long.... the next company from me will be
posted sometime on Thursday*****




On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 9:09 PM, Shannon -jj Behrens <jjinux at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 6:44 PM, Elan <elan.martinez at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Excellent jj (mr. moderator)!  I think this can work.
> >
> > BTW, to be clear I want to encourage EVERYONE to contribute and not just
> > recruiters, especially since my guess is that most fee-based recruiters
> > (definitely not all) will be reluctant to contribute if they are not
> getting
> > a fee or if they feel paranoid about other recruiters "stealing" leads or
> > contacts.  My comment to those recruiters... if you have a strong client
> > relationship there's no reason to worry, and remember you do not have to
> > include any clients you are currently working with.  If everyone chips in
> to
> > do what they can we will all benefit in the long run.
> >
> > So jj and everyone else, I would love to start this all off immediately
> but
> > I'm going to wait to post my leads until tonight.  I have a couple of
> > stealth co's in S.F. that I would like to list, but need to confirm that
> > they are still actively hiring python engineers, who I can list as
> > preferred contacts and also how much I can divulge about the companies.
> I
> > also have a couple fo non-stealth co's based in S.F. that I will post but
> > need to confirm the same info.  Please, to those who may post before me,
> do
> > the best you can to provide current and relevant information to the job
> > seekers in this community.
>
> I'll second that.  Here's my hint to the recruiters of the world.  I
> don't really care who the VCs are or where the CEO went to college.
> Sure, I might want to know those things eventually, but first I want
> to know:
>
> a) What technologies does the company use?
> b) Where are they located?
> c) Can they afford to pay me a decent salary?
> d) What positions are they hiring for?
>
> After knowing those things, I'll want to know:
>
> e) Is this a sweatshop?
> f) How does the company develop software (fast and dirty?  agile?
>  clueless?)?
>
> My $0.02,
> -jj
>
> --
> In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things
> with great love. -- Mother Teresa
> http://jjinux.blogspot.com/
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/baypiggies/attachments/20090521/3fa30a20/attachment.htm>