[Baypiggies] Perot at NASA - Sr. Python Developer

Tue Jun 30 23:04:23 CEST 2009

I've recently been posting jobs for Python
experts<http://teampatent.com/jobs.html>and specify no recruiters & no
offshore.  Most responses come come from
recruiters and offshore firms who blatantly ignore these requirements.  It's
easy to filter these and, as CEO, I carefully read applications from those
who take the time to read the requisition, even when there are substantive
gaps between the applicant's experience and the work requirements.  I'm
careful to limit the requirements to the minimum and put all the "desirable"
traits in the section beginning with "strong candidates will be able to...".

I assume recruiters have little or no programming knowledge so they can't do
this filtering.  The employer is paying the recruiter $10-20k (?) for help
filtering applicants so the recruiter doesn't want to dump the unfiltered
applications on the hiring manager.  The result is an overly-strict set of
qualifications.  The requirements could be minimized by using recruiters
with programming experience but there's not many recruiters with that skill
and they'd be more expensive.

It seems like dereliction of duty for hiring managers to work through
recruiters, but maybe there's a good reason I don't discern.

Rocky Kahn
TeamPatent

On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 07:35, Gregory, Travis <tgregory at teksystems.com>wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I am sorry for causing such confusion among the group.  Maybe I should
> qualify some things.  These requirements came from our client, Perot
> systems.
>
> The Must Haves are there to stop the unqualified people from applying.  A
> job description never gives the full story or should stop someone from
> speaking to me.  I have put all my contact information in the email so
> interested parties would be able to contact and speak to me directly about
> the position as I can talk to you about it better than a job description
> can.  TEKsystems has been around for 25 years and we have partnered with
> Perot for a long time.
>
> If anyone is interested in speaking about this further please contact me
> and I would be happy to speak to you.
>
> Thanks Again and Sorry for the confusion,
>
> Travis Gregory
> TGregory at TEKsystems.com
> 408-367-6863
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> Travis Gregory TECHNICAL RECRUITER
> 2099 Gateway Place, Suite 700, San Jose, CA, 95110
> 800.351.9543 T 408.367.6863
> F 408.367.6881
> http://www.teksystems.com
> ________________________________
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Lindsay [mailto:progrium at gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 11:12 PM
> To: Alex Martelli
> Cc: Gregory, Travis; baypiggies at python.org
> Subject: Re: [Baypiggies] Perot at NASA - Sr. Python Developer
>
> I actually have no idea who this recruiter is, but I'm on this team. I
> have a few cents to add to this whole thing:
>
> - I think recruiters are lame (sorry Travis, nothing personal?)
> - I think job postings are like online dating profiles: bullshit, but
> give you a *rough sense* of the real thing
> - I think these requirements came from our overworked project lead who
> didn't have time to think a lot about the fact people will tear it to
> shreds
> - This project is a lot cooler than it sounds, but will necessarily be
> full of marketing buzzwords because it's funded by bureaucracy
> - It's also very multi-faceted so a lot of the "musts" stem from the
> requirements of the project, not necessarily desired qualities of a
> single member (if I'm properly channeling the way our lead thinks)
>
> aaaannd... I guess that's it for now.
>
> -jeff
>
> On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 10:50 PM, Alex Martelli<aleax at google.com> wrote:
> > Not that I'm really interested (wallowing in the joy that is working
> > at Google), but I think it might help you to see why somebody like me
> > might not qualify by the silly standards you set out...
> >
> >> Our client is developing a cloud computing infrastructure.  This has the
> >> backing of the federal government and they want to make it the flagship
> >> (standard).  Cloud Computing is their next generation datacenter with
> >> automated load following and virtual space all mapped together.
> >
> > Considering that I've spent the last 4+ years of my life building
> > Google's cloud, one might suspect I'm qualified, but...
> >
> >> Python development (at least 3 years)
> >
> > Check, 10 years should do.
> >
> >> Direct experience with highly-scalable web applications (minimum 5M+
> monthly
> >> unique visitors or the ability to scale to that level)
> >
> > 5M pageviews per month is what we *give out FOR FREE* on the Google
> > App Engine (built on top of the cloud I helped build)...
> >
> >> Leadership experience (managing developers in a highly collaborative R&D
> >> environment)
> >
> > Having spent most of my time at Google as Uber Tech Lead (responsible
> > directly or indirectly for up to a few dozens of developers when I had
> > to, though that was only when we lacked director-level personnel -- my
> > boss, a senior VP, was way overloaded, so I took the people management
> > load off his shoulder even though I'd much rather have been
> > hacking!-), I think I could check this one
> >
> >> Experience with Social Media and Social Networking on the API layer
> >
> > Ah, that's the killer bit: while I've built clouds and managed large
> > groups of brilliant developers doing so, I have ZERO experience on
> > this "Social" silly thing (Google does have Orkut, which runs in part
> > on infrastructure I helped build, but I nevertheless have ZERO
> > experience with its APIs). So, since this is a MUST, even if I _was_
> > looking for a job I would never apply for this one.
> >
> > In fact I'm quite loath to link my future to this "social networking"
> > craze, to the point that I've repeatedly resisted facebook's insisted
> > headhunting (prompted in part, I believe, by friends and ex-colleagues
> > of mine who work there -- they've experienced what it means to work
> > closely with me, even though I have ZERO "experience with social"
> > ANYthing "on the API layer", and must have pressed their recruiters to
> > keep badgering me even after several refusals on my part).
> >
> > It's fortunate that your conditions include this "social blahblah"
> > experience as a MUST, since it means I of course won't apply and you'd
> > immediately discard me if I did (or else it means you don't know what
> > MUST means, which should steer ANY sensible person off this
> > organization, of course).
> >
> >> Experience defining, implementing and refining data-driven APIs
> >
> > Got that (BOY do I ever), but doesn't matter since I lack your
> > (idiotic IMHO) "social" `MUST`.
> >
> >> Experience in open source, both as a developer and an active community
> >> participant
> >
> > Got that, in MANY projects, but again it doesn't matter given the
> > meaning of "MUST".
> >
> >> Agile development in full product life-cycles
> >
> > AND that -- one of my hottest-burning passions, actually.
> >
> >> Nice to have:
> >>
> >> Development of Complex, N-tiered systems, utilizing loosely-coupled
> >> components based on a message-passing architecture
> >
> > Got that and then some, pity it doesn't matter.
> >
> >> Familiarity with OAuth, OpenID and other open standards for
> authentication
> >> and identity
> >
> > Ditto.
> >
> >> Familiar with EC2, AppEngine, and basic cloud computing infrastructure
> >
> > And ditto squared.
> >
> >
> > So -- one single, incredibly silly MUST condition about "social mush"
> > would stop ME from applying for this job even if I was LOOKING for a
> > job (which, let me repeat, I ain't) -- even though I'm WAY qualified
> > or overqualified on EVERY other 'MUST' _and_ 'NICE TO HAVE', *AND* a
> > lot you don't even bother to mention.
> >
> > That's what MUST HAVE ***means***.  If I SELECT * FROM ... WHERE
> > 'social' IN experience AND ... -- it doesn't matter how incredibly
> > well every other aspect matches: if 'social' is *NOT* among the
> > 'experience' set, the row will be entirely and totally discarded no
> > matter what.
> >
> > My best guess is that you, and the people who hired you to post this
> > job offer, are so incredibly clueless that you placed among the "MUST"
> > a condiiton that's actually, at best, "very nice to have" -- not
> > realizing what a HUGE difference that makes to any engineer who
> > actually thinks and behave like an engineer.
> >
> > Good luck -- compared to the job offer you SHOULD be posting, you'll
> > either get a small or mediocre set of candidates, OR people willing to
> > completely ignore what you CLAIM is an "absolutely MUST have
> > condition", OR... lie through their teeth. Looks like you deserve each
> > other.
> >
> >
> > Alex
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Jeff Lindsay
> http://webhooks.org -- Make the web more programmable
> http://shdh.org -- A party for hackers and thinkers
> http://tigdb.com -- Discover indie games
> http://progrium.com -- More interesting things
>
>
>
>
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