[Chicago] Job opening: Trading Technologies - Senior Software Quality Engineer

[Jordan Bettis]

I think we should continue to encourage (non recruiter) job postings
here, and as such they probably don't deserve sarcastic responses. But
this one did make sarcastic thoughts run through my head when I read it,
and given the difficulty people have finding good programmers, it's
worthwhile to consider why.

The financial industry does have a long-standing bad reputation among
programmers for working conditions. Also, while I have no doubt there
are many financial institutions out there doing "God's work," given the
events of recent years, it's difficult to see one mentioned without the
question of their corporate mission running through one's head.

Good programmers have the luxury of discriminating among potential
employers based on working environment and corporate mission, so if
you're writing job postings for companies in that sector, it's probably
pretty important to be aware that readers are going to be thinking about
that.

Bagels and fuseball are not perks. Mentioning them as if they were does
not make you look good. It's like, I might have a restaurant that serves
food on plastic trays, and that's perfectly valid way to serve food, but
if that's part of my business I shouldn't play up that aspect in my
marketing as if it were a benefit to the customer. It just makes me look
cheap *and* oblivious.

On the other hand, telecommuting *is* a valuable perk. I assume, when
you say "we do the office thing" that what you mean is you don't allow
employees to telecommute (since every company "does the office thing").
If that's your policy that's fine, but people (especially nerds) don't
like sugarcoating. If there's a valuable perk you don't offer, be frank
about it "we don't allow telecommuting."


PS: I want to come to the meeting tonight, but that meetup group is now
closed. Presumably that means that the security would turn me away at
the door if I tried?