How to hire a rubyist?

ruby-talk
1

Hey there,

I am trying to find and hire a ruby programmer and would love some
advice. I posted the following message on 10/12 and was surprised not
to get any responses.

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_frm/thread/e7f269d6a4c63eb1/250388c5c511cea0?q=jfry&rnum=3#250388c5c511cea0

We pay very competitive wages and are open to contract or FT for the
right person, here in the San Francisco Bay Area or someone working
remotely elsewhere. Any suggestions from others about where to look?
(I've posted to our local craigslist of course as well). Is there any
sort of ruby jobs site? I haven't found anything yet.

Or alternately...any comments or suggestions for the ad that we put
out?

Thanks in advance for your help...and if you think you might be a good
fit, or know someone who is, drop me a line.
Jeff Fry

2

(I've posted to our local craigslist of course as well). Is there any
sort of ruby jobs site? I haven't found anything yet.

You can post ruby jobs at:

jfry wrote:

···

Hey there,

I am trying to find and hire a ruby programmer and would love some
advice. I posted the following message on 10/12 and was surprised not
to get any responses.

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_frm/thread/e7f269d6a4c63eb1/250388c5c511cea0?q=jfry&rnum=3#250388c5c511cea0

We pay very competitive wages and are open to contract or FT for the
right person, here in the San Francisco Bay Area or someone working
remotely elsewhere. Any suggestions from others about where to look?
(I've posted to our local craigslist of course as well). Is there any
sort of ruby jobs site? I haven't found anything yet.

Or alternately...any comments or suggestions for the ad that we put
out?

Thanks in advance for your help...and if you think you might be a good
fit, or know someone who is, drop me a line.
Jeff Fry

3

You know, this is something I've been thinking about for a while now.
When I was looking for work about 6 months ago companies wouldn't piss
on me if I was on fire. The only way to get reliable work again was to
go back into Java development. It's still a job and I've got no
problems doing it (well, helping other people do it is more accurate)
but man I'd rather be doing Ruby or anything that doesn't involve
waiting for Eclipse to start up.

Lately though I've seen postings like Jeff's practically begging for
Ruby developers. I've had a couple of offers to write books. I've had
people invite me to work on projects. Despite this, I feel like I'm
just so swamped with the few things I actually do that I'm missing out
on a big movement or something. I feel like I'm in Cuba watching Che
rape and kill people and saying, "Damn, some day that guy will be on a
t-shirt."

Am I the only person who wants to dive into Ruby full time but who's
also afraid of another dot-com burnout? Are there really that many
companies with great ideas, health benefits, and good pay that
seriously need Ruby? Do other potential Rubyists think that Rails and
Ruby might be popular, but maybe not popular enough to be a full
time job?

Anyway, just fishing for general opinions. Flames welcome.

Zed A. Shaw

···

On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 09:41:58 +0900 "jfry" <jeff.fry@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey there,

I am trying to find and hire a ruby programmer and would love some
advice. I posted the following message on 10/12 and was surprised not
to get any responses.

4

Jeff,

I suppose I should also toss you some advice about your original
posting.

Uh, you do realize that your posting looks like you want to hire
someone to write spam bots and other evil right? Now, I'm a pretty
morally flexible guy if the pay is right, but some people might object
to helping pass out more girl-on-girl porn ads.

So, if your company is serious and not in the incest porn ads business
or pumping the latest penny stocks, then I'd revise your posting to
reflect your company's true purpose. Simply say something like, "Yes
we do direct e-mail marketing, but we try to be a legitimate opt-in
only service. We don't push penny stock, penis pills, teenage girls,
or incest." That would probably make people feel more comfortable
contacting you.

Now, you might ask, "Why would anyone care what we do? We pay damn
good and it's coding in their favorite language. What's the big
deal?" Again, I know nothing of your character and your business. I
have to assume that if you're doing something in the gray area of the
law, then there's also probably a good chance that other aspects of
your business are in the gray area too. If I go work for IBM or
another firm then I'm at least gonna get a solid check and reasonable
health benefits. If I go work for someone in the gray areas I could
get screwed, late paychecks, cheated out of my taxes, and other shady
deals I've witnessed first hand.

In addition, working for a spammer could potentially damage my career
as many other potential employers might not want to hire someone who's
worked in such a field. There's plenty of coders out there who could
care less as long as there's pay, but you should keep this in mind.
Some people are looking for both a Ruby job AND a Ruby job they can
proudly put on their resume. I doesn't look good writing, "Wrote
Ruby programs to troll bulletin boards in order to sell penny stocks to
poor people who are victims of incest."

Anyway, that was my first reaction when I read it. Just some friendly
advice which might help you land a Ruby coder.

Zed A. Shaw

···

On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 09:41:58 +0900 "jfry" <jeff.fry@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey there,

I am trying to find and hire a ruby programmer and would love some
advice. I posted the following message on 10/12 and was surprised not
to get any responses.

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_frm/thread/e7f269d6a4c63eb1/250388c5c511cea0?q=jfry&rnum=3#250388c5c511cea0

We pay very competitive wages and are open to contract or FT for the
right person, here in the San Francisco Bay Area or someone working
remotely elsewhere. Any suggestions from others about where to look?
(I've posted to our local craigslist of course as well). Is there any
sort of ruby jobs site? I haven't found anything yet.

Or alternately...any comments or suggestions for the ad that we put
out?

Thanks in advance for your help...and if you think you might be a good
fit, or know someone who is, drop me a line.
Jeff Fry

5

In article <1129682499.572287.250900@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,

Hey there,

I am trying to find and hire a ruby programmer and would love some
advice. I posted the following message on 10/12 and was surprised not
to get any responses.

I suspect you will need to look for 'right thinking' people that can be
trained. Ruby is still a fairly new language, so there is not a huge
supply of programmers that know it well. There _are_ a lot of people
interested in Ruby, who would like to learn more, I suspect.

I have been playing with Ruby for a few months now, off and on, but did
not respond, because I have not played with Watir at all, and have not
really gotten solid on ruby. Six months from now, perhaps. Thus, even
though I saw your ad, I did not reply at this time.

For example, keep 'we are looking for someone who understands how to
design and build a solid, flexible, reusable automation framework.'
Then, change 'solid experience with ruby is essential, and experience
with watir is a plus.' to 'solid experience with ruby is a big plus;
familiarity with a scripting language like ruby, Perl, or Python and a
strong desire to learn pro-tour Ruby is a requirement.'

Scott

···

"jfry" <jeff.fry@gmail.com> wrote:

--
Scott Ellsworth
scott@alodar.nospam.com
Java and database consulting for the life sciences

6

Have you tried posting the job to the Watir mailing list?

···

On 10/18/05, jfry <jeff.fry@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey there,

I am trying to find and hire a ruby programmer and would love some
advice. I posted the following message on 10/12 and was surprised not
to get any responses.

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/browse_frm/thread/e7f269d6a4c63eb1/250388c5c511cea0?q=jfry&rnum=3#250388c5c511cea0

We pay very competitive wages and are open to contract or FT for the
right person, here in the San Francisco Bay Area or someone working
remotely elsewhere. Any suggestions from others about where to look?
(I've posted to our local craigslist of course as well). Is there any
sort of ruby jobs site? I haven't found anything yet.

Or alternately...any comments or suggestions for the ad that we put
out?

Thanks in advance for your help...and if you think you might be a good
fit, or know someone who is, drop me a line.
Jeff Fry

7

I'm definately in agreement with Zed's whole post.

Try and rewording your jobs ad, you might also want to trow in some quotes
from your website like some of your customers.

Or a short list of the products you make with features.

PS. I actually shortly evaluated your product for a build / buy decision,
and the name did ring bells but still it looked like a spamming company
email :slight_smile:

8

In article <20051019011636.39b3845e.zedshaw@zedshaw.com>,

Lately though I've seen postings like Jeff's practically begging for
Ruby developers. I've had a couple of offers to write books. I've had
people invite me to work on projects. Despite this, I feel like I'm
just so swamped with the few things I actually do that I'm missing out
on a big movement or something.

I know exactly now you feel. I've been burried in work on my Master's thesis
for several months now and I keep thinking "Gotta get this thesis done so I
can jump into Ruby development again".

I feel like I'm in Cuba watching Che
rape and kill people and saying, "Damn, some day that guy will be on a
t-shirt."

Well, or perhaps a more positive image and way before Che got to Cuba:
watching Che swim across the Amazon river at night, with asthma so he can be
with the lepers he wants to help.
(see "The Motorcycle Diaries").

It's sort of like "I knew Ruby before it was financially advantagous to know
Ruby." or "I knew Ruby before Rails"

Am I the only person who wants to dive into Ruby full time but who's
also afraid of another dot-com burnout? Are there really that many
companies with great ideas, health benefits, and good pay that
seriously need Ruby? Do other potential Rubyists think that Rails and
Ruby might be popular, but maybe not popular enough to be a full
time job?

I don't think we're headed for another dot-com-bomb, at least
not for quite a while. The memory is still too fresh in investors minds.
And besides, most of these small startups now which are using Rails are not
depending on VC. They're able to start on a shoestring budget and get going
and even generating revenue very quickly. It's a very different situation
than the late 90's when VC were throwing money at ideas like selling dogfood
on the internet. There have been several articles on this phenomenon.
Most attribute the ease of starting up companies now to Open Source Software.
Rails is an enabler: if it allows a couple of guys in their garage to create
a web app in a few weeks which used to require 20 guys in cubicles 6+ months
to develop then it makes it a lot more affordable to take the risk. You don't
even have to quit your current job until you're making bank from your newly
formed company. If that never happens, then you haven't really lost anything,
and you've gained Ruby and Rails experience.

Maybe what we need is not just a Ruby job board site, but also a site where
we can post things like: "I've got an idea for doing datamining (or whatever)
I'm looking for a couple of like-minded Rubyists who would be interested in
making a startup based on some of these ideas I've got. No pay. Long hours.
hard work. Let's do it!". Kind of like the part of the classifieds where
people are looking for players of various instruments/types of music so they
can start a band. Maybe startup formation now is a lot like band formation?
You don't quit your day job at first. You wait to see if you're going to get
a record deal.

Phil

···

Zed A. Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:

9

Defintely...but it has a much smaller membership than this list does,
so I posted here too when I didn't many bites there.

This thread - and folks finding out that Lyris is legit and a great
company to work for - has made a big difference, and now I am actually
getting quite a few interesting applicants. I think Tanner was right
that this thread is the ad that I needed. So...please do feel free to
send me a letter and resume if this sounds interesting to you. I may go
ahead and post a new ad to this list, but I think this thread may have
been all I needed.

Thanks to all for your help!
Jeff

10

Aemca, Zed, and Infocom, thanks for your replies.

Zed & Aemca, I suspected I might hear that your first thought was that
this was a job with evil spammer scum. That was the first question I
asked before I started here, and I thought that I'd written an ad that
would disuade that...but clearly I was wrong. Anyway, it turns out that
our customers are mostly good (& neutral) guys who send mail that
people ask for it - folks like Sun, IBM, NASA, Habitat for Humanity &
the American Federation of Teachers. When I interview candidates I
always ask what they think about working for a company that sends large
volumes of email. The best applicants almost always want to see that we
are not doing something seedy. When someone replies that they have no
morals about who they work for that's pretty much the end of the
interview for me - I don't really want to hire someone who's decisions
aren't guided by some sort of ethics (doesn't need to be the same
ethical compass as mine, but I figure that if you are willing to build
software that screws people, you are also probably perfectly happy to
screw your coworkers).

Anyway, I'll definitely rewrite the ad to make it clear that we aren't
scum. FYI, we are also a very solid company - 11 year old and
comfortably profitable for 10 of those, but still small enough and
agile enough that the team of coders is a real pleasure to work with. I
truly recommend the company as a place to work and would be happy to
answer questions if anyone is considering it and wants to know more.

Thanks again for the feedback,
Jeff

11

* Swimming across the Amazon to help some lepers: 0 dollars.
* Writing a diary with your 'buddy' that makes you look good: 0
dollars.
* Getting some company to make a movie to pump you up as a hero to
clueless hipsters: 0 dollars.
* Murdering lots of people, killing their children, and raping their
women with moral impunity? Priceless.

For all your psuedo-intellectual revisionist history needs there's
Communism. Trusted by more dictators than Fascism.

Zed A. Shaw

···

On Thu, 20 Oct 2005 04:21:59 +0900 tomsonp@ee.pdx.edu (Phil Tomson) wrote:

In article <20051019011636.39b3845e.zedshaw@zedshaw.com>,
Zed A. Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:
>I feel like I'm in Cuba watching Che
>rape and kill people and saying, "Damn, some day that guy will be on
>a t-shirt."

Well, or perhaps a more positive image and way before Che got to
Cuba: watching Che swim across the Amazon river at night, with asthma
so he can be with the lepers he wants to help.
(see "The Motorcycle Diaries").

12

but I think this thread may have
been all I needed.

Thanks to all for your help!
Jeff

Good to hear, keep us posted :slight_smile:

13

What you just wrote is probably the best job ad you could have written.

···

On 10/19/05, jfry <jeff.fry@gmail.com> wrote:

Aemca, Zed, and Infocom, thanks for your replies.

Zed & Aemca, I suspected I might hear that your first thought was that
this was a job with evil spammer scum. That was the first question I
asked before I started here, and I thought that I'd written an ad that
would disuade that...but clearly I was wrong. Anyway, it turns out that
our customers are mostly good (& neutral) guys who send mail that
people ask for it - folks like Sun, IBM, NASA, Habitat for Humanity &
the American Federation of Teachers. When I interview candidates I
always ask what they think about working for a company that sends large
volumes of email. The best applicants almost always want to see that we
are not doing something seedy. When someone replies that they have no
morals about who they work for that's pretty much the end of the
interview for me - I don't really want to hire someone who's decisions
aren't guided by some sort of ethics (doesn't need to be the same
ethical compass as mine, but I figure that if you are willing to build
software that screws people, you are also probably perfectly happy to
screw your coworkers).

Anyway, I'll definitely rewrite the ad to make it clear that we aren't
scum. FYI, we are also a very solid company - 11 year old and
comfortably profitable for 10 of those, but still small enough and
agile enough that the team of coders is a real pleasure to work with. I
truly recommend the company as a place to work and would be happy to
answer questions if anyone is considering it and wants to know more.

Thanks again for the feedback,
Jeff

--
===Tanner Burson===
tanner.burson@gmail.com
http://tannerburson.com <---Might even work one day...

14

jfry wrote:

Anyway, I'll definitely rewrite the ad to make it clear that we aren't
scum. FYI, we are also a very solid company - 11 year old and
comfortably profitable for 10 of those, but still small enough and
agile enough that the team of coders is a real pleasure to work with. I
truly recommend the company as a place to work and would be happy to
answer questions if anyone is considering it and wants to know more.

There's nothing better than a job where there is people that are a pleasure to work with. I think someone looking for a job involving Ruby coding will think that aspect very important.

Thanks for clarifying the description. Initially I was thinking that it might be a spam job as well.

Oh, and please also post to the Ruby Job site mentioned earlier. It getting used ought to help both companies and Rubyists.

Thanks for helping Ruby by commercially using it!

15

[...]

For all your psuedo-intellectual revisionist history needs there's
Communism. Trusted by more dictators than Fascism.

You know, this is getting *way* off topic, but both commentaries on
Che are, well, biased. Che *did* a lot of good for the people, but he
also did a lot of bad things on the way. It's also interesting to note
that "Democracy" is really good for "pseudo-intellectual revisionist
history" and imperialism in disguise.

We can go around this stuff quite easily and for a long time. It's not
nearly as simple as you're suggesting, Zed, and what Che and Castro
and the other revolutionaries have done for Cuba has been both good
and bad. It certainly broke a massive power and societal imbalance
that has hampered much of the rest of the Caribbean. (And the
Duvaliers of Haiti are arguably as bad or worse than Castro and have
nothing to do with Communism. Hell, the Great Democracy supported
them!)

-austin

···

On 10/20/05, Zed A. Shaw <zedshaw@zedshaw.com> wrote:
--
Austin Ziegler * halostatue@gmail.com
               * Alternate: austin@halostatue.ca