OT: Job Posting - Fathead looking for a code writer w/ five years experience

Submitted by James Burrill Angell on
A friend of mine is a high up at Fathead at their Detroit HQ and sent me a job posting. Here's the details: three to five years of .NET and object oriented programming experience, Three years of general Software development methodology, Three years in .NET and SQL server, Strong experience In building ASP.NET MVC applications, Experience developing Database applications with TSQL, strong understanding of IIS/web service, Three years with C# required, Experience with HTML, JavaScript, JQuery, CSS required. I have no idea what the heck any of that stuff means but if you do and are interested in it, email me your cover letter and I'll hand deliver it to my buddy at Fathead. DISCLAIMER: I am not an employee, affiliate or even admirer nor customer of Fathead. Just trying to help out a friend who has a job opening and maybe help an MGoUser who needs one. Email is [email protected]

Daniel

May 3rd, 2012 at 11:03 AM ^

sound as though they need several code-monkeys, but figure it's cheaper to just pay one who can do everything they're currently looking for?

CRex

May 3rd, 2012 at 11:13 AM ^

Also requires 5 years experience and pay is only 60 a year.  

People need to write better job descriptions.  Throwing every langauge you can think into a job posting doesn't make any sense.  Either you need a guy for a specific project in a specific enviroment or you need a generic code monkey.  If you're getting the latter and he has 5 years of experience, let him write in whatever langauge he knows best (unless it is some god awful obscure langauge).  I've never had my boss tell me "Well yes you could do it in half the time and half the code base in Python, but we said Perl when we hired you, so go do it in Perl."  

mgordoblue

May 3rd, 2012 at 11:50 AM ^

Are you referring to the OP's job description? There is only one "language" listed in the job description (C#) and the rest is basic knowledge requirement of Microsoft's platform (.NET, IIS, SQL Server) and web development in general (Javascript,HTML,JQuery,CSS). I don't mean to jump on you but oftentimes large companies like Fathead are strongly tied to certain platforms (Microsoft/.NET or Oracle/Java) and need developers who can develop applications using their chosen platform.

CRex

May 3rd, 2012 at 12:49 PM ^

I count three: C#, Javascript, and HTML.  Of course assuming you went through any decent CS program you should know the last two.    

If you're getting a guy with five years experience in C# and the MS Dev enviroment, why even list things like specific Javascript libraries (jQuery)?  If the guy can handle MS's enviroment, he can learn jQuery on his own/via Googling within a week.

I really detest job postings like the OPs since it lists all all the langauges, enviroments, and libraries used but doesn't tell you what on earth you'll be doing with them.  It's a pain in the ass to write cover letters and tailor resumes for them.  I'd much rather see we use ASP to the the following task and need someone to extend it to do this other thing.  Or for that matter, the guy who can use a Java conncector to work with a PostGre SQL database can likely figure out how to use a connector in a different langauge to work with an Oracle DB.

It's just a sore spot for me and something I changed when I took over hiring.  If you're intelligent you can teach yourself a new langauge with Google, an O'Reilly book, and some pair programming.  

Unless you say "Lets do it in PHP".  Then I chase you out of my office with a hockey stick.  

aaamichfan

May 3rd, 2012 at 12:02 PM ^

I've found this as well. I'm currently exploring the chances of upgrading my current job, and for some of the postings they'd have to find some pretty desperate skilled individuals if they want to have any chance of filling them as written. 

CRex

May 3rd, 2012 at 12:58 PM ^

My experience is that the other coders go:

"Wow it would be nice to have someone around here to take over these side projects or help with this project".  From this the job posting in born.  The job posting then goes to middle management and they send out an email saying:

"What langauges have we ever used here or considered using?".  Where considered using includes something some guy in IT spent 5 minutes Googling last year and then forogt about it right up until this email reminded about it.  The job description doubles in size and ends up sounding like some kind of senior level job that requires ten years in industry and a masters (with the pay scale for someone three years out of college).  

So just apply, creatively pad your resume a bit, and once you get to the interview see what the people who interview you ask about, because thats the langauge they really care about.  I'm four years out of college with a BA and holding a job that was advertised as "Masters Required, PhD preferred, 8 years industry experience".  My job doesn't require that nor did the guy hiring me want that, some jackass in management added a bunch of langauges and then human resources went "Oh that's a lot of langauges, that should be a senior level job".  Basically all they wanted was another junior management drone/code monkey but as the job description moved up the chain everyone inflated it.   

 

aaamichfan

May 3rd, 2012 at 1:38 PM ^

Yeah, that's what I have been doing. The problem is, I've already done multiple phone interviews where I've found out that they weren't lying in the ads. I guess it might be time to change up my approach.

bacon1431

May 3rd, 2012 at 12:18 PM ^

I'm waiting til they come out with scratch n' sniff fatheads of female supermodels. I wouldn't purchase one of a male athlete....not that there's anything wrong with that.

skwasha

May 3rd, 2012 at 2:12 PM ^

Not sure if I should put this in a diff thread - But since all the nerds seem to have congregated here anyway...

I too am looking for a coder.

Ideal candidate would have a portfolio of mobile apps to show off (preferably iPhone but even better if you can do iOS and Android)

App dev would be mostly game/interactive content type stuff (think Morris Lessmore).

We're a smallish, entertainment focused company located in Burbank, CA.

Email [email protected] if you or someone you know might fit the bill.

JamieH

May 3rd, 2012 at 6:15 PM ^

I'd say that is a very typical job description for someone looking for an end-to-end ASP.NET web programmer.  If you want to work from the web page thorugh the database, you have to use all of those things.  They have to specify the JQuery stuff because not every C# programmer does a ton of jQuery work (or even wants to).   Working in JQuery is a totally different thing than working in C#, and while it is certainly possilble for anyone to learn it, if they want someone up to speed right away that won't fly.

But is it really only 60K for 5-years experience?  That seems low to me.   The market for experienced programmers is prety good right now. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MightyMatt13

May 3rd, 2012 at 9:51 PM ^

idk how any of this works...so I'll assume I know how this works. If this code man knows how to put michigan basketball things on a big ass sticker, please apply. I will throw money at this. that is all.