[nyc-perl-jobs] Werk at BlackStar [Belfast, N. Ireland]

[Michael G Schwern]

[Moderator's Note: Not NYC, but a pretty cool opportunity nonetheless. -Simon]


** Resumes must be in by this Friday  jobs at blackstar.co.uk **

If anyone didn't know, I'm currently on contract with BlackStar for
the next couple months.  They're looking for a Perl programmer
(they're very hard to come by over here).  They're based in Belfast,
Northern Ireland (no, they're not shooting each other over here
anymore and like you can talk NYC people).

The basics, aside from Perl...

Object Oriented Design.  There's 35,000 lines of code in classes here
and its nearly all OO.

MySQL.  Its all on top of MySQL and its pretty damned big.  How big?
We're about to overflow MEDIUMINT UNSIGNED (that's 16.7 million) in a
bunch of tables.  They're not ashamed of using MySQL and its going to
be in your face every day, so don't come in if you can't stand it.
If you have DBA sk1llz, that would be very helpful.

DBI.  If it uses MySQL, it uses DBI.  I'm introducing Class::DBI so it
would be nice if you're familiar with the basics of schema
abstraction.

Documenting.  Whadya know, they write documentation!  You'll have to
do it.  Its on POD.  Suck it up.

Testing.  Tests, too.  All in the normal ok/not ok style.  Those nutty
Irish.

Review.  Every change is looked at and pass/failed by another
programmer.  Everyone reviews.  It takes a little getting used to if
you've never worked in a strict review environment before, but it
prevents much lunacy.

Aegis.  They use a change and version control system called Aegis.
http://www.pcug.org.au/~millerp/aegis/aegis.html If you're familiar
with something like ClearCASE, this won't be much different.  However,
if you're a CVS or Perforce user its a bit odd for the first couple
weeks because the philosophy is very different, yet the commands are
oddly similar.  Aegis enforces review, tracks versions, does merges,
enforces testing, etc... and is quite nice once you get used to it.

Quake 2.  There's about two half-hour games a day.  The designers
habitually get beaten by the designers, so we need good players.

Linux.  System's on Linux.  All the programmers run Linux.  Doesn't
actually effect you much, just FYI.

Refactoring.  The system only became sane in the last four or five
months, so there's still lots of lunacy lying around waiting to be
cleaned up.  Hopefully I'll be able to get cleanup time explicitly
scheduled every week.

There is tea.


Things you won't really have to worry about...

CGI.  There's actually very little of this as most of the
functionality is packed away in web-agnostic modules.  Forms and such
are well hidden behind templates.

HTML.  As above, the CGI programs use templates.  Designers write the
templates.

Windows.


The technie team is currently six full time programmers, two
contractors, a solid project manager, three designers and a rather
amazing sysadmin who has a big diesel generator on the roof.  We have
our own floor, too.  Rest of the company is about 30 people plus
another 20 or so in the warehouse, so its fairly small.


This best sums up the working conditions here... someone is expected
to be on call 24 hours a day and they must carry a pager at all times
during their jaunt with it.  However, the person on call gets paid
extra just for carrying *and* they get paid a bonus if they're called
(regardless if it was an actual problem or not).

Sensible.


If you have any questions about the above, ask me.  If you have any
questions about the job details (salary, benefits, when it starts,
etc...) email ruth at blackstar.co.uk.


Here's the official announcement...

  Senior Perl Programmer

  You will be an excellent Perl programmer, knowledgeable in working
  with Perl modules and object-oriented features. Experience with SQL
  and large database systems would be an advantage, as would experience
  in the design and implementation of complex systems.

  You will have at least 3 years experience in a senior Perl programming role. 

  Salary: Negotiable, plus benefits package

  **jobs at blackstar.co.uk**

  BlackStar, Belfast, UK


PS  These are the guys who put up $25,000 for Damian.

PPS Resumes must be in by THIS FRIDAY

--

Michael G. Schwern   <schwern at pobox.com>    http://www.pobox.com/~schwern/
Perl6 Quality Assurance     <perl-qa at perl.org>	     Kwalitee Is Job One
Do not try comedy at home!  Milk & Cheese are advanced experts!  Attempts at
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