[Omaha.pm] Hiring polyglots (Modern Perl, Scala, etc.)

[Jay Hannah]

On Apr 9, 2014, at 3:00 PM, Dave Burchell <evaddnomaid at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey Jay, put me down as interested.

Awesome! Thanks! I've shared your resume up the ladder, we should do lunch or something. 

> Couple of questions:
> 1) I'm getting more and more into functional programming.  I don't know much about Scala, but I see it has some pretty strong functional features.  How open/encouraging would this position be to a functional approach with Scala?

Very. The Scala workload I'm briefed on is in early planning phase, so you can guide the design and implementation to suit your preferences. You'll help Scala neophytes (like me) ramp up to your vision of the Right Way to do it.   :)

> 2) I usually do a conference or two every year, often working with Dave Nielsen (who you might have met at Hack Omaha).  How flexible would the position be on (unpaid) time off for conferences?

We encourage conferences, public speaking, training. All that time is paid.

( If you prefer NOT to be paid, simply give your money to me after your auto-deposit hits.  :)  )

( We don't track PTO. If you get your partner work done, we're happy. )

We cover all your expenses for the annual company-wide meeting in Las Vegas, and one other conference of your choice each year. Many of us Perl-leaning folk choose YAPC::NA (and other Perl conferences) but you might prefer one or more Scala/whatever confs? Flexibility for additional conferences beyond that? If you can still get your partner work done, great! Go!

> But while we are on the subject of "Modern Perl": Dave Cross points out (http://www.josetteorama.com/what-is-modern-perl/) that "Modern Perl" can mean different things to different people.  What does "Modern Perl" mean to you, Jay?

Using supported, documented frameworks to solve common business problems, instead of rolling-your-own abominations like we all did in our rambunctious youths. Our default Perl-flavored stack often looks like this:

VC:   git 
perl: current!
      5.18.2! Why not?[1]
      5.19.10 if you're feeling saucy :)
OO:   Moose
web:  Catalyst, PSGI/Plack, Template::Toolkit
ORM:  DBIx::Class or Rose::DB
TDD:  Test::More and friends
      ... and the cool half of CPAN. ;)
RDBMS: PostgreSQL, or whatever is the best fit for the particular task, including NoSQLs
CI:   Jenkins or Bamboo

Well, that's my default Perl-flavored stack. We employ several genius types that deploy "edgier" stuff, as warranted.  :)

Did that address your questions?

Thanks,

Jay Hannah
Project Lead / Programmer
http://www.iinteractive.com
Email: jay.hannah at iinteractive.com
AOL IM: deafferret
Mobile: 1.402.598.7782
Fax: 1.402.691.9496



[1] Yes, sometimes there are very valid reasons not to.  :)