From cherice at urbanairship.com Tue Sep 2 23:56:46 2014 From: cherice at urbanairship.com (Cherice Withers-Melchior) Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2014 14:56:46 -0700 Subject: [portland] Sr. Python Engineer - Job at Urban Airship Message-ID: I am the Engineering/Customer Success Recruiter for Urban Airship. We currently have a Sr. Python Engineer position open on our Professional Services team. This is a full-stack development role. Details are below: Urban Airship is the leading provider of messaging technology and usage data for smartphones, tablets, PCs and other connected devices. Our solutions simplify all aspects of notification/alert delivery and mobile campaign management across multiple platforms in a scalable and reliable way. Urban Airship's data solutions provide a unique perspective on user reaction, both direct and indirect, campaign-level and long-term, to our customers' messaging strategies. In addition to our core messaging and data services, we provide location targeting and digital wallet solutions as well as strategic and integration services. If you love building solutions and are passionate about making customers successful, this opportunity is for you. The role involves significant architecture work and thoughtful design to make our customers applications successful. You should be prepared and excited to learn new skills and at the same time comfortable with current technologies as listed below. Mobile is a changing landscape and one of the key aspects of this job is staying on top of new developments. We live to create highly available, robust, supportable integrations that make our customers happy and wildly successful. *Job Requirements:* - Partner with Customer Success team internally to build complex software systems and oversee their successful delivery to customers - Utilize professional best practices for the full software development life cycle (including coding standards, code reviews, source control management, build processes, testing, and operations) to add significant value to the capabilities of our customers? apps - Manage projects seamlessly from scoping requirements through actual product launch - Partner with high-level customers and internal teams to manage relationships, solve deeply technical problems and resolve conflict amidst ambiguity and rigorous growth Experience and Skills - BS in Computer Science or equivalent work experience - Software development/engineering experience - Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; ability to communicate efficiently and effectively with both technical and non-technical audiences - Initiative and follow-through skills with a constant eye on managing vision and purpose Preferred - Experience in a consulting/professional services role at a tech start-up - Familiarity with the technologies we use: Python, Java, Javascript, Postgres, Redis, Celery, Objective-C, Flask, Android, iOS - DevOps background, including automation - Strong distributed systems and web services design and implementation experience - XML processing or even better, structured data processing - Mobile development experience is a plus -- *Cherice Withers-Melchior* Recruiting Manager Urban Airship | 1417 NW Everett St. | Suite 300 | Portland OR 97209 e: cherice at urbanairship.com | c: 503-201-2161 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pacopablo at pacopablo.com Fri Sep 12 20:32:25 2014 From: pacopablo at pacopablo.com (John Hampton) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 11:32:25 -0700 Subject: [portland] Looking for Contractor for help building Intranet Website Message-ID: All, I am looking for a python contractor for help in building an intranet site for my employer [1]. Ideally, I'd like to find a local independent contractor, though I'm open to recommendations for software shops to contact. Also, I have no clue what the current average hourly rate is among web devs is. I am currently using Pyramid w/ SQAlchemy. The intranet site will initially focus on internal documentation. After the initial site is complete, I anticipate future work on new features such as equipment requisition, interfacing with inventory, and other needs as they arise. The site will be interfacing with Active Directory, MS SQL, and PostgreSQL. I will be assisting with the coding, but I need someone that can take on the bulk of the work. I'm looking to do as much as possible in Python, though I'd like the site to be semi-cool, so a smattering of Javascript experience is helpful. Even though the site will be used internally, I'm hoping to be able to open source as much of it as I can. If you're interested, I'm happy to buy lunch and explain more of the details. I'd also be grateful for any recommendations or thoughts. Thanks. -John [1] I am the IT manager for a family of companies based in Beaverton. Precision Aircraft Soluitions (http://www.precisionaircraft.com) and Erickson Realty (http://www.ericksonpdx.com/) are two of them -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rshepard at appl-ecosys.com Fri Sep 12 21:06:18 2014 From: rshepard at appl-ecosys.com (Rich Shepard) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 12:06:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [portland] Looking for Contractor for help building Intranet Website In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 12 Sep 2014, John Hampton wrote: > I am looking for a python contractor for help in building an intranet site > for my employer [1]. Ideally, I'd like to find a local independent > contractor, though I'm open to recommendations for software shops to > contact. Also, I have no clue what the current average hourly rate is > among web devs is. John, I'm not interested in applying for the job, but offer a suggestion for your serious consideration: buy the project for a flat fee, not an hourly rate. Two major problems with hourly billing: 1.) The buyer really does not know what the necessary expertise is worth per hour. If you did you could probably develop the project yourself. But, you want expertise you do not have in-house. Also, price does not equal quality. Lowest bid too frequently means unacceptable quality. 2.) Your contractor is in competition with you. He (or she) knows what is involved in developing your project but there are always glitches, problems that take longer than expected to resolve, and so on. So the contractor is in a bind: does he bill you for all those hours and have you complain about the cost, or does he eat the time and short-change himself? When you negotiate a fixed fee for the project it is based on specific objectives of what will be delivered and when (both of you should target long and deliver early). You both agree on the price so you know up front how much you're investing and the contractor is satisfied with that amount. Then you both have aligned goals: get the project done correctly as quickly as is consistent with the required quality, regardless of the time and effort involved. Define the specific end-point; e.g., delivery of a working prototype for everyone to try. After that, changes and tweaks can be done on a time-and-expense basis. Years ago I changed to flat rate project costs and my clients really like it. I don't worry if I end up working for less than minimum wages since I agreed the amount was acceptable to me and my clients paid the budgeted amount without worry that I'd treat them as a cash cow to be milked dry. Also, offer to pay 1/3rd of the total up front, and the final two thirds at agreed check points. A problem with selling services is that they cannot be repossessed once delivered. Pre-payment sets an ethical, moral, and honesty obligation on your contractor and assures you that his attention is focused on your needs. Good luck, Rich -- Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. | Troutdale, OR 97060 USA www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863 From chrispitzer at gmail.com Fri Sep 12 21:51:22 2014 From: chrispitzer at gmail.com (Chris Pitzer) Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 12:51:22 -0700 Subject: [portland] Looking for Contractor for help building Intranet Website In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Just for the sake of having a differing opinion in the conversation, here's my take. I don't claim to be "right", and your mileage may vary. I ran a web app consulting shop for about 7 years. About 5 of those years we focused almost exclusively on Django consulting. We tried per-project billing, and we tried hourly. And eventually we settled on hourly with caveats: 1 - we would give an estimate first. 2 - before we went past the estimate, we would contact the client and give an update and request permission to work hours past the estimate. Hourly billing is friendly to a ***reality*** of all projects - scope creep. If scope creeps and the developer goes past the number of hours on the project, the relationship has changed. Now you aren't my friend, you're the guy I hate getting emails from. Because extra requests from you are requests from free work. And now we're in a tug-of-war, where you are requesting features you think are perfectly reasonable and in scope, and I'm telling you those features are out of scope or I'm doing more free work begrudgingly. I much prefer BRUTALLY small iterations, billed hourly. (ie, we're not talking an iteration to 1.0. We're talking an iteration that is "you can log in", then an iteration that is "list your dishwashers, but nothing is clickable yet", etc.) Anyway - take it or leave it - but for my money I like hourly arrangements from both sides of the coin. Cheers, Chris -- Chris Pitzer p. 503 425 9444 t. @chrispitzer w. http://lofiart.com On Fri, Sep 12, 2014 at 12:06 PM, Rich Shepard wrote: > On Fri, 12 Sep 2014, John Hampton wrote: > > I am looking for a python contractor for help in building an intranet site >> for my employer [1]. Ideally, I'd like to find a local independent >> contractor, though I'm open to recommendations for software shops to >> contact. Also, I have no clue what the current average hourly rate is >> among web devs is. >> > > John, > > I'm not interested in applying for the job, but offer a suggestion for > your serious consideration: buy the project for a flat fee, not an hourly > rate. > > Two major problems with hourly billing: > > 1.) The buyer really does not know what the necessary expertise is worth > per hour. If you did you could probably develop the project yourself. But, > you want expertise you do not have in-house. Also, price does not equal > quality. Lowest bid too frequently means unacceptable quality. > > 2.) Your contractor is in competition with you. He (or she) knows what is > involved in developing your project but there are always glitches, problems > that take longer than expected to resolve, and so on. So the contractor is > in a bind: does he bill you for all those hours and have you complain about > the cost, or does he eat the time and short-change himself? > > When you negotiate a fixed fee for the project it is based on specific > objectives of what will be delivered and when (both of you should target > long and deliver early). You both agree on the price so you know up front > how much you're investing and the contractor is satisfied with that amount. > Then you both have aligned goals: get the project done correctly as quickly > as is consistent with the required quality, regardless of the time and > effort involved. > > Define the specific end-point; e.g., delivery of a working prototype for > everyone to try. After that, changes and tweaks can be done on a > time-and-expense basis. > > Years ago I changed to flat rate project costs and my clients really like > it. I don't worry if I end up working for less than minimum wages since I > agreed the amount was acceptable to me and my clients paid the budgeted > amount without worry that I'd treat them as a cash cow to be milked dry. > > Also, offer to pay 1/3rd of the total up front, and the final two thirds > at agreed check points. A problem with selling services is that they cannot > be repossessed once delivered. Pre-payment sets an ethical, moral, and > honesty obligation on your contractor and assures you that his attention is > focused on your needs. > > Good luck, > > Rich > > -- > Richard B. Shepard, Ph.D. > Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. | Troutdale, OR 97060 USA > www.appl-ecosys.com Voice: 503-667-4517 Fax: 503-667-8863 > > _______________________________________________ > Portland mailing list > Portland at python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/portland > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jchampion at zetacentauri.com Tue Sep 16 19:26:01 2014 From: jchampion at zetacentauri.com (Jason Champion) Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 10:26:01 -0700 Subject: [portland] Portland Startup Grind Founder Looking for Web Dev Help In-Reply-To: <249785CA-4669-44B7-9083-A3105BF4F4B8@gmail.com> References: <249785CA-4669-44B7-9083-A3105BF4F4B8@gmail.com> Message-ID: <541872A9.7060107@zetacentauri.com> Howdy Folks, Just thought I'd mention that Christopher Richards posted a request for web development help for his new venture on the PDX Startups Switchboard in case anybody in interested in picking up a side gig: https://pdxstartups.switchboardhq.com/posts/5382-web-development Disclaimer: I'm not involved in any way, I just know Chris from the Startup Grind Portland events (which are great) and think he's generally Doing Good Things, and it would be tragic if his site ended up being built with JSP. Regards, Jason