[Baypiggies] Perot at NASA - Sr. Python Developer

[tpc247 at gmail.com]

On 6/30/09, Alec Flett <alecf at flett.org> wrote:

>
> I want to say, perhaps I'm in the minority, that if someone posting for a
> job wants someone with experience working in the social networking space,
> that's a fair request, the same way its fair to request people who care
> about interesting algorithms, code quality, excitement about scalability,
> etc. I think the social networking space is, like lots of other verticals, a
> space that DOES have its own set of issues both technically and on the
> product creation side.
>
> A case study: I was amazed recently when a bunch of technical folks I know,
> (who will remain nameless) who never use twitter added "twitter integration"
> to their application - the integration was basically allowing users to let
> the service hijack their twitter account to send fairly content-free
> messages +links on their behalf. They thought they were doing the user a
> great service because none of them use twitter in a social context.
>
> They held the common attitude towards twitter of "nobody cares that you're
> eating french fries right this moment, so stop tweeting about it" and at
> some level thought they were raising the quality of people's tweets by
> letting them share these links. Instead, for people who really enjoy using
> it in an almost purely social/gossipy context (which is most twitter use,
> including my own) they were really doing most of their their users a
> disservice by twittering impersonal stuff on their behalf.
>
> The fact is, while not everybody cares about it, a lot of folks, like me,
> actually do like it when their friends twitter "Boy I just had the best
> french fries in the world and now I'm going to nap them off" Yes, thats
> actually interesting to some of us, and I'm not afraid to admit it :)
>
> So I guess my point is: you can be technically savvy, have decades of
> experience as a software developer, but if you don't have experience in one
> particular vertical (or in fact mock it as a craze) that's a VERY reasonable
> filter for a hiring manager. If I am a founder or CEO of a startup that
> leverages social-network-oriented features to succeed, and my engineers kept
> deprioritizing social features because they thought I was just caught up in
> a craze, I'd be pretty annoyed with those developers no matter how
> technically savvy they are.
>
> Alec
>


hi all, I got laid off last week, and like most of you on this list I am
looking for my next opportunity.  Alex, normally I'd be inclined to agree
with you, and given that I'm no longer gainfully employed, you'd think the
last thing I'd try to do is burn my bridges or make powerful enemies, but I
have to say in light of the following fascinating article about the coming
war between Google and Facebook, your response to Travis taking him to task
for having social networking as a must seems to come off as a bit of a
tantrum, if you'll allow me to use such a term with someone whose talks I've
always enjoyed and whose book Python Cookbook I'm about to read at Alec's
recommendation.  Some salient points from the article I thought you might
find interesting:

Facebook executives weren't leaping at the chance to join with Google; they
preferred to conquer it. "We never liked those guys," says one former
Facebook engineer. "We all had that audacity, 'Anything Google does, we can
do better.'
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg envisions a more personalized, humanized Web,
where our network of friends, colleagues, peers, and family is our primary
source of information, just as it is offline.
Facebook has stolen several well-known Google employees, from COO Sheryl
Sandburg to chef Josef Desimone; at least 9 percent of its staff used to
work for the search giant.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-07/ff_facebookwall?currentPage=all

Thuon Chen
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