[JOB] Python/Django Developer, Boston, MA

[Ian Stokes-Rees]

On 4/7/10 10:55 PM, Derek Martin wrote:
> Folks,
>
> On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 10:02:52PM -0400, Beau Gould (OSS) wrote:
>   
>> Python/Django Developer, Boston, MA 
>>
>> This is a full time, on-site, salaried (preferred) or hourly position
>> located in Boston, MA paying $70,000 to $100,000 or 45-60/hour.  
>>     
> I'm *not* looking for a job right now, but if I were, this job (at
> least in general nature) is close to what I might be looking for.  But
> I've been out of the job market for quite a while, and (no offense
> meant to the poster), I find myself wondering if this posting is
> realistic.  My impression is that, even at max pay, "an all-star
> back-end coder" who genuinely can "Implement business logic and data
> models with superb class design" and "Mentor other developers on
> software design and coding practices" would find this offer a bit
> lacking.  I'm assuming a bit, namely that since this is a start-up,
> very likely long hours would be expected.
>
> I'm not trying to dump on this posting, I'm really just wondering if
> people find this to be reasonable.
>   

It could be interesting work.  The low end of the salary range sounds
... low.  The high end sounds OK, but not inspirational.  My guess is
the company has promised the moon on some contract and now needs to
rapidly form a team and deliver.  There are some warning signs there if
the terms have been set in advance of having a senior software
developer/leader on board.  Also, it sounds like the startup knows what
kind of person they need, and they are looking for someone local, so it
is surprising they wouldn't have posted to one of the obvious Boston
mailing lists and save themselves $15-30k in recruiter fees.

I'd need to know what value-added features the start-up is going to
provide to the established company -- monetizing 1 million unique
visitors per year into something that can pay a startup $100-$250k (or
more) (just my guess at the contract size, if they are hiring a
"software team leader") on top of existing operating costs would be
pretty tough.

All that said, if there is one thing I've learned from working in
different startup, tech, and corporate environments, good code doesn't
bring in $$$, sales people do, so if you want to get paid to code, you
probably need to work in a constructive way with sales people who are
looking after your pay check, and do your best to deliver something the
customer will accept and that leads to more contracts/sales.

Ian

-- 
Ian Stokes-Rees, PhD                       W: http://hkl.hms.harvard.edu
ijstokes-/2FeUQLD3jedFdvTe/nMLpVzexx5G7lz at public.gmane.org               T: +1 617 432-5608 x75
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