I speak with a lot of founders of startups. Since I’m not a VC I do sign NDAs and offer them what advice I can. Continue reading
The Craft
Long-term locks are the work of the amateur
I love living in Las Vegas — I can get a corned beef reuben at 11:30 pm after a nice relaxing session of high-speed shooting in Gears of War with my friend. In fact, I enjoy this late-night meal so often that I’m known by name to both the wait staff and the check-out counter group at the restaurant.
Last night they lost a customer … two of them. My friend and I won’t return. The situation was mostly due to a series of unfortunate poor decisions on the part of the staff, but the trigger for the whole fiasco was bad software engineering.
Tutoring network programming without doing their work
I often see ads on sites seeking people to do their CS assignments. I could do this though it’s generally pointless since all it does is cause ME to improve in some insignificant fashion and make some pittance of money and the customer graduates unable to do their job. However, I do respond when people are seeking tutors.
Contracting instead of employment
Today I had a new one; I bid to work on a project. It was short duration and limited hours. I won the bid … and I received an employment offer instead of a contract.
Architecture’s Parts
The Global Game Jam 2015 is coming up next weekend, and I plan to attend in Tempe, AZ. I’ve spent some time diving deeply into JS, Redis, and Python (as well as Python for customer work) to be ready for the Jam. I’ve been working primarily with what is known as architecture.
Simple coding for a non-technical user
Most of the customers I do work for are very technical. They have their own IT departments, often millions or tens of millions of dollars of equipment, and trained operators.
There are times I work for one person who isn’t all that technical but has an automation need. I did a project for one such person earlier this week.
Metaprogramming
I periodically get calls from firms trying to place me into one of their various pre-determined slots. I know they want to hear “C++ Programmer” or “Java programmer.” But aside from those terms being silly they’re not actually reflective of what I do anyway. I do something a lot more specialized.
Are There Not Enough Developers?
I’ve been getting calls from major placement firms the last two weeks which surprises me since the dead zone between Thanksgiving and Christmas is normally quiet until New Years. Obviously Dice has thousands of unfilled positions but often those are reposts of the same position to make them “current.” What’s going on? Continue reading
Overqualified huh?
I shouldn’t find it amusing, but I do. I was talking to a prospect about working on a project that would have let me work remotely from my Las Vegas office. Alas, the prospect spoke with me, asked me about my work experience, and told me I was over-qualified and I’d be bored doing the work needed so the interview was over.
Of course, they could simply have hated me. I’d have expected the more general “You don’t sound like a good fit” then. It’s even possible they thought I was lying and didn’t want to be confrontational and say “I don’t believe you did what you said.”
Limitless Knowledge Association 