It’s been over a decade since my work experience at Scient and what a great experience it was.
Month: April 2009
Where is all the engineering talent?
The national unemployment rate is 8.5% according to March 2009 report released by the Bureau of Labor. In the state of California, unemployment is at 10.5%. The amazing thing is that even under these conditions I find it very difficult to consistently find good software engineering talent. I had to think about why and came up with a few observations.
The recruiting process is inefficient — I get 6 -10 cold recruiter calls a day telling me that they have the perfect engineer for me regardless of the fact that they have no idea what my company does or what I’m looking for. They actually started randomly visiting the office now. I get at least 2 -3 random visits a month. I post a job on Monster.com, Dice.com or CraigsList.org and I get flooded with random resumes — almost too many for me to even go through. Once your network runs dry — it seems that using an expensive 3rd party recruiter is the only way to go. The means in which we connect hiring managers with perspective workers needs to get better.
Software engineers not prepared for the next generation of problems to solve — One of my areas of expertise is building platform teams and finding the talent to do so is difficult. Most software engineers have been cornered into using a set of technologies that are meant to make their lives easier by abstracting the lower level details. This results in many engineers that are experts of a framework but do not have the skills on their own to build their own software infrastructure. Cloud computing is bringing forth the problem — pushing software into a more centralized, mult-processor problem. Experience building complex multi-threaded software infrastucture is rare. Well, what about the introduction of multi-core processors? This changes the game at an even more fundamental level. What are we going to do with all the code that doesn’t take advantage of multi-processor hardware? Uh!
Is the US not producing enough engineering talent? — This topic seems to be under debate but I do know that 4/5 resumes I get are from non-US engineers. Nothing wrong with that — I’ve hired from all over the world and outsourced in all parts of the world. However, as a father, I hope that there are educational programs are in place to encourage kids to consider engineering diciplines.
The bottom line is that I guess life is good if you’re a good software engineer.
Google I/O Developer Conference
I just signed up for the upcoming Google I/O Developer Conference @ Moscone Center May 27th and 28th. For $300 bucks how can you go wrong? Most conferences are well over $2000.
If you plan to attend, let me know and we’ll grab some drinks after the show.
My Life with a Kindle 2
I’ve had the Amazon Kindle 2 for just over a month now and its about time I jot down a few notes about my experience. Here are the things I like …
- Compact — smaller than a standard hardcover book
- Readability — very easy on the eyes
- Wireless Access — this is killer for me. I get the New York Times everyday, every morning without having to step outside. Plus, I can download whatever newspaper, book or magazine where ever I might be. This is convenience.
- Upload documents — I’m able to email the Kindle 2 documents that might want to read on the road. This is great because I kill less trees and my backpack is 1/3 the weight.
- Battery life — I’ve had no problems with running low on juice — unlike my iPhone 3G.
- Cheaper books — I like saving money
- Ability to consume more information — there is something to be said about having that if I have more information at my finger tips, I’ll consume more of it. This seems to be true for me.
- Eco-Friendly — not sure if they are made with some toxic plastic but I sure am using less paper
Here are things I don’t like:
- Larger screen — I never use the keyboard at the bottom — make the screen bigger
- Touchscreen — not sure how that would work with a digital ink screen but I still want it
- Color screen
- Give me blogs for free — they charge me money to read my favorite blog
- Text-to-speech is over rated — I never use it. I prefer to listen to a podcast or Ted talk.
Overall, I’m a fan and would recommend it to others.
Where is everyone?
Well, it’s been a while since I posted to my blog — this seems to happen when i start a new job. At the end of last year, I joined DigitalGlobe as their Director, Software Engineering running their office in Walnut Creek. DigitalGlobe is the world’s leading provider of high resolution commercial imagery and the only company operating a constellation of sub-meter commercial imaging satellites. You probably have recogized some of DigitalGlobe’s imagery within Google Earth and Google Maps. Here is a link of my old home in Connectitcut with some of our imagery. The lake labeled Candee’s Pond which resides on our property was actually renamed “Renato’s Lake” when I was 8 years old. I guess the town had not updated their records yet.
In more recent events, DigitalGlobe satellites captured the North Korean rocket launch in mid-flight. Here is a large image and here is a large overview image, both of them available on the company website.
I would tell write about what I’m working on but I would need to kill you. In all seriousness, its probably one of the most unique challenges I’ve ever faced building software and wow, is it cool stuff. You’ll hear more about it in the coming months.
