Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: booking.com is looking for 40+ Perl programmers (in Amsterdam)

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 70 posts

Re: Tell HN: booking.com is looking for 40+ Perl programmers (in Amsterdam)

#51

Post by symkat »

jrockway wrote: post #48
symkat wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stay away from applying for a lot of Perl jobs because my skillsets don't seem to match what's used in production environments often, though I've been doing it for >5 years. For instance, my webby experience with Perl is CGI::Fast, POE::Componenet::FastGI, Plack::Request with my own dispatcher, DBI itself. Where often the places are looking for Catylist or mod_perl with DBIx::Class / ORM, and I feel uncomfortable a…

I like it if candidates know about testing and OO. If they don't know Moose yet, that's fine. Catalyst and DBIx::Class are not something I would expect. Not everyone does web/database stuff. I don't, and I wrote a freakin' book about it! It's a little odd if you know OO Perl but don't use Moose, but not a deal-killer. Honestly, I've found that there is a large faction of Perl programmers that refuse to leave the 1990…

I know OO and testing (at least Test::More and general test writing), though I haven't played with Moose more for a lack of time than an aversion to it.

Half the jobs I've taken give deadlines for projects that make it impossible for me to learn more than I know to complete them and the list of things I have to learn in my time (that also competes with lists of projects, blog articles and other things) is growing constantly. I miss having free time.

Re: Tell HN: booking.com is looking for 40+ Perl programmers (in Amsterdam)

#52

Post by mustpax »

endtime wrote: post #19
thibaut_barrere wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think really. Based on some discussion, it seems they are more adding a pile of new servers everyday, and they also seem to do a very good job at automating their process etc.

I don't think the number of servers you need is even loosely related to the number of devs you need.

You need more people to manage 1,000 servers than you do for managing just 10. Sure, you can automate processes, but as automation becomes more sophisticated it takes more time and resources to build and maintain. So, yes, the number of devs does not grow linearly with the number of servers, but maybe it grows logarithmically, or even slower. But it does grow.

Re: Tell HN: booking.com is looking for 40+ Perl programmers (in Amsterdam)

#54

Post by tlack »

mcargian wrote: post #46
tlack wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked with them as an affiliate and they have a pretty good system. The travel industry as a whole is pretty fast moving.

I've worked with them as an affiliate too - and their XML service, in some cases, is very slow compared to their competitors - like orders of magnitude slow. I hope 40+ engineers can help them catch up with the rest. Although 40 seems like a crazy number.

I find IAN to be much slower than booking.com or Priceline, but maybe that was just a personal experience of mine and doesn't reflect the usual case.. hmm..

Re: Tell HN: booking.com is looking for 40+ Perl programmers (in Amsterdam)

#55

Post by aphexairlines »

jrockway wrote: post #26

I never realized until recently how hard something like this is. People do not want to move. People that hear about your job post usually have some reason to have heard about your job post, like they can't program at all and their last employer finally figured it out. Unfortunately, you can't know this until they show up and you ask them a few questions about Perl. (I love how one candidate tried to BS me on a basic…

Why is Perl knowledge a requirement? I've been writing Perl in my new job since June and almost the entire team of 10 (myself included) knew no Perl before joining.

Check that your candidates know how to develop software, make sure they are comfortable with functional programming so they don't break anything, and give them a couple books (programming perl & higher order perl) to read for a week after joining.

Re: Tell HN: booking.com is looking for 40+ Perl programmers (in Amsterdam)

#56

Post by jrockway »

aphexairlines wrote: post #55
jrockway wrote: post #26

I never realized until recently how hard something like this is. People do not want to move. People that hear about your job post usually have some reason to have heard about your job post, like they can't program at all and their last employer finally figured it out. Unfortunately, you can't know this until they show up and you ask them a few questions about Perl. (I love how one candidate tried to BS me on a basic…

Why is Perl knowledge a requirement? I've been writing Perl in my new job since June and almost the entire team of 10 (myself included) knew no Perl before joining. Check that your candidates know how to develop software, make sure they are comfortable with functional programming so they don't break anything, and give them a couple books (programming perl & higher order perl) to read for a week after joining.

This is even harder to select for. Now instead of the keyword "Perl", we have nothing.

Re: Tell HN: booking.com is looking for 40+ Perl programmers (in Amsterdam)

#57

Post by moe »

mustpax wrote: post #52
endtime wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the number of servers you need is even loosely related to the number of devs you need.

You need more people to manage 1,000 servers than you do for managing just 10. Sure, you can automate processes, but as automation becomes more sophisticated it takes more time and resources to build and maintain. So, yes, the number of devs does not grow linearly with the number of servers, but maybe it grows logarithmically, or even slower. But it does grow.

Note they are looking for developers, not sysadmins.

Yes, 1000 servers translates to roughly 40 racks and you'd better have a team of sysadmins to babysit them.

Imho that doesn't have much to do with hiring 40 perl developers in one fellow swoop, though.

Re: Tell HN: booking.com is looking for 40+ Perl programmers (in Amsterdam)

#58

Post by blackdog »

snarkyboojum wrote: post #36
jrockway wrote: post #26

I never realized until recently how hard something like this is. People do not want to move. People that hear about your job post usually have some reason to have heard about your job post, like they can't program at all and their last employer finally figured it out. Unfortunately, you can't know this until they show up and you ask them a few questions about Perl. (I love how one candidate tried to BS me on a basic…

I have an almost diametrically opposed experience. I have good Perl skills, and 8+ years experience, and can't get Perl work in Sydney Australia, primarily due to the fact that recruiters looking for Perl devs here don't know anything about Perl tech. The few Perl dev jobs I've interviewed for and taken have relied on unbelievably basic programming tests.

if you're looking for perl jobs in Sydney, drop me a line at mwotton@gmail.com. I have a few friends who are constantly looking for good perl devs.

Re: Tell HN: booking.com is looking for 40+ Perl programmers (in Amsterdam)

#59

Post by blackdog »

mustpax wrote: post #38
mmaunder wrote: post #25

http://jobs.perl.org/ While Erlang and Haskell may get you laid, Perl remains the glue of the web.

Not that I don't know but for the other readers here, how would one get laid with Erlang or Haskell?

quickly and in parallel.
Post reply on HN