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

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

#61

Post by SapphireSun »

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.

Same here. At my current job I knew exactly 0 perl to start with. I haven't learned all the object oriented stuff yet, but I'm cruising (and have been for at least the past three months or more) at 4 mo. in, and I was capable of writing some of the simple stuff after a week or two.

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

#63

Post by ojilles »

fijter wrote: post #18
jfarmer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Den Haag for three months and I was surprised at how little Dutch was spoken on a day-to-day basis. Everyone defaulted to English all the time, and the only people I met who didn't speak it were immigrants from other countries (usually Russia). I was eventually able to pronounce Scheveningen, though. Edit: All this is to say, of all the non-English-speaking countries to go to as an English speak, The Nethe…

I live and work in The Netherlands and if there is a non-dutch speaker in one of my teams we default to English so everyone can follow the discussion, although it's a bit harder for everyone to follow and it takes a bit more time. For the younger people here English isn't a problem, for the 40+ (aged) people it can be. For even better adaption of English you should visit Scandinavia; In the short time I've been there…

Actually, according to european study [1], the ability to speak English is 87% for NL versus 86% in Denmark. I've lived in both, and I think what you're describing is selection bias?

[1] http://ec.europa.eu/education/languages/pdf/doc631_en.pdf

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

#64

Post by sjmudd »

moe wrote: post #57
mustpax wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They are also looking for DBAs if your skills lean that way.

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

#65

Post by LoonyPandora »

avar wrote: post #31

Odd to see this on HN now. I took the job with Booking, just finished packing and will be flying out to Amsterdam tomorrow. See http://blogs.perl.org/users/aevar_arnfjor_bjarmason/2010/10/... For anyone considering this I can tell you that their whole relocation package (including the assistance they give you) is very impressive.

Working with both Ovid and Avar makes this a great opportunity to learn from two big-hitters in the perl world.

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

#66

Post by isotopp »

yoak wrote: post #21

It's probably a bad sign. Almost no one is in a position to bring that many on board and use them effectively, and I'm tempted to say no one is unless they're already a fair multiple of that size. When you combine that with being open to "beginners willing to learn" which almost no one can afford, it makes it sound like one of the "We need 5 times what our ten guys are doing and that means 40 more." bad decisions. Ge…

This company is part of the Priceline group of companies.

Comparing http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=PCLN+GOOG shows size-related statistics that are about 10% of GOOG, whatever that may mean in reality given the difference of marktes in which they operate.

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

#67

Post by draegtun »

hendler wrote: post #53

Maybe they'll finish Perl 6?

Booking.com are a heavy user and investor in Perl5:

* http://www.booking.com/general.ja.html?tmpl=docs/pressreleas...

* http://news.perlfoundation.org/2008/12/bookingcom_makes_a_ma...

* http://news.perlfoundation.org/2010/02/grant_proposal_fixing...

NB. Last two links look a bit naff at moment! I think they're in process of some CSS amendments.

So Booking.com want perl5 developers and not anything related to perl6. However if you are interested in perl6 then you can find the latest version of Rakudo (perl6 on Parrot) here: http://rakudo.org/announce/rakudo-star/2010.09

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

#68

Post by warfangle »

Manfred wrote: post #62
warfangle wrote: post #39

If this was about four years from now, I would be all over it. I've been toying with the idea of someday expatriating to the Netherlands.

Why wait?

I'm not quite finished where I am now. :)

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

#69

Post by mattm »

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…

What about people that haven't used much Perl but can pick up languages quickly? Do you look for people like that or do they get screened out because they have little to no Perl experience?
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