Ask HN: Who Is Hiring? (November 2010 Edition)

1 meeting per week. Optional: daily standup email though :)

http://robotsandpencils.com

email: mj@robotsandpencils.com for more info.

We are looking for a strong Systems Support Engineer. No remote. We like to describe our team as a 'Startup' within Amazon, as our part of the business is still growing rapidly and our engineers can have a lot of influence on where the product goes.

Job description below. Contact me at ${hn_username}@gmail.com if you have any questions.

The Amazon Services team is looking for a great Systems Support Engineer to keep our systems running. You should be comfortable in a Linux environment, be able to automate everything you did yesterday, and willing to troubleshoot and solve new problems on a daily basis. Come join one of the fastest growing teams within Amazon.

Responsibilities:

-Maintain stability and performance of our systems via tickets during oncall shifts

-Diagnose and troubleshoot new production issues that affect our customers

-Create and maintain standard operating procedure documents for new issues identified

-Automate operational tasks to assist with our scaling needs

Requirements:

-Proficiency in a scripting language (Ruby, Perl, Python, Shell)

-Familiar with SQL databases

-Comfortable navigating a Linux environment

-Basic understanding of web application architectures

Bonus points:

-Written a Rails application

-Deep knowledge of Oracle databases

-Troubleshooting experience

-Ticketing experience

Email this HN name at gmail with a resume and links to any relevant projects.

Successfully working remotely, with a team, is more effort. The barrier to communication is higher; there is more inertia to overcome. When collocated, you can just shout out to the room, "Hey, does someone know about X?". When remote, it's often a chat room of some form instead. There's a little more effort required.

In my book, one requirement of a remote (team) worker is that he be at least a bit extroverted. My experience has been that less extroverted developers find themselves quickly out of the loop. I believe this is because they don't seek out interaction with other team members and so fall out of sync with the team.

The lack of physical presence can put a strain on relationships. Sight unseen, it is so easy to project unintended meaning onto the text, or speech of colleagues (granted, we do this in-person as well but to a lesser degree).

Body language provides real cues that are missing from remote communication. I try to resolve this by meeting colleagues/clients early in the process to help build that relationship.

When you put the communication part aside, there is the question of motivation. I've also found that some people, when working remotely, tend to backslide and become less productive. I believe this to be due to the lack of implicit peer pressure of seeing your colleagues working. Or, to put it bluntly, a lack of solid work ethic.

When remote working, there is less (micro-)management. No one is looking over your shoulder. For some people, remote pairing can help here.

Ultimately, there is no substitute for a deeply engrained need to ship. Either you've got it or you don't. If you don't, you're probably not going to be a good remote worker.