This didn't turn out as planned. Started as what was suppose to be a note to recruiters and a small summary of things I like to help them decide if I would like a job or not but by the end of it I'd ranted about far too many things but I'm leaving it as is...already took the time to write it so why not.

Note to recruiters:

To give this a little context. I (like most I know in our field) get hounded by recruiters. It's not a problem for me. I really don't mind. I think it's great, give us a lot of opportunities so don't stop. But don't be rude if you get a no. (A note to you, if you were standing near me I'd have floored you then and there, you have no manners!).<!-- more -->

When I get a message about a Job from a recruiter I usually reply with a polite "No thank you. I'm not looking for anything at the moment". I usually don't get a reply back when I do its something along the lines of "That's fine thanks for getting back but if you're ever interested you know who to contact first...". I reply because who knows, one day I might actually be interested.

So, to  (hopefully) prevent another fiasco.

Informal CV:

Summary

  • I am very fun and outgoing.

  • I do what I do because I enjoy it. Sure there is money to be made but I love what I do!

  • I play well with others

  • I do my best work and get the most enjoyment when I'm able to learn new things.

  • I DO NOT enjoy reading random things so don't give me a pile of boring stuff and expect I'll read it. No matter how important you think it is. I enjoy reading technical things. Stuff that peeks my interest and really makes my 2 brain cells chit chat. I've read "Introduction to Algorithms" by Cormen et al. at least 3 times. And I'm planning to go again, its good stuff. To the contrary I've still not read things that were "required" in school (Like Shakespeare...I fall asleep at the very thought)

  • I love teams, the best teams provide valuable feedback and meaningful criticisms.

Choice:

Who I work for is a very conscious choice. I have as much freedom to chose who I work for as they do in deciding whether to hire me or not. I chose an internship at DataSift over a bank (more money!) for one or more of these reasons.

  • I will do my best to make you a lot of money! Providing you don't try to lock me in a cubicle.

  • I hate boring mindless programming tasks. And for the record asking me to stitch up an excel file with some VB is not programming. You give me much of that and you'll see the back of my head out the door faster than I'd ask you for the day's pay.

  • I'm not there yet but I am striving to be an "Engineer" not an "IT guy", I believe what I do is a craft and I would like to see it respected. The same way I respect a more business honed character doing his thing. I don't understand it and it all seems to just happen like magic but I appreciate they (sometimes :P , couldn't resist) work hard!

  • You allow me the freedom to think, to experiment and explore and I guarantee you will get so much more out of me. I'm not in the army. I DO NOT TAKE ORDERS FROM ANYONE! If you'd like something done, just because you pay my salary doesn't give you the right to give me an order...We're all humans and mutual respect will go a long way with me. That's all I'll ever ask for.

Technology:

  • I am a weird generation geek. I've never watched star wars or star trek and only recently watched 3-4 episodes of stargate. I do not watch every nerdy thing you'd expect a "nerd" to have watched. I find most of them boring and an utter waste of time. (I say that with fingers crossed no one takes offense).

  • I love new, cutting edge technology.

  • Throw me in a room with something like Cassandra, NodeJS, AngularJS, HTML5, WebSockets, Hadoop, gesture libraries, predictive technology (natural language processing, typical analytics tools for predictions etc) and I will go crazy! I'll never get bored. In fact you might find I just stay in that room and build awesome stuff for you while you pile up my salary waiting for me to come out.

  • I started working with Cassandra in 2008 not long after Facebook opensourced it. Not because I had "big data", not because I had the greatest idea in the world but to put it bluntly it was a hot piece a tech and I loved it! Since then I've watched it explode in popularity and the whole "big data" area itself went from being something you'll love hearing about to annoying marketing term. Some things in this industry piss me off to no end. Why do these people insist on turning everything into marketing? If you do, please don't let it lose its original meaning and value. Now its just a watered down washed up term used by every has been and would be company who wants to impress some....I'll stop that there before I offend someone impressed by the term.

  • I am currently working night and day (I've done at least one 36hr burst...no sleep), on Fillta.  This ladies and gentlemen is why I reply nicely with a "No not currently looking for anything but thanks.". Fillta I hope will become a useful tool.

  • To support some of my ranting, Higgs.IO is a by product of Fillta (I'm working on creating a project site for it with some documentation and tests...but time is er...going).

  • On that note, I also believe in the share and care. Our industry, our planet even has gotten as far as it has by sharing knowledge. Apart from the bits and bobs that gives your company a competitive advantage, why keep code a secret? Share!

People:

  • People will share, their thoughts, their opinions, their experiences will benefit both you (working on the project) and the project itself. They will think of things you wouldn't have. You will likely end up with a much better product than if it were locked down with a few people working on it. Those few people all thinking the same thing...yeah that's harmony. But what's the point if that thinking goes out of date and you have no one to say that random thing that will make you think "ohhhhhh, hadn't thought of that. While we're doing that we could also do...that'll make it so much better. And what if it did....".

  • I like using old, established things that work and we all know works. But when and if I see the opportunity to do something, I would like to have the ability to show some innovation, to experiment and play! Higgs is an e.g. of that. Yes there are HTTP & WebSocket servers in Java and other languages, yes there are all sorts of other things that can be stitched together and do what Higgs does but do I have the opportunity to push them beyond their means? As Fillta grows, can I extend them easily and push it even farther, and more importantly will I enjoy it? Or will I end up with decades of bloat that can't be changed because it is there for some random "was valid then" reason?

I think what I'm trying to say is. I will do any related job, excel with some VB some nice pretty business graphs (and I'll probably enjoy doing it), but if the job expects me to do that all day every day. Don't contact me...If it doesn't offer a challenge...don't contact me. DataSift was amazing because of several things but firstly the people, amazing set of people. Then the technology, the challenges, what I learnt. How much I learnt and in so little time. I know not every company is going to be like that or anywhere near as good but the ones that aren't if they're open to making things "better" I'm all for it. If they're content with the way they are...meh, traditions are sometimes hard to break...I don't do cults.

I've been told "I'm too young to [insert thing I do here]" but seriously, if that's the mentality you have I don't want to know you in the first place so keep your thoughts to yourself. I do what I do because I love it. When I built my first website in school, if my IT teacher hadn't given me that 1200+ page HTML 4 book I wouldn't be doing what I do. Age shouldn't matter. I see lots of older "more experienced" people who do very stupid things that makes me wonder sometimes. Judge me for what I can do not what you perceive. And as it stands I'm comfortable with at least 8 programming languages at the moment (and about to learn Haskell), I'd say I'm very good in 3 of those 8 (as in I can do quite a lot before consulting documentation). I am easily capable of building whatever crazy thing I dream up and often do, even if I never publish them! I know older more experienced people with very very deep knowledge of a single language but ask them anything else and they'll be blank!

Ask me about Java, Scala,C++ then ask me about JavaScript, PHP then ask me about Cassandra, (a bit) about HBase, Hadoop. I am not and have never claimed to be an expert in ANY of these things but on any given day I can answer most of the questions that pop to mind. I can make an informed choice about the technology to the task! Can your deep knowledged guy do that? You sure? Well, as long as he doesn't just say "Java" or "C++" (depending on what this deep knowledge is in)....

I build, dissect and break! Give me a job that lets me do that and I might consider not doing a start up and working for you...might!

So there you are, a very un-organized sequence of thoughts. No real plan to the post, just got a bit annoyed and thought I'd make a very long statement as it happens. Potential employers...as you can tell I can take bullshit for only so long then I'll either walk away or tell you to stuff it...Just saying so we're clear.