Anyone hiring at the moment?

[Aaron Trevena]

2009/9/21 Raphael Mankin <raph at mankin.org.uk>:
> Well, I've been bumming about contracting for over 30 years, and the
> market seems to be picking up a bit. There are more jobs about and rates
> are also up.

Yup.. it is looking that way - I was getting seriously worried that I
may have to get a job or contract where I worked in an office rather
than at home, but got two offers for teleworking jobs at a reasonably
permie salary.

> Perl is in a funny state. On the one hand, people are saying that Perl
> is dead, everything has gone to Python or Java

I've yet to see any succesful transition happen outside of say Amazon
and Yahoo, there's always a lot of noise and office politics, but the
actual instances of companies switching rather than adding new
technology to the mix, and then Java or Python fanboyz labelling
existing perl Legacy - one amusing example is Sift in bristol who've
been "moving to Java" for about 8 years and are still looking for Perl
coders with Java skills to do it.

My recent experience has been working for and meeting fairly new
companies and startups that have deployed large perl systems in the
last couple of years - some less than that.

> or ... OTOH managers that
> I have spoken to say that it is extremely difficult to find half way
> decent Perl programmers. They eal problem is to get through the door in
> the first place. the pre-selection at the job agencies bears no relation
> to either skills  or requirements.

I don't buy this either - I've seen salaries for Java or .Net
developers with the same level of experience and they cost
considerably more, I've also seen companies turn down plenty of more
than decent coders because they *aren't* having difficulty finding the
right people.

A.

-- 
Aaron J Trevena, BSc Hons
http://www.aarontrevena.co.uk
LAMP System Integration, Development and Consulting