Alternative sources of Perl programmers
Rick Deller
rick at eligo.co.uk
Tue May 14 07:32:36 BST 2013
The issue is that there is a number of Perl Developer roles out there at the moment , I'm working on a number at present but competition is very high.
I say to all my clients if you see a candidate you like , you must interview quickly and then if you like them offer as often someone will have a couple of offers on the table.
There is a limited number of junior developers out there going into Perl we have launched the Perl Academy to counter act this and hopefully this will help.
But I agree companies allowing telecommute will be a massive benefit to sourcing developers.
Kindest regards
Rick Deller
Perl Specialist Recruitment Consultant
DL: 0208 944 4187 / Mob: 0772 984 595 / SW: 0208 944 4180 / F: 0208 946 6299
Barry House, 20/22 Worple Road, Wimbledon, London, SW19 4DH
rick at eligo.co.uk| www.eligo.co.uk | https://twitter.com/PerlRick
Proud to be a Sponsor of The Perl QA Hackathon 2013
Proud to be a Sponsor of YAPC::2013
Proud Sponsors of The London Perl Workshop 2012
"Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail"
CLIENT NOTICE - By accepting details of, interviewing or engaging an applicant introduced by us in the position offered or any other position, the client is agreeing to be bound by our standard Terms of Business unless otherwise agreed in writing.
DISCLAIMER NOTICE - The information contained in this e-mail and any attachments is confidential. It is intended only for the named addressee(s) and may not be disclosed to anyone else without the consent of Eligo Recruitment Ltd. If you are not the named addressee you must not use, disclose, distribute, copy, print or rely on the contents of the e-mail and should destroy it immediately.
Eligo Recruitment Ltd has taken every reasonable precaution to ensure that any attachment to this e-mail is free of all known viruses. However, Eligo Recruitment Ltd cannot accept liability for any damage sustained as a result of viruses and would advise that you carry out your own virus scanning.
-----Original Message-----
From: london.pm-bounces at london.pm.org [mailto:london.pm-bounces at london.pm.org] On Behalf Of london.pm-request at london.pm.org
Sent: 14 May 2013 05:48
To: london.pm at london.pm.org
Subject: london.pm Digest, Vol 91, Issue 11
Send london.pm mailing list submissions to
london.pm at london.pm.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://london.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/london.pm
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
london.pm-request at london.pm.org
You can reach the person managing the list at
london.pm-owner at london.pm.org
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of london.pm digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers (Avleen Vig)
2. Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers (Kieren Diment)
3. Working from home (was: Re: Alternative sources of Perl
programmers) (Sam Kington)
4. Re: Working from home (was: Re: Alternative sources of Perl
programmers) (Kieren Diment)
5. Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers (Richard Foley)
6. Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers (Richard Foley)
7. Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers (Uri Guttman)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 13 May 2013 20:49:13 -0500
From: Avleen Vig <avleen at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers
To: "London.pm Perl M[ou]ngers" <london.pm at london.pm.org>
Message-ID:
<CAMjP1KmLkEL6hu9kscUWyNUPbJeWpBUANxM=5yg3L95_ZZHu8A at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
You're not alone in facing this, and as a rule it isn't a perl-specific issue. Perl's just at the leading edge of this.
1. There are fewer perl programmers than PHP programmers. There are many reasons for this, they really don't matter that much. In the end, perl doesn't get as much exposure and it becomes a vicious circle where fewer and fewer people learn perl.
2. There are fewer programmers than there is demand. This is only going to get worse. If you think it's bad now, wait 5 years.
3. The telecommute issue, which has already been brought up. The biggest blockers to this are general fear of the unknown, and a poor understanding of how to manage remote employees. It's really very different to managing local ones.
Have you considered hiring existing programmers and teaching them, or giving them time to learn perl? You should.
Or you'll have to massively up the price you're willing to pay for someone (either an existing perl dev, or someone who will be able to learn enough perl quickly and well). Simple supply and demand. Again, it'll only get worse.
I'd encourage every company to hire more junior people and give them a lot of training.
Go ask your HR / recruiting departments how much it costs to hire someone. Don't be shocked when they come back and tell you the number is over ?20,000 *just to find someone*.
Spend that time and money on training instead - you'll help yourself and everyone around you.
On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Duncan Garland <duncan.garland at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
>
> We're advertising for a Perl programmer again, and once again we are
> struggling. It's a shame because we've got quite a lot of development
> work in the offing, mostly using Catalyst, DBIx::Class, Moose and the like.
>
>
>
> I spoke to the agent today and asked why so few people are coming forward.
> His view was that there aren't many Perl vacancies about at the
> moment, and even fewer people are interested in them.
>
>
>
> What are other companies doing about this?
>
>
>
> We've got several PHP projects on the go as well. It's easier to get
> local PHP programmers and when we can't, there seems to be a constant
> supply of good Eastern European programmers. Why isn't there the same
> stream of Eastern European Perl programmers?
>
>
>
> A second possibility is to cross-train experienced programmers from
> other languages into Perl. However, Perl has got itself such a
> reputation for being difficult to learn that the CTO winces whenever I suggest the idea.
> How have other companies got on when they've said that they will take
> experience in Python/Django or Ruby/Rails or whatever in lieu of
> experience in Perl/Catalyst? Was anybody interested and did they succeed?
>
>
>
> The third possibility is just to move some of the projects ear-marked
> for Perl into the PHP camp. I don't really believe that they can't be
> done in PHP, but it's a pity because they sit nicely with similar
> successful projects we've done in Perl. (A Catalyst-based system of
> ours won an industry-wide prize for "Best Digital Initiative" a couple
> of months ago.)
>
>
>
> All the best.
>
>
>
> Duncan
>
>
>
>
>
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 12:12:55 +1000
From: Kieren Diment <diment at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers
To: "London.pm Perl M\[ou\]ngers" <london.pm at london.pm.org>
Message-ID: <8995C2E8-E1DF-4853-9740-E2B5792E2C2E at diment.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
When you're employing a builder, if the house is steel framed, you might want to employ someone with experience with the framing system.
If you're building a steel framed housing estate, you will need to familiarise your crews with the technology, but that's a small amount of overhead compared to the effort of delivering the project.
On 14/05/2013, at 11:49 AM, Avleen Vig wrote:
> You're not alone in facing this, and as a rule it isn't a
> perl-specific issue. Perl's just at the leading edge of this.
>
> 1. There are fewer perl programmers than PHP programmers. There are
> many reasons for this, they really don't matter that much. In the end,
> perl doesn't get as much exposure and it becomes a vicious circle
> where fewer and fewer people learn perl.
>
> 2. There are fewer programmers than there is demand. This is only
> going to get worse. If you think it's bad now, wait 5 years.
>
> 3. The telecommute issue, which has already been brought up. The
> biggest blockers to this are general fear of the unknown, and a poor
> understanding of how to manage remote employees. It's really very
> different to managing local ones.
>
> Have you considered hiring existing programmers and teaching them, or
> giving them time to learn perl? You should.
> Or you'll have to massively up the price you're willing to pay for
> someone (either an existing perl dev, or someone who will be able to
> learn enough perl quickly and well). Simple supply and demand. Again,
> it'll only get worse.
>
> I'd encourage every company to hire more junior people and give them a
> lot of training.
> Go ask your HR / recruiting departments how much it costs to hire
> someone. Don't be shocked when they come back and tell you the number
> is over ?20,000 *just to find someone*.
> Spend that time and money on training instead - you'll help yourself
> and everyone around you.
>
>
> On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Duncan Garland
> <duncan.garland at ntlworld.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>>
>> We're advertising for a Perl programmer again, and once again we are
>> struggling. It's a shame because we've got quite a lot of development
>> work in the offing, mostly using Catalyst, DBIx::Class, Moose and the like.
>>
>>
>>
>> I spoke to the agent today and asked why so few people are coming forward.
>> His view was that there aren't many Perl vacancies about at the
>> moment, and even fewer people are interested in them.
>>
>>
>>
>> What are other companies doing about this?
>>
>>
>>
>> We've got several PHP projects on the go as well. It's easier to get
>> local PHP programmers and when we can't, there seems to be a constant
>> supply of good Eastern European programmers. Why isn't there the same
>> stream of Eastern European Perl programmers?
>>
>>
>>
>> A second possibility is to cross-train experienced programmers from
>> other languages into Perl. However, Perl has got itself such a
>> reputation for being difficult to learn that the CTO winces whenever I suggest the idea.
>> How have other companies got on when they've said that they will take
>> experience in Python/Django or Ruby/Rails or whatever in lieu of
>> experience in Perl/Catalyst? Was anybody interested and did they succeed?
>>
>>
>>
>> The third possibility is just to move some of the projects ear-marked
>> for Perl into the PHP camp. I don't really believe that they can't be
>> done in PHP, but it's a pity because they sit nicely with similar
>> successful projects we've done in Perl. (A Catalyst-based system of
>> ours won an industry-wide prize for "Best Digital Initiative" a
>> couple of months ago.)
>>
>>
>>
>> All the best.
>>
>>
>>
>> Duncan
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 03:40:35 +0100
From: Sam Kington <sam at illuminated.co.uk>
Subject: Working from home (was: Re: Alternative sources of Perl
programmers)
To: "London.pm Perl M\[ou\]ngers" <london.pm at london.pm.org>
Message-ID: <5D5EFCDF-ED61-40D9-BB3F-AA4504FEF54B at illuminated.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
On 13 May 2013, at 23:27, Kieren Diment <diment at gmail.com> wrote:
> The management challenges for telecommute jobs are different to those for on site. But it does increase the pool of potential candidates a lot. Does anyone have any useful experience about managing mixed on-site/offsite staff?
Can't speak about management per se, but I can talk about how a team with off-site developers can work.
In a nutshell: as soon as even one member of the dev team is, or could be, out of the office, you need to do everything important off-line. Otherwise you'll end up discriminating against the off-site people, wittingly or unwittingly.
At UK2 we've historically had a mixture of off- and on-site developers - me in Glasgow, and some guys on-site in London. I come down to London once a month for three days to get face time with the other devs, but otherwise things get done over IRC, email or GitHub pull requests depending on what's most appropriate. We've had the occasional tele-conference via Google Hangouts to discuss upcoming projects and releases, but I'm not sure whether they were that useful. (That might be more useful for one-to-few discussions, rather than manglement + entire dev team.)
We started ramping up hiring a couple of years ago, and while we found a few people in the Greater London area, after a while we hit a brick wall. Because we already had some people working from home, and the group as a whole had developers in Ukraine already, it wasn't a massive cultural shift to hire people from Foreignstan - currently we have a handful of people in Ukraine, a guy who's effectively a Senior Developer in Russia, some people in India or somewhere (I'm not entirely sure where they are - I only know them from their online handles, and I've never met them), and another developer in Australia.
One interesting thing about this whole process is that a number of the guys in the London area started working from home as well. After all, if the important stuff is done via IRC and email, and we don't expect people to work 9-5 because they live in different time zones, then why should you struggle through rush-hour commuter traffic to go to an office with electricity, wifi, a desk and a chair if you have perfectly good electricity, wifi, a desk and a chair at home? (I think we might actually not have enough desks in the office any more, because we don't expect the entire team to be in on any given day.) As a general rule, most of the London developers only come into the office once a week. On weeks when I'm down, we try to schedule everyone on the same day so we can go to the pub; some of our best ideas have come from there.
Obviously, there are caveats and exceptions. Some people prefer to work in an office, probably so there's a clear demarcation between work and not-work (living close to the office is a contributing factor for this). Others may think they can work from home, but end up procrastinating instead, so while you'll have a much larger pool to hire from, be aware that some of them might not work out.
Employment contracts may need a bit of sprucing up - one of mine told me the company provided me a place to work, but reserved the right to search my desk and personal possessions, which I thought remarkably keen. A decent union will tell you that if you work from home, your employer should make sure your equipment is ergonomic and up to standard; if you live alone or your spouse works, you're entitled to claim a fraction of your utility bills, on the basis that your home wouldn't be heated otherwise. And so on - I suspect most telecommuters don't press such matters because, after all, they're no longer paying for their weekly season ticket, but it's something to bear in mind.
The people in HR might be concerned about how easy it would be to enforce penalty clauses against employees in distant lands also. We have a guy in Russia who is socially a Senior Developer, but legally is a contractor, presumably because we can't legally employ non-resident non-EU citizens.
Finally, if you want regular face-to-face meetings (which are absolutely useful), you need to budget for the expense of moving remote employees around.
Having said all of this, one of the reasons I've stuck with UK2 during bad times and good is that, if you can cope with working from home, it's bloody marvellous. Working from home effectively means flexitime, which is a big plus for me (look at the timestamp on this email ;-) ); it lets people say "I need to take the dog to the vet" or "knocking off early, I have a bunch of Russian people around and I need to barbecue things and drink vodka with them". or "brb, kid's vomiting". And it means that you don't have to worry about an employee saying things like "hey, I have a house in France now, I'm going to spend a couple of months there every summer" or "I'm thinking about moving to Mexico, is that OK?" - as long as they have an Internet connection, what do you care about where they are?
Sam
--
Website: http://www.illuminated.co.uk/
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 13:03:36 +1000
From: Kieren Diment <diment at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Working from home (was: Re: Alternative sources of Perl
programmers)
To: "London.pm Perl M\[ou\]ngers" <london.pm at london.pm.org>
Message-ID: <BC3D14D0-F9C7-4FE5-B0E2-D9589F87092B at gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Very similar to my experience except I work as a contractor with a bunch of other contractors across three or more continents to develop and support a reasonably high profile high value product in it's domain. I meet a subset of the people I work with face to face once every couple of years (but was doing that before this work started anyway), and I've never met the principal in person. We talk on the phone up to 4 times a year, but generally it all happens through IRC, bug tracker, wiki and git repo.
For big companies where slacking or low value staff are a problem I don't think telecommuting is a great option (hence Marissa Miller's recent proclamations), but could be solved with an organisational culture turnaround. The very nice thing about perl from my experience is it seems to attract people from a greater diversity of social and educational backgrounds than other programming communities (in my experience), but you've got to make the working conditions good to take full advantage of that.
On 14/05/2013, at 12:40 PM, Sam Kington wrote:
> On 13 May 2013, at 23:27, Kieren Diment <diment at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> The management challenges for telecommute jobs are different to those for on site. But it does increase the pool of potential candidates a lot. Does anyone have any useful experience about managing mixed on-site/offsite staff?
>
> Can't speak about management per se, but I can talk about how a team with off-site developers can work. [snip]
>
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 06:00:58 +0200
From: Richard Foley <richard.foley at rfi.net>
Subject: Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers
To: "London.pm Perl M[ou]ngers" <london.pm at london.pm.org>
Message-ID: <20130514040058.GA8227 at thpad>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Indeed.
--
Ciao
Richard Foley
http://www.rfi.net/books.html
On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 05:48:39PM -0400, Mark Fowler wrote:
> On Monday, May 13, 2013, Duncan Garland wrote:
>
> We're advertising for a Perl programmer again, and once again we are
> > struggling.
>
>
> The question I ask anyone who has problems hiring for any IT position is
> "have you considered telecommute?"
>
> Mark
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 06:09:40 +0200
From: Richard Foley <richard.foley at rfi.net>
Subject: Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers
To: "London.pm Perl M[ou]ngers" <london.pm at london.pm.org>
Message-ID: <20130514040940.GB8227 at thpad>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
I had a contract role in Switzerland where the client was happy for me to come
on board in a (largely) remote capacity. That meant some on-site work to
familiarize me with the team and the project and then shift off-site for the
majority of the work. This suited both parties.
The agency stepped in, (they'd been "unavailable" during the telephone
interview), and said there was no way I was going to work remotely for this
client, and scotched the deal. Both the client and the contractor were screwed,
and this had nothing to do with the practicalities of remote working, or
problem solving of any kind. This was simply a power broking intervention.
Solution-1: ditch the agent, work directly with the client/contractor, save
everyone some grief, and some money at the same time.
Solution-2: look at how some groups of people are trying to raise the current
and future profile of the Perl programming language instead of resting on dusty
laurels. Yes we you can learn another language, but would you really want to ?)
Solution-3: do both solution-1 and solution-2.
--
Ciao
Richard Foley
http://www.rfi.net/books.html
On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 10:22:05PM +0100, Duncan Garland wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We're advertising for a Perl programmer again, and once again we are
> struggling. It's a shame because we've got quite a lot of development work
> in the offing, mostly using Catalyst, DBIx::Class, Moose and the like.
>
> I spoke to the agent today and asked why so few people are coming forward.
> His view was that there aren't many Perl vacancies about at the moment, and
> even fewer people are interested in them.
>
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Tue, 14 May 2013 00:45:09 -0400
From: Uri Guttman <uri at stemsystems.com>
Subject: Re: Alternative sources of Perl programmers
To: london.pm at london.pm.org
Message-ID: <5191C155.2070708 at stemsystems.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 05/14/2013 12:09 AM, Richard Foley wrote:
> I had a contract role in Switzerland where the client was happy for me to come
> on board in a (largely) remote capacity. That meant some on-site work to
> familiarize me with the team and the project and then shift off-site for the
> majority of the work. This suited both parties.
>
> The agency stepped in, (they'd been "unavailable" during the telephone
> interview), and said there was no way I was going to work remotely for this
> client, and scotched the deal. Both the client and the contractor were screwed,
> and this had nothing to do with the practicalities of remote working, or
> problem solving of any kind. This was simply a power broking intervention.
>
>
how did the agent scotch it? what motivation did they have (other than
no ethics and lots of stupidity)?
it may sound sappy but i am very happy when i place a perl hacker and
all three parties (candidate, client and me) win. it does happen quite a
bit IMO. my first placement was a grad student in germany and he moved
to nyc for this job and he still has it 8 years later. that makes me
happy. :)
and i can't scotch things as i like c_ognac better!
uri
_
------------------------------
_______________________________________________
london.pm mailing list
london.pm at london.pm.org
http://london.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/london.pm
End of london.pm Digest, Vol 91, Issue 11
*****************************************
More information about the london.pm
mailing list