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Red Gate is hiring, all interviewed will get an iPad
We're looking for more Software Engineers and Test Engineers to help Red Gate grow into one of the greatest software companies in the world. We know there are lots of awesome people out there who may be bored or unhappy at work. We're going to make it easy for you to be happier - at Red Gate.<p>It's easy to apply. Just leave your details for either our Software Engineer or Test Engineer role.<p>We don't need your CV or a covering letter at this stage.
- dawson 16y agoWe're looking for more Software Engineers and Test Engineers to help Red Gate grow into one of the greatest software companies in the world. We know there are lots of awesome people out there who may be bored or unhappy at work. We're going to make it easy for you to be happier - at Red Gate. It's easy to apply. Just leave your details for either our Software Engineer or Test Engineer role. We don't need your CV or a covering letter at this stage. Thank you
- simplegeek 16y agoIf I'm not in UK and don't have the right to work in UK, will I still be considered? Edited to Add: No I cannot. I wish it was made clear upfront. Anyway, no worries ;)
- jfager 16y agoI know I sure can't wait to work with a bunch of people who were bored and unhappy at their previous job but couldn't manage pull their shit together enough to write up a CV or cover letter, and had to be spurred by the offer of a $500 gadget to even bother to apply in the first place.
- ErrantX 16y agoI learned something when hiring for my current employer: CV's are only really useful as a filter if you're hiring a huge number of people. Better to chat to them on the phone first; then ask for a complete CV w references if they pass muster.
- jfager 16y agoI'm not saying anything about the usefulness of a CV in the hiring process, I'm saying that it's pretty uninspiring to suggest that the need to put one together is a great hurdle for the kind of developers you're hoping to hire. It just hits me the wrong way that the traits of the developers you're saying you want are: bored, unhappy, unable to afford an iPad, and too lazy to type up a short description of themselves.
- nagrom 16y agoOr, they're people who are really busy, aren't looking for a job right now but are open to new offers. Maybe people like myself who work in related disciplines and are considering a career change. The iPad is just a way of gaining publicity, and it seems to have worked pretty nicely.
- barrkel 16y agoHere's a different perspective: this gimmick raised the profile of this round of recruitment to the front page of HN.
- jfager 16y agoIt's not like it's seriously difficult to get something on the HN frontpage, and if it's at the cost of alienating the kind of developers you'd actually want to hire, so what?
- dawson 16y agoIt's a marketing campaign to raise recruitment awareness and not the sum of RG or its potential employees.
- jfager 16y agoOk, gotcha: it's not that you actually want to hire people who are bored, unhappy, lazy, and gadget-coveting, it's that you want to say you want to hire those people in a cynical attempt to game the media, so that the people who you really do want to hire will see said cynical manipulation, admire your cunning, and hop on board? Do they still get the free iPad?
- eru 16y agoThanks to Red Gate for attracting people with a free iPad. While you are in the area, you might also want to have a look at the Cambridge office of Citrix. We are currently around 50 people and look to add ca 20 new employees this year. We are working on virtualization, e.g. XenServer. So a background in operating systems helps, but is not necessary. (I did not have one.) The infrastructure is closely aligned with Unix systems, but the guest systems our customers run are mostly Windows machines. We don't offer free iPads for interviewees, but the software we write in Cambridge is open-sourced and you'll have the opportunity to hack in functional languages. (C, Python and friends are also helpful. I only mention FP because that's what drew me here in the first place.) Benefits and pay seem similar to Red Gate (though as far as I know the high end may go higher here), only our kitchen isn't equipped to prepare lunch. Please drop me an email if you want to learn more. You can find my email address in my profile.
- pclark 16y agofunctional programming vs free lunch, free iPad and cool like this: http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2010/02/what-will-happen-when-a-software-company-downs-tools-for-a-week.html http://blog.businessofsoftware.org/2010/02/what-will-happen-... :D (I upvoted you so)
- eru 16y agoYou forgot about free software (as in speech) on our side of the versus. :D And thanks to my efforts we have a nice stack of German style boardgames, now. We also play Diplomacy from time to time. If you want to join gaming, you can come over. Also you can participate on our pool or 9-ball or foosball ladder, and we will see who's better. ;o) Good luck with your recruitment! P.S. The projects you linked sound cool.
- tome 16y agoThe greed inside me makes me feel like I want to pop up to the science park to interview for Red Gate right now (I'm about 15 minutes away), but what you've said about Citrix is very appealing to the good and holy part of me and that side generally wins with me! :)
- DrJokepu 16y agoI just wonder if you have anyone at Red Gate who commutes from London? While I've heard a lot of good stuff about Red Gate and Cambridge is a very nice place I would be hesitant to give up the awesomeness of living in London. (I suppose I'm not alone with that).
- pclark 16y agoIf you had a brompton I think it'd be fine (red gate hq is miles from station - literally)
- eru 16y agoThere's also a bus. Or you can leave your bike locked at the train station overnight.
- eru 16y agoWe (that is Citrix) have some people who commute from London. And our office is just a few hundred metres away from Red Gate. (We are also hiring. Drop me an email, if you are interested.)
- watmough 16y agoMan, I'd love to rewrite the god-awful son-of-windows-3.1 UI on citrix. Solid software, terrible UI. Glad it's a good company though! "We're not the sort of company that tosses a man out because he's over 40. How old are you Reggie?"
- eru 16y agoYou are right about the UI. (Of course the UI is not made at the Cambridge office, where we only produce nice software. :o) I have heard that Citrix is looking into making better UIs. All our top managers have been converted into Apple fan boys for a start.
- buro9 16y agoIf you're in London and don't want to leave or commute outside then we (labs.yell.com) are looking for 20 to 25 developers at the moment to help establish the newly formed labs. We don't offer ipads but you will get an octo-core mac pro on your desk with 2 large monitors, an iphone, pension, bonuses, good pay, etc... and we'll give you work you will find challenging (whatever your level of challenging is). Further more we are in the centre of London, cross-section of Grays Inn Road and Theobalds Road, so you'll still have access to whatever turns you on (hipster highway leads to Shoreditch, we're equidistant from both the city and West End). I saw your background is C# from StackOverflow, but hope you'll find yourself comfortable with picking up whatever tool is required (Objective C, C, Java, C#, Python, etc). Training will of course be there and if this doesn't interest you specifically then please tell other devs in London (or willing to move to London) who you think would fit into a really creative, relaxed and passionate team. Drop me an email on my personal email (on my profile page) to sidestep the HR obstacles and get yourself in front of the devs who work there.
- pclark 16y agoI think Red Gate is about as awesome as one can get without being a startup. [we use their offices and are eternally thankful]
- tomlin 16y agoTacky.
- pclark 16y agoWhat do you find tacky about this?
- tomlin 16y agoThink about it. A FREE iPad?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- pclark 16y agofree stuff - its as if they're trying to get people through the door... :)
- tomlin 16y agoI doubt that capable programmers are going to be enticed by a FREE iPad. You would hire a programmer that came for the FREE iPad?
- ErrantX 16y agoI imagine they won't interview anyone not "Up to scratch". i.e. purely there for the free iPad.
- hugh3 16y agoAh, but the iPad made it a news story. Look, this story has 26 points and is currently at the top of the front page. How many extra programmers are going to hear about the opportunity that wouldn't have if it weren't attached to a free iPad?
- 16y ago
- ErrantX 16y agoIncidentally Red Gate has really great jobs pages [1], clear, concise and informative. 1. Example: http://jobs.red-gate.com/templates/redgate/jobdetail_zip/183.aspx/Jobs/Software%20Engineer http://jobs.red-gate.com/templates/redgate/jobdetail_zip/183...
- barrkel 16y agoThe quick application page, on the other hand (the link at the bottom of that page) seems more interested in what degree you have and where you got it than who you actually are and what you've done.
- IdeaHamster 16y agoFrom the offer description: "Salaries range from £30,000 to £45,000." That seems a little low? Is this typical for Cambridge? I'm not familiar with UK tax law, so what does this translate into in terms of take-home pay?
- pclark 16y ago£30,000 = £22,000 take home £45,000 = £32,000 take home. + the benefit package yada.
- ErrantX 16y agoThat's about £23,000 to £33,000 take home. A bit above average for a graduate CS job. Less than you'd expect for a 30-35 year old with degree plus experience. (roughly anyway)
- IdeaHamster 16y agoThanks! That explains my reaction, as I'm closer to being in the later group than the former. This probably also explains the promotion. I imagine that the fresh-outta-college type is more likely to be impressed by a free iPad offer than a journeyman programmer would be.
- ErrantX 16y agoYep my thoughts entirely; this will be a swinger for graduates looking for a job. When you pop above 45K here tax starts to get excruciating (40%) so that is probably why the upper limit is sat there (I get 8% year on year increase in my current job and it's barely noticeable due to tax...)
- adamt 16y agoIt's a bit of misconception that tax increases that much - as national insurance drops off. E.g http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php (figures in GBP) 30k -> 22.6k (25% total employee tax burden) 45k -> 32.8K (27% total employee tax burden) 90k -> 59.4K (34% total employee tax burden) 135k -> 86.0K (36% total employee tax burden)
- marklittlewood 16y agoWe think Redgate are awesome too and we don't have office there but sneak in whenever we can for lovely breakfast and lunch. Last time we were there we took some pictures http://thebln.com/2009/10/inspiring-workplaces-red-gate-software/ http://thebln.com/2009/10/inspiring-workplaces-red-gate-soft...
- barrkel 16y agostats.pluginseo.com is murdering the performance of that page, for me at least. Took 21 seconds to load, as measured by FireBug; download of http://stats.pluginseo.com/132108.js http://stats.pluginseo.com/132108.js timed out: http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/stats.pluginseo.com http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/stats.pluginseo.com Looks almost like DNS poisoning attack or something: $ nslookup Name: pluginseo.com Address: 174.121.79.132 Name: stats.pluginseo.com.re.getclicky.com Address: 204.13.8.76 Aliases: stats.pluginseo.com
- marklittlewood 16y agoThanks for the tip. Totally forgot to remove it after I tested it out once upon a time a long time ago.
- vtail 16y agoLet's assume that person X applies because she heard about promotion, but wouldn't otherwise. Isn't there an adverse selection here that you would like to avoid?
- pclark 16y agoYou have to pass a 15 minute interview before being eligible for the iPad, by the looks of it. So I guess that'll cancel out all the builders and their dogs from walking away with an iPad. I'm interested in if free stuff devalues the employee or the employer. Or is it just awesome?
- jbellis 16y agoThey're hoping that the free publicity attracting _good_ developers who otherwise wouldn't have heard about Redgate, will outweigh having to sift through some extra chaff.
- cawhitworth 16y agoWe went down to the pub this lunchtime and there were a bunch of them there (they were doing a £5-towards-your-lunch-if-you-chat-to-us thing, too). We had a bit of a chat, but none of our company are really .NET/SQL types and their demographic also seems to be way young. That said, I know a few people at RedGate and they're all very happy, and people who use their tools seem to like them too. Sure, it's a bit of a stunt but, as the guy we spoke to said, it's cheaper to hand out free iPads to a bunch of people (who pass your screener) than it is to pay a recruitment company, and it builds goodwill (amongst the kinds of people who are swayed by a free iPad, anyway).
- icey 16y agoI'm a Red Gate customer and I have to say that their customer service is some of the best I've ever gotten from a tech company. Of course, that doesn't have anything to do with them hiring or iPads, but I like to say it every time I see them come up because I've been really impressed with every interaction I've ever had with them.
- shovuk 16y agoIf anyone is interested in working for a game company on the Cambridge Science Park - Jagex Ltd is currently looking to recruit a Senior Software Tester. Details on the website - http://www.jagex.com/careers/ http://www.jagex.com/careers/ We cant promise a free ipad for those who we interview, but we can promise an uber cool place to work in the UK's biggest independent games dev studio :-)