Back from a great trip in Asia and ready to recruit great software engineers in Boston

 

 

So, did you miss me? It was definitely hard to take a break from the hottest job market for software engineers in Boston, MA since 1999… but the confluence of time and opportunity was just too hard to resist.

Among the great memories – hiking the Great Wall of China, sailing in Halong Bag, Vietnam, Cooking with Poo in Thailand, seeing Angkor Wat in Cambodia, visiting 1200 year old Temples in Japan, and eating some of the strangest, but most delicious food I’ve ever seen (including several Michelin award winners!)

So, jet lag in the rearview mirror, I focus my attention on the oodles of clients that need my attention…. and the phone/email never stopped being answered even when +13 hours away.

Looking forward to talking to super software engineers in the Boston area – Ruby/Rails, C#/.NET and Java/J2EE are all still in heavy demand …

State of the Boston Software Engineering job market – HOT! – Mass Unemployment down to 7.4% in Aug

It’s been a busy Summer and Autumn is just around the corner…. hopefully the Red Sox get out of their funk soon.

The overall economic recovery is moribund and reminds me of the early 1990s. Without getting into politics, lets just say that both parties are complicit and we have 20 years of bad choices to start correcting. It’s not going to happen overnight, and will be painful.

However, the one, super-shiny, bright light in this economy is the Tech Economy – and nowhere is the engine of job growth burning more brightly than in the Boston, Massachusetts software engineering job market!

As this Boston Globe article points out - http://bo.st/pDnegF the Mass State Unemployment rate is now the lowest it’s been since Feb 2009 – 7.4% with net jobs created of approximately 42000 since the year began.

The market trends for software engineers/tech talent in the Boston area are on the same trajectory as earlier in the year – and are in heavy demand. However, the more experienced (read expensive salaries) candidates, and those without hands-on coding skills are having a much tougher time.

Macro-economic trends are still very favorable for the tech economy, and like everyone — this time of the year is one of the busiest all around.

If you’d like to learn more about the market – hiring for your organization, or to conduct a highly targeted, discrete search – please reach out to me – scott@biviumgroup.com – Boston area’s #1 Software Engineer jobs/recruiter!

#SoftwareEngineer #job in #Boston| Machine Learning/AI/NLP/Search – algorithms/Ph.D

#SoftwareEngineer #job in #Boston| Machine Learning/Search Ph.D to 130k, ground floor well funded #startup http://bit.ly/kL6zzL @scottdunlop

Recruiting for a Hot Job – Junior to Architect Software Engineers C#/.NET, C++, Java, ECommerce- Lexington, MA to 170k package

 SUPERSTAR Software Engineers, multiple openings: core software, apps dev – C#, C++, Java, E-commerce

Full job description is here http://bit.ly/kCs9sX

Long time Bivium client seeks multiple experienced Software Engineers with backgrounds in any of the following areas: hard core software systems that are highly algorithmic – high transactional data driven applications – windows C# design and development, e-commerce.

Join a team of 20 developers working on highly complex systems and applications that collectively manage the backend of numerous high traffic, data eCommerce sites generating more than 150 transactions every minute. This includes all of the core algorithms, systems and applications that manage all of the processing, scheduling, manufacturing systems, shipping and logistics – all homegrown, and the absolute heart and soul of this company’s existence.

Regardless of your area of expertise; server, middle tier or user interface, there are lots of very interesting and highly challenging problems to work on here: performance optimization, massive scalability, algorithms analysis/design/development, VLDB design/development…on the User Interface side of things: UI Developers will create user interfaces for manufacturing control systems used by folks on the shop floor as well as slick dashboards used by executives and many other points in-between.

All development is primarily on the .NET framework, C# and Windows Presentation Foundation (for the UI engineers) is nice to have, but not required.

The CTO here believes that “smart people can learn anything”. Big growth spurt and lots of promotions into leadership here.

http://bit.ly/kCs9sX - package from 70s to 170s!

Drop me a line to learn more – scott@biviumgroup.com – Boston’s #1 software engineer jobs/recruiter!

I was quoted in Boston Globe/Hiawatha Bray story about the job market in Boston for recent tech grads (Computer Science) – scott@biviumgroup.com

Hiawatha Bray, the great tech writer of the Boston Globe quoted me today in a story about the job market for recent grads in the Boston, MA area - http://bo.st/gXysPY

Although much of the interview wasn’t published, the salient points are definitely there — the market is hot, and good candidates are in demand. For the clients I work with, seeking software engineers/web developers in the Boston area – top grads (good internship, co-op, or strong autodidactic) comp sci/computer science experience or graduates of schools here in the Boston area such as:

MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) , Harvard, Northeastern, Tufts, WPI (Worcester Polytechnic Institute), Tufts, Brandeis, University of Massachusetts Amherst etc are definitely in the driver’s seat. Entrepreneurial candidates (always close to my heart) from schools like Babson, Bentley or really almost any other school where you pair your Computer Science skills with a strong personal track record of hacking/coding (github, personal webpage, active in a local tech community at a young age) are just as in-demand.

However, it’s not just having the degree, it’s having the ability to back-up your degree with real world skills that make you a great hire:

1. Communication skills – can you clearly articulate your skills, abilities, and interests? Will you work well with both technical and non-technical audiences?

2. Good team-player – there is little tolerance or room for people who cannot fit into a team environment.

3. Horsepower – you can show you can quickly pick-up new skills.

4. Tenacious – candidates who will keep working on a problem and attacking it from different angles.

5. Capacity to Learn – + a willingness to be a ‘sponge’ and absorb – your first job is all about learning/growing and building your career – are you willing to do the hard work to learn?

So, as a top 2011 Computer Science grad, the world is your oyster – it’s not a matter of whether you can find a job as a software engineer here in the Boston area, it’s whether you can find the BEST FIT for you (and maximize your time and value)– there are scores of companies hiring — you want someone in your corner who can help navigate the many pitfalls. You need someone like me – drop me a note if you wish to partner with Boston’s #1 software engineer recruiter – Scott Dunlop – scott@biviumgroup.com

My article “State of Tech Hiring in the Hub: The Talent War is On” is the Featured post on Bostinnovation – Boston Software Engineer job market is booming! – scott@biviumgroup.com – 2nd part

www.bostinnovation.com is running a series of articles this week about “Hiring In the Hub” and I was pleased to be asked to write, along with several other tech entrepreneurs, CEOs and Venture Capitalists, about the state of the market.

I was even more pleased to hear that my article was the Featured Story today - http://bostinnovation.com/2011/04/11/state-of-tech-hiring-in-the-hub-the-talent-war-is-on/

Due to space constraints (hey maybe I can make this Part 2) — I didn’t quite have room to expand on a few other trends in the Boston Talent war for :

5. This is a “Show-Me” Market

Managers are still running lean & mean when it comes to engineering departments – and even with the tight supply and demand issues out there — candidates are being asked to do virtual online-whiteboarding sessions before interviewing, walk through code samples once at the interview, and be subjected to intense Computer Science questioning – to test horsepower, agility, and problem-solving skills. So, preparation of candidates is key.

6.  Salaries are just getting un-stickied, and have not kept up with inflation/cost of living in Boston

It’s hard to believe, other than for the rockstar/ninjas junior-mid-level candidates, but otherwise, for strong Senior Software Engineer or Principal Software Engineer and above, salaries have not kept track with inflation over the past decade — not helping are the two recessions either.

7. “No Jerks” Policy, other interesting benefits, and hiring-by-committee are trendy right now

Certainly none of us ever want to work with a “jerk”, but how many of us want to work with a Dog/Cat or Baby in the cube next to us? It’s all a matter of perspective. The nicest B-player will never produce as much as the “jerkiest” A+ so, companies and recruiting teams are starting to employ hiring by committee to make group-think decisions. In general, they work well, but as a candidate, you’ve got to be “ON” from the moment you walk in the door to the moment you walk out.

8. With salaries mostly flat, other benefits are critical – vacation, healthcare, flex-time, holidays etc

Since salaries have been flat for the past decade, the other fringe benefits have improved – pretty standard now are 3 weeks vacation (some offering as much as 5 weeks to start) , 10+ companies holidays, and with the skyrocketing cost of healthcare, most firms have kept a lid on the portion that tech employees are paying to 20% (or less) – in fact many have moved to 100% paid medical as an outlier to help in recruiting.

So, the talent war in Boston rages on — with Q2 underway, and even more busy than Q1!

Workers eager to job hunt as morale plunges – 33% of employed workers ready to leave their jobs

Workers eager to job hunt as morale plunges – 33%+ of those employed ready to change jobs NOW http://ow.ly/4nRFE @scottdunlop #boston

Not really surprising is it? We’ve squeezed out all the efficiencies we could via layoffs and increased work demands — now, the candidates who were, in many times treated poorly, are ready to exact their revenge.  Sometimes, a change of scenery is all that is required to get the spark back — we all spend so much of our waking life at work/thinking about work – don’t you want to be excited each day you get up, and surround yourself with people who respect you? The Boston, Mass. software engineering/computer science job market is certainly red hot – but it takes a good guide to avoid the pitfalls out there.

Lead Software Engineer-Java, algorithms, supercomputing, biotech startup, Cambridge, MA to 160k+ options @scottdunlop http://ow.ly/4nGbC – scott@biviumgroup.com – Boston’s #1 Software Engineer recruiter/jobs

Lead Software Engineer-Java, algorithms, supercomputing, biotech startup, Cambridge, MA to 160k+ options @scottdunlop http://ow.ly/4nGbC

Outstanding opportunity - This is NOT your standard J2EE app.  It is high performance distributed computing, very mathematically and algorithmically intense.  It’s much closer to pure computer science than just putting together a lot of open source frameworks.

Drop me a line – scott@biviumgroup.com to learn more – Boston’s #1 Software Engineer recruiter/jobs

NYT article, how difficult recruiting for junior computer science/software engineers has become – starting Google salaries for fresh grads at 90-105k! – scott@biviumgroup.com – Boston’s top software engineer jobs/recruiter

NYT article, how difficult recruiting for jr CS software engineers has become – starting GOOG salary 90-105k http://ow.ly/4ncOr @scottdunlop

Promoting entrepreneurship in teens – great WSJ article – scott@biviumgroup.com – Boston’s #1 software engineer jobs/recruiter

As someone who has been a lifelong entrepreneur, I always applaud programs such as this one – Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship – much more info on this WSJ article - http://on.wsj.com/i2k0eq

It’s become both a necessity and “en-vogue” to start your own company in recent years — but, I truly believe than unless we start promoting, investing and identifying Young Entrepreneurs, and giving them the guidance, assistance and mentoring they need — it’s a tremendously wasted opportunity — the future of the USA brainshare is at stake!

In the Boston, MA software engineering/computer science market – we have a fabulous ecosystem to promote these sorts of opportunities – VCs, universities, and senior/experienced mentors/entrepreneurs abound.

If you’ve got a great idea, or already building the “next big thing” — I’m always happy to network and be a “connector”.

Drop me a line – scott@biviumgroup.com – Boston’s #1 Software Engineer jobs/recruiters

Multiple offer scenarios very common in Boston, MA and increasing in the Executive ranks – scott@biviumgroup.com – Boston’s #1 Software Engineer recruiter

In the Boston, MA software engineer job market — we are seeing multiple offers becoming the “norm” — whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, depends on your perspective. Firms that make quick offers and then put tremendous pressure to accept or decline before a candidate has seen all their job interviews through to completion, IMHO are doing the candidates a disservice. (But I do understand the motivation!)

Who wants to make arguably, one of the most important decisions for the next few years, without some degree of certainty, and all the information on the table?

“Bidding-wars” and multiple offers with signing bonuses, excessive salary outliers and weird perks are starting to re-enter the market, and for me, are a signal flashing “warning” – not about the market, but just about being sure to carve out your own time necessary to make a decision and not find your self seeking work again in a few months.

This WSJ article confirms several data points - http://on.wsj.com/ec8yHj

**51% of candidates are receiving multiple offers vs.35% a year ago

**56% of recruiters have seen “sweetened” offers at the offer stage

With the recent market turmoil in Japan, it’s hard to tell if the USA-wise recovery will be pushed off, but, my expectation is that we’ll be having a few bumpy/uncomfortable weeks (globally) but the job recovery, at least in the Boston, MA software engineer job market has a lot of momentum. Hearts, prayers and thoughts to all those in Japan.

Software Engineer from Mechanical, Manufacturing or Industrial Engineering background – scott@biviumgroup.com – Boston’s #1 Software Engineer recruiter

Software Engineer from Mech, Manufacturing, or Industrial Engineering Waltham, MA 100k @scottdunlop #boston #tweetmyjobs http://ow.ly/4e9R5

Venture Capital/VC Startups/New Ventures/Small Businesses now on a hiring binge across Boston, MA and the USA!

Here at Bivium I spend about 70-75% of my time working with small businesses — the under 100 person company, and most of the time under 30 people — these are, and always will be, the growth engines of the American economy. We’ve benefited in the Boston/Mass. area that the VC/tech startup world has been very active for over 18 months — even during the depths of the “Great Recession” we were very busy with select clients upgrading their talent pool — the recovery is now more uniformly distributed and it’s becoming a self-sustaining recovery. As part of my volunteer work, I stay close in touch with “Main Street” and the struggles of the non-tech economy through a variety of Chambers of Commerce — finally, late last year, I started to see tangible efforts to invest in hiring, new inventory, which in turn will reinforce the need for software/services/IT for 2011 and beyond.

All of this is reflected in this article on CNN - http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/04/smallbusiness/small_business_hiring_adp/index.htm

and on this ADP payroll report

http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/02/news/economy/challenger_adp_jobs/index.htm?iid=EL

The “headline” about layoffs should not be too startling — even in the booming 90s, planned/reported layoffs in a smaller labour pool market typically were 200-250k a month — it’s a healthy element to a functioning macro labour market.

As much as ever, we need entrepreneurs, VC-backed startups and small businesses to continue their optimism — hiring, GDP growth and consumer expansion will always follow!

 

Performance Engineer/Software QA Performance Engineer – Framingham, MA, to 115k – scott@biviumgroup.com

Framingham, MA, to 115k, performance software engineers/performance QA – stable, growing, http://ow.ly/2FsFN #tweetmyjobs #Boston #QA #jobs

MA GDP up 6.4% vs. 2.4 for USA – booming software engineer market in Boston, MA

This Boston Business Journal article confirms exactly what I’ve been saying and seeing for months now – the market in Boston has clearly turned a corner and things are very positive heading into the 2nd half of 2010 – http://bit.ly/cTrXqF
As the article states, the Mass. economy expanded at 6.4%, including payroll growth of 4.5% – pretty impressive stuff, especially considering the national economy.

Cambridge, MA software engineers – startup with Google connections – multiple STAR software engineer openings – Rails, Python, Cassandra, Riak, Hadoop, HBase, Redi, Seam, puppet, chef, capistrano, fabric etc

http://bit.ly/bB3NEk

Our client, with patents pending and all-star team assembled in entering hyper-growth mode on the engineering side.

We are working directly with the Founders and have already made successful, happy placements.

We think one of the key attractions for our client is that they are dealing with massive data ! They add on average 93M records per day and are already beginning to work with the same database systems that Google and Facebook are using – super huge intellectual challenge here

This is a title-agnostic environment.

Could hire from a Very experienced, very solid VP Engineering/CTO who wants to be coding and growing in a small company to several VERY smart junior engineers and everywhere in-between Lots of responsibility and growth potential!

Keywords: Java, J2EE, Cassandra, Riak, Hadoop, HBase, Redi, Seam, puppet, chef, capistrano, fabric, scott dunlop, the bivium group

Drop me a line – scott@biviumgroup.com – Boston area’s #1 Software Engineer recruiter!

Hot job – Cambridge, MA Software Engineers – C++ gurus – to 160k – OS, distributed computing, optimization, algorithms etc

Hot jobs opening up every day it seems!

This one is of particular interest – Great labs group in a well known local software company, “startup” group, working for an amazing manager. Looking to pay up to 155/160k for Principal Software Engineers, Lead Software Engineers, and Architects with experience in some mix of – database internals, operating systems, distributed computing, performance optimization, very large scale data or query volumes, system architecture and design, and algorithm development.

Full job desc:

http://bit.ly/bR2OKV

Drop me a line to confidentially discuss – scott@biviumgroup.com – the Boston, MA area’s #1 Software Engineer/Computer Science Recruiter Headhunter

March Madness: Boston Software Engineer/Computer Science JOB market explodes!

Happy Spring to everyone! Although the Mass. and national economy continues to slowly grow new jobs, the Boston/Mass. Software Engineering/Computer Science market has been red hot in Q1. We’ve seen over 50 new job openings in March, along with evidence from candidates, clients, and our colleagues in industry that the perception of the market and it’s reality are detached.
Simply put — if you are a top-notch, super-sharp, software engineer, ready to strut your stuff — the rest of your competition has not woke up the sharp increase in demand from clients for all levels of software engineering hires. Strongest demand is clustered in three distinct areas – Web 2.0/J2EE/Ruby , LAMP/PHP/MySQL and C#/.NET 3.5/4.0 from associate/junior software engineers to the Senior/Principal level.

We’ve not yet seen a recovery in the Principal+ market – as this cohort has been effectively marginalized over the past two recessions, with real, inflation-adjusted wages falling over the past decade by ~ 30% by my calculations.

That said, as this recovery has legs, and has been building momentum since last Fall, I fully expect by Q3/Q4 that the Principal+ market (Lead Software Engineer, Architect, Manager, Director, VP Engineering) to reach a more balanced market.

Some clients have not woke-up to the severe market shift, and are recruiting like it’s Oct 2008 — and many candidates are paying way too much attention to the headlines that sell newspapers — from recent accounts, the voluntary turnover or “quit rate” is at its lowest rate in the past decade — no doubt in large part due to the fear-mongering and partisan politics of the current time.

My best advice — put on your blinders and focus on making a change for the better!

I remain, Boston’s #1 Software Engineer/Computer Science Recruiter

Scott Dunlop – scott@biviumgroup.com