More Mass tech Layoffs – Metacarta, American Student Assistance, ACI Worldwide

No point in reporting the wildly known EMC, IBM, and Microsoft layoffs (none here in Mass.) – but some of the smaller, less well-known, but larger firms having some significant layoffs – those include geographic search company www.metacarta.com, student financial aid company www.amsa.com and enterprise payments company www.aciworldwide.com. Right now, this cycle of anticipatory layoffs must slow before the economy will improve – and like any positive feedback loop, it’s just feeding itself right now. I openly wonder – would you take a 5-10% voluntary pay cut to keep your job, and those of your colleagues? Keeping our fellow workers out of the unemployment lines is the first step towards any real economic recovery. Counterpoint – does keeping the proverbial “bottom 10%” co-worker in the organization a real benefit?

Mass. unemployment rate up to 5.3% — market more balanced

Typically, unemployment numbers are a lagging indicator — so, I fully expect the rate to inch up a bit more this quarter, perhaps to as high as 5.8-6.0%. Hiring is still happening especially for “A players” and job growth from smaller companies and Venture capitalized firms is still very strong, the market for a long time was a candidate-driven market, now, I would characterize this market as balanced — the sky is NOT falling, but it has toughened-up. I cannot envision Oct-Nov-Dec radically improving, so, what have we learned from the last month of instability? Details and execution matter — can you talk the talk or walk the walk?

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Mass. unemployment grows to 5.3
Massachusetts employers cut nearly 4,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate rose another tenth point to 5.3 percent, the state Department of Workforce Development reported.

While only the third monthly employment decline in the past year, the job losses are another sign that the global financial crisis and national economic downturn are hitting the state.

Financial services led September job losses, shedding 1,200 jobs, and education and health services lost 1,100. Construction shed 1,000 jobs; manufacturing lost 600, and professional and business services lost 500.

Employment in consumer sectors continued to decline. Retailers shed 1,200 and leisure and hospitality, which includes hotels, restaurants, and entertainment, lost 800 jobs. Government, information, which includes software makers, and trade, transportation and utilities, were among the only major sectors to gain jobs.

The state unemployment rate remains below the national rate of 6.1 percent, but as risen more than a point since April.

Summer’s over, and Q4 recruiting is looking to be busy – looking for image processing & speech algorithms software engineers

The kids are back to school, the Red Sox are fighting for 1st place, and Summer’s officially over in a couple weeks. Even though summer was enjoyable — it’s time to shift attention to Fall recruiting — with time off, our 2008 summer was the busiest we’ve had since 1999! There seems be a real dichotomy in the market now — big companies are being very cautious and even laying their “average” performers off, and the smaller, entrepreneurial startups are aggressively fighting the talent war.

With the election looking in just 8 weeks, (and the baseball playoffs!) — people’s attention may be frayed — but those clients & candidate who keep their eyes on the prize, should be able to follow-through on executing.

On the recruiting front — two really interesting new positions I am recruiting for — both in the algorithms space — one in the Image Processing/PACS/DiCOM space and other in the Speech/Acoustic space — if you know anyone, or you, yourself are interested, please get in touch with Boston’s #1 software engineer recruiter – Scott Dunlop – scott@biviumgroup.com

$4,000 referral reward – Back from vacation – great new VP of Engineering role – full relocation to Chicago, IL

Back from vacation and have been engaged by a VERY COOL company in Chicago. This client will allow a candidate here in Boston to commute home on weekends for the first few months, before commiting their family to the move to IL (fully paid for). Just a fantastic opportunity.

Vice President – Software Engineering

 

Our client, a 15+ year old, wildly profitable, privately-held software company, growing 40% YOY for the past 3 years, has engaged us to locate a VP of Software Engineering, reporting to the CEO.

 

Our client’s products help their customers improve their business through quantitative marketing. This hire will lead a team of 10-12 developers to improve and extend their industry leading suite of web-based marketing planning and analysis tools.

 

Client is located in the greater Chicago area (Evanston, IL –waterfront offices), and will offer both a full relocation package (moving, temporary housing) as well as a period of telecommute/executive apartment from your non-local Chicago location to ensure a quality long-term fit.

 

Team is filled with advanced degrees from blue-chip schools – looking for someone who has the experience to lead a data-intensive, high-end engineering team.

 

Salary/bonus package to $205k (to 175k base, 20% bonus)

 

Responsibilities:

• Lead a team of 10-12 creative developers to improve and extend our industry leading suite of web-based marketing planning and analysis tools
• Lead performance tuning and usability refinement of our existing tools
• Lead the architecting, design, detailed specification, and implementation of future analytic applications for our clients
• Lead the establishment of industry best practices in web development for an organization that has for most of its history invested mostly in analytics

Requirements:

• BS or preferably MS / PhD in Computer Science or related field from a tier one university (e.g. Ivy League, CMU, Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, academic Big Ten, etc)
• Track record leading successful development of high performance .NET and SQL Server systems
• Experience and skill hiring, managing, and leading web developers, SQL Server developers, and QA analysts
• Strong technical knowledge of .NET web applications and SQL Server systems
• Experience implementing effective QA strategies, practices, and processes
• Experience with real-time data systems and/or systems that have an analytic component a big plus
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Creative and strategic thinker

 

Benefits:

• 100% paid medical, life, disability, and dental insurance
• Three weeks vacation
• SIMPLE IRA plan

 

Qualified applicants should send their resume to:

 

scott@biviumgroup.com – subject line “Chicago VP search”

 

Keywords: VP, Vice President, VP Software Engineering, VP Software Development, .NET, C#, scott dunlop, the Bivium group

 

Sunrocket quietly shuts down and takes my voicemail with them

For those who haven’t heard, the #2 VoIP provider in the US – Sunrocket (or should I say Crap-rocket) shut down after burning through their $40M in VC. Unfortunately for me, I ported my office number to them. So, like the 200,000 or so affected by this colossal mess, I’m scrambling to get new service and the number ported. So, in the meantime – email works great or my mobile… but of course that only gets limited reception.  You’d think they could have a better plan to deal with this contingency if/when their attempts to sell the company fell through — i.e a drop dead date and some sort of notice to everyone. Poor business and won’t quickly be forgotton. In fact, for the nascent VoIP industry, the last thing anyone needed was this … going to be a lot of surprised people to find out in the coming days that their service is gone… forever! and nobody bothered to even to tell them. Sheesh!

$4,000 referral reward for Digital TV/HDMI and Wireless Software Engineer – C/C++ – Consumer Audio product

$4,000 reward for Digital TV/HDMI and Wireless Software Engineers – C/C++ My latest reward-eligible role is the following: Cambridge, MA, salaries from 100 to 130s + equity

Click here if you’d like to confidentially refer someone 

https://www.h3.com/?dmr=BoIH5fIXEO-2c3YTE-6OZ26Zxho  

Working directly with the VP of Engineering 

Two roles with this client:

a) Wireless Software Engineer – Our client is seeking an experienced wireless networking engineer to create their next generation wireless mesh network.   This is a rare opportunity to build leading edge technology, working with a team that is driven to create the ultimate music enjoyment experience for the home. Requirements

*Advanced degree (MS or better) with a focus in wireless technology.

*Strong coding skills, able to apply theory into working code.

*Knowledgeable in wireless mesh protocols and ad-hoc routing protocols.

*Linux/Unix device driver development

*Working knowledge of Atheros wireless solutions (plus).

*Digital media streaming, audio and/or video.

*Consumer electronics. 

b) Principal Software who is strong in Digital TV, a person who would know how to decode and manipulate the data that comes out of your digital set-top box HDMI cable…  Our client has won a number of industry awards including the 2005 CEA Innovations Best of Audio Award and 2006 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award for Consumer Electronics. 

Welcome to my world, a first post

Hello to all of you who have suggested I write a blog. Many of you have asked and so, I figured why not. If it’s good enough for Curt Schilling to ensure no comments are taken out of context (oops, the Barry Bonds mess doesn’t count of course LOL) , then it’s good for me too!

 For those of you who know me – it’s great to have a format to keep in touch… and for those of you who don’t — I look forward to chatting in the future.

 I am one of the Boston areas top recruiters (headhunter is fine) – I LOVE what I do and I there is nothing more fulfilling than matching great talent and great clients together. I get a kick out of it and hope you’ll follow the ride.

 Right now, the Boston software engineering market is red hot – stay tuned for developments of what we feel are some of the most exciting rewards for candidates ever!