Why I bleed orange

I’m not dead and Curve is hiring!

Woah. Time seems to have sped up. Lately I’ve been laboring in the details and sometimes when you’re deep in the trenches it’s difficult to smell the roses… or blog. 

Speaking of details, I wanted to share a new job posting we’re putting up for our Director of Infrastructure role. It’s a vital role because it relates to data security and server uptime. And, we all know there’s nothing more important than nailing those two things in a web company. 

I like to think we try to take different approaches to things at Curve whether it’s small stuff or big stuff. It’s just part of our culture, and we certainly try to do that when we’re looking for new talent. Most job postings are uninspiring and don’t really tell anyone about the type of person they are looking for. They reference skills, etc., but it’s really attitude and character that determine whether or not a candidate will be the right fit for your company.  Take this snippet from a typical job posting for example:

- Creates and executes development plans and revises as appropriate to meet changing needs and requirements.
- Keeps project manager well informed of status of development effort and serves as liaison between development staff and project manager.
- Ensures technical teams are contributing to our code library.
- Owns the development lifecycle and is responsible for managing technical risks throughout the project.
- Communicates and enforces coding standards
- Performs code reviews and mentors junior developers.
- Manages technical resources within budget and project schedule.
- Consistently delivers high-quality services to our clients.

Despite it being boring and uninspiring, I don’t even know what much of it really means. 

If people are the most important part of any organization (which they are), then let’s start putting more company culture and clarity into what type of people we’re looking for. 

P.S. Now that I’ve ranted, I really hope this post lives up to expectations :|. 

—————-

Director of Infrastructure
 
Elevator pitch
 
Hello. We’re looking for someone who can be responsible for developing and maintaining our production servers.

It’s a big responsibility.

We’ve built an award winning web application that dentists all over North America rely on and there’s nothing more important than making sure it’s available 60/60/24/7/365/100^928293.

We’re bringing the web to dentistry and as users begin to abandon their ball and chain desktop systems questions like: What if your servers go down? Is your application secure? Do I own my data? Is it slow because it’s online? … are among the most asked by our current and future customers. It’s vital that we can answer these questions truthfully by providing a best in class application architecture and production environment.

Customer up-time and data integrity is the most important thing in our company and we need someone who has the experience, depth and skills to lead this area of our company.

So, if you’ve got the chops and aren’t afraid of being responsible for something as important as a NASA space launch, come talk to us and lets see if there’s a fit. 

Some key attributes of someone who would be awesome for this role:  

“Experience is having screwed things up personally” There’s a big difference between knowing something and actually having walked the path. We want someone that’s had experience scaling an important and highly-complex web 2.0 application.

 Spiderman said that with great powers come great responsibility. There’s a big difference between having a job and having a responsibility. Your peers and customers count on you to ensure the most important thing is always up and running.

 You’re okay with sometimes not getting the credit you deserve because you know most people just aren’t capable of seeing what you do. Your contribution is less visible because you’re constantly playing defense, fixing problems before they happen.

 You care about up-time and data security more than our customers do.

 You watched the x-files a lot as a kid. You question everything and trust no one. You build contingency plans for contingency plans, spend too much money on disability insurance and paid to have your first will written when you were eleven.

 The Flintstones were popular a long time ago. You continue to recognize this by automating absolutely everything. You despise the Flintstones.

 If you were hit by a bus tomorrow it wouldn’t matter. Well that would suck (luckily we don’t know you yet), but, regardless of what happened, our infrastructure would continue to tick like clockwork with or without you.

 You once read the American Declaration of Independence because of your passion for documentation and policies. If government wasn’t so ineffective at making stuff happen you’d probably consider a career there due to the mounds of documentation and policy.

Sometimes it takes more time and energy to point fingers than to just get your hands dirty and fix it yourself. Beg for forgiveness instead of asking for permission. You take initiative at big and small levels because at the end of the day you just care about making things better.

Despite being slightly unpopular in high school due to your role in the chess club, you were never afraid of sticking up for your beliefs. You are to the point, articulate and tell it as it is, even if it’s not great news. For example: It’s Tuesday AM. Your boss is upset. Things are delayed again, emotions are running high and you stand to be publicly ridiculed. Instead of wimping out, you give the straight goods and paint a realistic picture of what’s going on. In the end he respects you for it, you hug, and fix the problem. Yay.  

You started playing Halo 3 on legend mode right out of the gate. You know life’s short and that solving simple problems only gives you a false sense of achievement. So instead, you spend your time working on stuff that is interesting, complicated and challenging.  

You allocate part of your annual salary to speeding tickets. Despite being a cautious and meticulous driver, you realize that life is short and speed is important. You know application speed and performance are essential to making people happy.

You’re capable of managing projects && humans. Even though you know humans aren’t rational, you make due and try your best to keep your team passionate and thriving. You’re a good mentor, teacher and leader in your area of expertise.

You counted cards to help get you through university. You are a data junkie. You put processes in place to give you real-time visibility of what’s actually happening in order to improve your chances of making the best possible decisions.

Things we’re looking for in terms of more specific skill-sets and experience:

Bachelor in Computer Science or equivalent experience
Masters in Computer Science or engineering degree is an advantage
8 + years relevant experience
Experience overseeing a highly sophisticated and critical application infrastructure in a previous role

Experience maintaining and scaling a significant web application:
Experience or familiarity working with virtualized cloud services like Amazon Web  Services or Microsoft Azure
Experience with AWS cloud resources (EC2 virtual machines, EBS data stores, Amazon S3, etc.)
Scripting and automation of AWS cloud operations (scaling, networking, etc.)
Experience with hands-on management of backups, fail-over systems, and high- availability infrastructure.

System administration of staging and production servers:
Management of Linux operating system, packages, and updates
Installation of new server software
Administration of security and system access
Hardware training and/or certification in systems and storage management is a plus (Red Hat Linux, Sun Microsystems, Hitachi Storage Solutions, EMC, Dell, Solaris, etc.)
Solid networking experience - TCP/IP, administration of networking hardware, and load balancing
Firewall/security experience - access control list management, secure remote access management practices, etc.
Experience building and configuring major Internet host/network services including but not limited to: Web (http, SSL, etc.), Mail (sendmail, etc.), DNS, NFS, NIS/NIS+, databases (PostgreSQL, etc.) and Java

Programming and scripting experience:     
Programming and scripting experience in Python, Shell, Perl, C, PHP or Java
Knowledge of object oriented design and application architecture

Application and server monitoring:
Experience with enterprise monitoring and management frameworks (Nagios, etc.)
Experience monitoring Apache logs,

Security, Backups and Data Integrity:
Strong general security background
Experience with networking, cryptography, PKI, authentication systems and logging infrastructure

Database and web server experience:
Extensive Apache experience
Experience with database design, improvement and maintenance. Expert knowledge of MySQL or Postgres
Experience with detailed data analysis including SQL databases and log files

Application profiling and performance measurement:
Web server performance profiling, configuration and optimization
Database performance profiling, configuration and optimization

Deploying Patches and Releases:
Experience with management of schema changes and mass-data updates

Work with customer implementation team to deploy solutions for new customers:
Assist with import and export of data for new customers
Develop tools for non-technical implementations and support staff
Provide second-level customer implementation support

Setting up policies for off-hours server support

Get in touch with us!

If we haven’t scared you away yet then go ahead and send your resume to devjobs@curvedental.com with the subject line: Director of Infrastructure! Don’t forget the exclamation mark :).

If you prefer a more natural approach to communication, your carrier pigeon will find a handsome roost on the roof of our building. We’ll be sure to refresh your bird prior to responding to your message.

Our exact GPS co-ordinates are 40°18’47.86” N by 111°42’22.48” W at an elevation of 4,757’ (according to Google Earth).We have no reason to believe that these co-ordinates are the target of any rogue missile. Our offices are quite comfortable, appropriately appointed and you’re welcome at any time.