1. What exactly do you do?
- What field is your job in?
Internet Real Estate - What is your job title?
Software Engineer - Please provide a brief description of the firm or organization that you currently work for (size and general description of what type of organization it is)
My employer is a web hosting web site solution provider for Real Estate Agents. We provide them with a standard Real Estate web site that comes with some default custom content geared towards prespective home buyers. The real estate agents can control the look, feel and content of their site.
- How long have you been employed in this position?
1 year - How many hours do you work a week on average?
45 - Please provide a BRIEF description of your duties and responsibilities. (job description)
45 - Please provide a BRIEF description of your duties and responsibilities. (job description)
Maintain and develop the Classic 40 and Virtual Office web applications.
- What was your gross income last year? Please include any bonuses or incentives received.
95000 - What is your expected gross income for this year? Please include any bonuses or incentives you expect to receive.
90000 - Please list any benefits you have (Please include number of weeks vacation, sick leave and type of health insurance, retirement plan 401k)
401K, Medical, Dental, Vision, Insurance, Vacation, Sicktime, Holidays. - Do you feel you are under/well/over compensated at your current position?
Under
2. Work environment!
- Does your job entail you working with others on a daily basis? Is this something you like/dislike about your job? Explain
My job requires me to work in a team environment. I like to work in a team environment because we can help each other out during analysis and design. Also, during development, we throw questions and ideas at each other regarding performance and best practices. Working in a team environment makes each and everyone of the team members much stronger.
- Do you work collaboratively with supervisors/managers?
Yes - Do you work collaboratively with your co-workers?
Yes - Describe your work location (e.g., office, home, theatre, in the field) and what you like/dislike about working in it
Office, second floor, Orange County california with a view of the hills. I love it because we can take a look out the window and relax a bit before going back to work.
- Please rank in order of importance from 1-8 (1- most important 8- least important) Assign each number once.
- 3 Income
- 1 Work Environment - co-workers
- 2 Work Environment - supervisors
- 7 Benefits
- 6 Hours
- 5 Level of responsibility
- 4 The actual "work" you do at your job
- 8 Job Title
3. How should someone new to the workforce get a J-O-B like yours?
- If someone wanted to go about getting a job similar to yours, what would you recommend for him or her to do?
Take some college classes to get you started with visual basic programming, microsoft access programming and SQL Server (database concepts). After getting some idea of simple programming, go to the internet and download all of the free Microsoft Development tools. Next you need to buy books and read a little bit everyday in the subjects ( programming language, etc) that you have choosen to learn. Next, go to the internet and download open source code to start getting an idea of how things work in a development project. Once you have some basic programming and database knowledge start applying for entry jobs. Continue taking college courses while you find a job. When your level of knowledge that you aquire from college and on your own meets the requirements of an opening with some company, you will be hired and you will be on your way.
- What skills do you think a person should have if they want to pursue a position like yours? Please be specific and explain why (e.g., social skills, organization skills, technical skills)
Math skills. Analitical skills. Person must be able to think logically. Person must be patient. Person must be committed to continues learning as technology changes fast.
- Do you feel that you need a certain level of education or training to be successful in your job?
No - What advice would you give to someone who was about to start work in your position/ line of work?
Work hard. Go the extra mile. Continue doing the "butt time". Butt Time means that in order to learn and be a good developer and system engineer you need to sit your butt down and work hard to learn and produce.
4. How did you get your J-O-B
- How did you find your current job? (e.g. newspaper, internet, referral, etc.)
Referral - What was the application process for your job? (e.g. submitted resume, paper application, electronic application, all, etc.)
I knew the Director of Development as he was my boss before. He hired me. - Did you have to interview for your current job? If yes, what did the interview process entail? (e.g., number of interviews, who you interviewed with, group interview, individual interview, etc.)
No, see above. - If you can remember, what questions were you asked at your interview?
None, see above. - Is this the job / field you planned to work in?
Yes - If your job is in a different field from your original plan how did you get here? Explain (Plan can be from high school/college/post college/personal plan)
N/A
5. Background: Are you qualified?
- Was there training for your current position? If yes, what did it entail?
No training. - Do you feel your employer properly prepared you for your job? Explain
N/A - Do you feel your educational background prepared you for your job? Explain
Yes. In order for me to attain the level of knowledge that meets the position requirements I needed to go to school to learn not only Computer Science stuff , but English, Math, Politics, etc. The more educated a person is, the more that perosn is likely to fit into any work environment. Definately, Computer Science classes are a must, even if you do not take any of the other requirements for graduation. - If applicable, do you feel your internship experience helped you prepare you for your job?
6. The Future and Beyond (FINAL SECTION)
- If someone were to observe you at work, what would he or she say is "fun" about your job?
The interaction that we have on an everyday basis with the team members. We work very hard, but know how to take a break in order to keep the stress level low. Another fun thing, if you like coffee, is that we have our own "Programmers" coffee maker with a built in grinder. We enjoy fresh grounds every day. All day. - What is (are) the most fulfilling aspect(s) and least fulfilling aspect(s) of your current employment? (e.g. fiscal, spiritual, type of work, hours, commute, compensation, etc.)
Learning is most Fullfilling. I am getting more experience working in a web development environment, which was always a goal of mine. Least fullfilling is the fact that the company has a lot of up side, but opportunity for growth seems somewhat clouded. - Is your current employment part of your career plan? Why or why not?
Yes, I have always had a goal of becoming a senior web developer. - What are your current career goals? (Can be broad or specific)
To attain certain and unquestionable senior engineer status and to start my own consulting firm one day. - Is there anything else you would like to share about your career?
The computer science field is of high demand. There are not enough Database developers, Architects and Software Engineers out there. The demand will be steady through 2020, if not longer. Get into it!
7. A Day in the Life Of...
- 7 am - 8 am
Getting ready for work. I get a call from my boss. We are going to be deploying the latest version of our applications next Thursday. It is now Tuesday. The deployment is a go. - 8 am - 9 am
Arrive to work. Get coffee. Check my email. I do a full get from our source code database to make sure I have the latest code in my personal computer to ensure that the code that I write will work with existing code that was checked in the day before. I build and compile the application. - 9 am - 10 am
Meeting time. We need to discuss the steps that we are going to take for deployment. We need to outline the Deployment activities and layout a back up or roll back plan if things do not go as expected. It is decided that Shai and myself need to test the deployment on a test server and report to the boss how things went with our "dry run". It is decided that two other team members will brainstorm regarding the Roll back plan if the deployment plan fails. - 10 am - 11 am
We spend the next two hours backing up the production database. We Restore it into the test system. We then run a program called sql compare to compare our newly restored copy of the production datbase with our development database. - 11 am - 12 am
Next, We identify all of the stored procedures, tables, indexes, etc that we are going to need to migrate to the real production dB during deployment. We then export the sql script that we are going to run as part of our deployment. We next identify any data that has changed between the databases (not customer data, but system data). We then create a script to run in the production database. We run everything. Then, we start testing on the test machine. - 12 am - 1 pm
- 1 pm - 2 pm
We spend the next our testing. Identifying things that we have missed. Testing all of the new functionality and some of the old functionality to make sure that we have not introduced any bugs there. - 2 pm - 3 pm
All testing is done. We encountered some things that we had not anticipated before during testing. In application development, if something does not go wrong during testing, we get worried. Very worried. Something always goes not according to plan. We now start formulation a deployment plan with all of the tasks that will be necessary in the correct order. - 3 pm - 4 pm
We spend the next two hours backing up the production database. We Restore it into the test system. We then run a program called sql compare to compare our newly restored copy of the production datbase with our development database. - 4 pm - 5 pm
Shai and I go back to our desks. We have written a plan. I now need to formulate an email and send it to the rest of the team and ask for feedback. This feedback will be incorporated into the plan the next day. Email is formulated and sent. Feedback starts to trickle in. Good stuff. - 5 pm - 6 pm
Time to finish up some of the code that will be going in on Thursday. As of today, Tuesday, we all need to check in all of our code that will be deoployed by the end of the day. I know its going to take me at least 2 hours to complete so I am going home. - 6 pm - 7 pm
Driving Home, eating some dinner. - 7 pm - 8 pm
Back to the computer, this time my laptop from my home office ( the dinning room) in my condo. For the next three hours I finish my code. - 8 pm - 9 pm
Next I test my code. Make sure all is working. I also take a break to watch survivor fiji. I love that show. - 9 pm - 10 pm
I do a final build. Test once again. All is good. I check in my code to source control. I know it will be built and deployed to our staging server on Wednesday at 8am with our automated build. The business will now have all day Wed to test the new functionality. If the encounter no deviations, they will accept. The deployment will be go ( and it was ). - 10 pm - 11 pm
n/a - 11 pm - 12 pm
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