Five months ago, I had an opportunity to accept a contract to work at Mozilla as part of the webdev team. There was a match for my skills on a contract basis, and even though it meant leaving permanent employment for the uncertain world of contracting, I knew it was something I would never forgive myself if I didn’t engage. I didn’t know then just how right my decision was, but after spending a week in Portland with the team at OSBridge, I was shown just how right my decision had been.

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Laura Thomson posed a question on Twitter, asking what do you like most about being an engineer? I spent a good part of the morning thinking about it, and it’s an interesting question to answer. My answer is simple: it’s the fact that engineering is a creative enterprise, one that requires intense imagination and sometimes lots of sweat, blood and tears.

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A friend of mine lives on Bonieta Harrold Drive. I live on a Windsor Hill Drive. Both of us have a problem in common, which is that poorly designed software is incapable of accepting the length of our street address. For me, American Express refuses to accept more than “WINDSOR HILL D”, which still arrives at our home. I can’t imagine if my friend ever got an American Express card, since given the maximum length available for an address, he would live on “BONIETA HARROL”. If you live in a place where direction (e.g. NW, SW, SE) matter, not having enough space can be extraordinarily problematic to the proper delivery of mail and packages if there is not enough room for the whole address.

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Last week I wrote about all the reasons that recruiters are bad for your career. For a variety of reasons I highlighted the reasons job seekers should avoid enlisting the services of recruiters that solicit them, and the traps that recruiters employ to disadvantage job seekers while improving their odds of collecting a commission.

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At some point or another, every technical person will conduct a job search. And either by design or accident, they will encounter the nemesis of job searching: The Recruiter. These individuals are employed by companies whose sole purpose is to serve as an intermediary between job seekers and potential employers. Their marketing literature will say that they match you to potential jobs, and since they spend their days looking around for potential job openings, they have a better grasp of whats out there than you do. It’s their claim, anyway.

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