Oh man, I love the initial req stage. Partially because of friends on the other teams but also I get to nudge the project to where I think it should go. Or away from unfunness.
You are 100% right about the cabin. Here’s me on our newly built deck, beer in hand and half ready to leap to safety at the first suspicious creak:
That is indeed nice. I don’t get a much of a say in my current job so that’s why I prefer not to be part of the requirements defining. I just tell them what is possible and within what time frame when they finally come up with their final master plan that they want to define themselves (maybe I’m just communicating wrong with academic people still).
Now that looks like bliss! Perfect weather, beer, cabin in the nature, and a day full of hard work behind. And hey, the captain must sink with their ship ;) Thanks for sharing!
I suppose in a job with academics they have pretty precise experiment goals etc, so probably less open to suggestions. I don’t know what research y’all are doing but I’d have very little to offer on most scientific subjects!
Was talking to a soccer buddy last night (another dev, apparemtly everyone is a dev this week) and he’s been applying to jobs where he’d be supporting academics, any suggestions or hints for an interview and/or beyond?
And yeah, you’re right, despite the sunburns, aches and fear of death it really was bliss. I got my pal 50 feet of mosquito net for Christmas, we’re going to try and engineer something wild to protect ourselves on the deck at night…!
I’ve learned that yeah, and me too, especially since it’s not what I studied and I can’t really give any input on research methods - they are a research group in Spatial Data Science and I’m constantly learning new stuff that’s not directly related to my work. I was hired to build and maintain software tools for their own research and help with code architecture of their own creations. I just love learning so perfect job for me!
It’s a good profession to have! ;) and I wish I could give some solid tips, but this is my first job in the academics and I ended up here by accident. I do know something though: he should not settle for public job postings only. Universities consist of multiple research working groups and many of the working groups just wait until someone who knows software well enough rolls into their team or pay a company to do the job.
Before me for past 20 years they got software devs by either someone walking in and asking if they need a freelancer or if a PhD student had previous studies/experience in software. Apparently they had never posted this job online.
Recently I got another offer from a different working group at a different university, and only because one of their employees had worked with me a year before and knew me. There was np job posting for this position either.
Maybe your buddy already knows all of that about university working groups, but thought that this might be useful info. I work in Europe but academics seem to be the same no matter where lol.
And good luck with the fight against mosquitoes! Those assholes…
