The Job Hunt Begins

So, on the weekend I was looking at Craigslist for software jobs in the New York City area and found an interesting looking one for Ruby on Rails developers. I've tinkered with Ruby on Rails, but am nowhere close to an expert (especially as the Head First Ruby on Rails book had so many blank pages, thanks to cheap Indian editions...).

But I figured I have enough experience with enough different technologies that it's no problem, if I can convince an interviewer that I can learn, I really can. It worked at Tieto... I hadn't done Java before I went for the interview, so I studied up for a week in advance. Then when I met with Jit and Binny, they wanted experience with JUnit and unit testing. I told them I hadn't used it before and asked for a week to learn before doing the 3-hour pair programming exercise with Jit, then went home and spent the week waking up early to write unit tests...

So, Sunday evening, and Monday I rushed to finally prepare my resume so I could send it before I was too late. I'm not entirely happy with all parts of it yet, but it was better than it was.

Tuesday evening I got an email from the job recruiter saying he was interested, but had to work out with his team how to do an interview, since he has to interview everyone first, which I certainly understand. He suggested Skype.

So, I signed up for a Skype account, as I've never used it before. I tested it out on my Mac and it worked. I called the test line, recorded a message and when Skype played it back I sounded like me. Unfortunately, some asshole already took the account kevinrubin so I had to settle for one with my middle initial kevinhrubin. I'll probably forget it and keep trying to log in as my usual account name.

Wednesday evening I got an email from the recruiter that the job was already filled, but he'd keep my resume on file.

So, my new job search is off to a start. This evening I was browsing around LinkedIn to see what sort of job search facilities it has. Looks like some possible ways. A cousin, Nitu, suggested Monster, but just going to their page is a bit overwhelming, and it knows I'm in India so all the searches I tried so far return Indian results, even if I specify New York, then it gives things like New York Met Life, but still jobs located in India.

Anyway, here's a draft of my resume... I'm, of course, still working on it and only recently realised I should work in something about continuous integration...

And it also dawned on me that the two other developers at my first job mentioned, way back then, that they went to high school with one of my readers now, as they knew of the OIT connection at the time...

Kevin H. Rubin

Telephone: +91 98903-66613

Email: kevinrubin@gmail.com

Skype: kevinhrubin

Areas of Accomplishment:

Design	Excellent knowledge of computers with a “big-picture” focus. Can successfully analyze a project and deduce necessary steps for project completion.
Adaptation	Readily able to learn new material and troubleshoot problems. Quickly absorb new programming topics and easily achieve senior-level ability with some documentation and a few examples.
Software Development	Expertise in Java, C/C++, SQL, Adobe Flex, C#, Visual Basic.NET and Assembly Language. Developed web applications using Java Servlets, JSP, ASP, Spring and Hibernate. Experienced at domain modeling, easily able to structure data to match “real world” needs and queries within a program. Exposure to Ruby, Python, Groovy, Perl, Objective-C and other languages.
Team Building	Skilled at working with groups, formalizing design problems and understanding parts to complete the whole. Great communication skills with co-workers, supervisors and customers.
Systems	Many years of experience managing and developing software on computers and networks using Windows XP, 2000, NT and 98, Linux, Mac OS X, MS-DOS, OS/2 and Novell Netware.

Work History:

TietoEnator Software Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Pune, India June 2007 - Present	Software Development – Working on an Agile / Extreme Programming team developing an SOA Java Mortgage Origination System for U.K. lenders using Java with Spring and Hibernate, built using Maven and Ant. Integrated with IBM ILOG JRules, Oracle AquaLogic BPM, Windward AutoTag document production, Atlassian Crowd. Front-ends developed with Adobe Flex and Tieto's proprietary MCP platform. All development is done with pair programming and test driven design using TestNG. As the most senior developer on the team in India, I develop code as well as guide the younger developers and troubleshoot any issues with the development environment.
First Insight Pune, India Beaverton, Oregon September 1997-May 2007	Software Development – Worked on nearly all of First Insight’s products on a variety of platforms: Java, Java Servlets, JSPs, ASP, C, Visual Basic.NET, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL and FileMaker Pro. Developed software for medical billing, accounting, financial reporting, electronic medical records, and patient scheduling as well as system tools to allow other programs access to that data. Software Testing –Involved with testing nearly all of First Insight’s products, including modules I’ve written as well as those developed by others. Technical Support – Provided technical phone support for the maximEyes product for hundreds of customers. Performed troubleshooting, training and custom programming directly on customers’ systems. Network Administration – Administered First Insight’s Windows NT network. Assist other network administrators as needed, especially in developing UNIX shell scripts to perform specific tasks for our few UNIX servers.
PC-Kwik Beaverton, Oregon September 1993-January 1997	Technical Support – Supported a wide range of performance enhancement utilities under DOS, Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Worked closely with customers and coworkers of all skill and experience levels, from complete beginners to advanced system designers, by phone, fax and email. Software Testing – Worked with engineers, marketers and customers to test PC-Kwik’s utility and development tools in four categories: bugs, compatibility, usability and performance. Coordinated external beta testing for the CD-ROM Express product. Software Development – Wrote and maintained PC-Kwik’s 16-bit DOS and Windows Installation, Setup, Uninstall and Configuration software in a combination of C and Assembly Language. Network Administration – Kept a small Novell Netware LAN running reliably. Technical Documentation – Edited and wrote parts of PC-Kwik’s user manuals. Sales and Marketing – Talked to potential customers who had technical questions about PC-Kwik software and helped the Marketing department sell the software. Maintained the PC-Kwik Web page.
Maynard Rigby and Associates Portland, Oregon June 1992-March 1993	Developed, maintained and supported custom C and BASIC applications to expand and enhance Platinum and Macola accounting software, using Btrieve Record Manager on DOS/Novell networks.
Linn-Benton Community College Waldport, Oregon 1984-1987	Classroom assistant for Linn-Benton Community College adult education courses. Assisted beginning BASIC programming students with computers.
Waldport, Oregon Area 1983-1987	Helped local residents, schools and small businesses assemble and install personal computer systems, developed small custom applications and tutored users on software use.

Education:

Oregon Institute of Technology 1987-1992	Coursework in software engineering.
Waldport High School 1982-1987 Other	US Citizen