Job thread

[Chimpy]

Using molten lead to make steel wire. Are they alchemists? 

[koro]

The lead starts out as solid ingots and melts as it's used in a high-temperature bath along with some other chemicals, sulfuric acid, etc., as part of a process to get copper electroplated.

I question the necessity of it, since my own part of the process (running the thick non-drawn-out steel wire through HCl, bonderite, and borax to help it better take drawing lubricant without breaking) used to also have a lead bath and no longer does.

[Yegolev]

I almost put this in Useless but really it's very important.

Do not create training materials using interactive PDFs, especially the ones that read to you.

[Cheddar]

I almost put this in Useless but really it's very important.

Do not create training materials using interactive PDFs, especially the ones that read to you.

pdf's are the wave of the FUTURE.

Ironically, I was coached in a serious manner about my preso's.  Forgot to include one in pdf.  Must do going forward.

heh.

[Yegolev]

If I end up subjected to a talking PDF from Verizon, I'll know who to hunt down.

[Cheddar]

If I end up subjected to a talking PDF from Verizon, I'll know who to hunt down.

shhhhh.

[Xuri]

Ah....I don't suppose anyone here are familiar with the job market in Singapore, specifically the game development industry? I might end up moving there for some time, assuming I can find a job...

[Teleku]

I know a few people who work there, but nothing involving software development.  Why Singapore, out of curiosity?

[KallDrexx]

Singapore is expensive as hell for foreigners.  My cousin is a high up guy at PWC, he got stationed there, had to take a pretty good pay cut, was paying like $5k US for a small 2 floor apartment.  Food and everything is pretty expensive, forget owning a car (though their public transportation is good), a lot of cash only dealers, and if you have any kids forget the idea of finding a baby sitter (almost all families get a house aide that lives there with you, forgot what they are called).

That being said, it's amazingly awesome place to live if you can as it's so close to everything around.  My cousin would routinely fly his family of 4 to random countries for a couple day trip, as it would only cost $200 to fly all of them to Thailand, Vietnam, etc...  It's extremely safe, watching the news isn't a murder fest (my cousin felt fine letting his 5 year old watch the news with him), and pretty fun all around if you can afford it.  However, i hear they don't pay enough to compensate for the higher cost of living.

[Teleku]

All the people I know have negotiated 'Ex-Pat Packages' as part of their compensation.  Usually stuff like housing (or up to a certain amount of the cost of it) is paid for, among other things.  Moving there as an ex-pat and trying to pay out of pocket without any sort of ex-pat package sounds terrible, unless you are doing banking or something.  The city itself is OK, but I felt it was a bit to bland and sterile for my tastes.  You are correct that its in a great location, however, and very cheap to travel to lots of cool places.  Also a good place to go if you never want to know what cold feels like again.

[Yegolev]

Does anyone know anything about obtaining a security clearance before you get a job requiring it?

[Viin]

Does anyone know anything about obtaining a security clearance before you get a job requiring it?

Can't. You have to have a need before you can even apply for one. Having a past security clearance helps get a new one (shows that you can do it and it won't be a waste of time/money), but beyond that you either have one that gets continued or you get a new one when your employer sponsors you for it.

[Teleku]

Yeah, you need to get a job where your employer is going to pay for it, which makes you fairly less competitive against applicants who already have one.  Join the State Department for 2 years!  You get a full TS security clearance, and they only punish you if you quit the job before the 1 year mark.  So if a life of travel doesn't appeal to you, just do it for one tour, then return to the US and take fat contractor jobs with your very expensive security clearance.

Also, shitty news, sorry to hear.

[Xuri]

I know a few people who work there, but nothing involving software development.  Why Singapore, out of curiosity?

Singapore, because of matters of the heart

Long story short, met a girl on a language study website, hit it off with her on Skype, hopped on a plane to go live with her for a little over a month (just got back last week) and now we're in a long-distance relationship (with a distance of ~10500km between us). Therefore, Singapore.

[Phildo]

Is there a path to a fancy state department job that doesn't require a year of testing and training?

[Viin]

Is there a path to a fancy state department job that doesn't require a year of testing and training?

Dept of Commerce, but I don't think they are hiring. (though they may still require language training?)

[Yegolev]

Yea, I figured you needed to be sponsored.  I'm not sure the State Dept job would work with the family situation but I'll keep that in my back pocket.  Hopefully HP won't be a bigger dick and not sponsor me should I apply for one of the public sector positions.

Public Sector is my main target since it requires us expensive US citizens, the drawback being that I don't have any PubSec experience.

Looks like a lot of these gubment jobs want a Security+ cert, so I suppose I'll need to get one ASAP.

Edit to say that I chuckled at my wife when she suggested I try to get hired at IBM.

[KallDrexx]

Does anyone know anything about obtaining a security clearance before you get a job requiring it?

Besides what others said about needing a job first, depending on the job you are going for it's going to mean 6 months of sitting on your ass doing absolutely nothing until your clearance passes. 

After college I interviewed with Lockheed Martin for an IT position.  Besides the fact that they literally couldn't tell me anything about the job (not even if I'd be working on linux, networking equipment, or if it was a lowly helpdesk position) they pretty much told me that I'd be fully active in my job only once I passed my clearance.

It was top secret, so maybe jobs requiring secret isn't so bad though.

[Teleku]

Is there a path to a fancy state department job that doesn't require a year of testing and training?

Its a long process, but mainly waiting if you are applying as a specialist.  My experience applying for the position of 'Information Management Specalist' (sys admin/state department version of snowden type job):

Submitted app when they opened up the position for applications.  This was lots of random shit, including three short essays. 

Heard nothing for three months, then got a big packet in the mail saying I had a job interview in DC in three months, with all the info.

Flew to DC for interview three months later.  Process took one full day, and included all sorts of tests, writting, and a long structured verbal interview.  At the end they tally up a score on how you did on each section, and if it's above a certain number, you've passed.

Spent the next month taking all sorts of medical test so I could get my medical clearance, and mailed in the paperwork.

Background check happened next, lasted about 4 months for me.  Once I passed that, my name was added to the pool of eligible candidates.  As they do new hire classes (they do several through the year), they draw the top scorning people off the stack and send offer letters.  You remain in the pool for a year, and if you don't get picked in that time, you have to start the process over.  I waited only a month in the pool before receiving my offer letter to join.

All told, took me a little over a year.  I know some people who did it faster somehow.  Still, you need to have some sort of job while you grind through the process.  Testing and evaluation for Specalist is only one full day, so it's mainly just waiting and doing paperwork in your free time.


Maybe other government jobs are less strict than the Forign Service (no idea how the civil service process works), but not sure which ones also come with a TS security clearance (which is what you really want if you desire companies to throw money at you just for the pleasure of your company).

[schild]

Fuck that lol

[Teleku]

I know a few people who work there, but nothing involving software development.  Why Singapore, out of curiosity?

Singapore, because of matters of the heart

Long story short, met a girl on a language study website, hit it off with her on Skype, hopped on a plane to go live with her for a little over a month (just got back last week) and now we're in a long-distance relationship (with a distance of ~10500km between us). Therefore, Singapore.

Heh, figured it might be something like that.  You might actually feel fine there, as Norway is one of the few places in the world even more expensive than Singapore!  But as I mentioned, if you can pull a job, try to make sure they are offering some sort of ex-pat package.

[Strazos]

The Federal Government is pretty darn huge, so just troll through usajobs.gov until you find something to you liking. You might consider taking something that doesn't require a TS/SCI clearance, just to get your foot in the door - I'd imagine most jobs, even for sysadmins, don't require that sort of clearance.

And since you're in the Atlanta area, I'd imagine there's a pretty big federal footprint down there.

The waiting isn't really all that bad, as you're informed up-front - however, this only really applies to the foreign service. They have their own particular hiring processes - most civil service jobs should be much more straightforward, and operate on a much shorter timeline.

The clearance, however, is still going to take time to get initially (if required by the position).

[Zetor]

I know a few people who work there, but nothing involving software development.  Why Singapore, out of curiosity?

Singapore, because of matters of the heart

Long story short, met a girl on a language study website, hit it off with her on Skype, hopped on a plane to go live with her for a little over a month (just got back last week) and now we're in a long-distance relationship (with a distance of ~10500km between us). Therefore, Singapore.

AFAIK RK47 is from Singapore... 

[Phildo]

Yeah, I've been through the State Dept application process before.  Fortunately, they told me to piss off pretty early on so I didn't have to wait 9 months before being told to.  It's a truly, truly awful process.

I'll probably still apply the next time they're hiring for Information Management Specialist, though, because I probably qualify this time around and it sounds like a good job for me.

[MrHat]

They have their own particular hiring processes - most civil service jobs should be much more straightforward, and operate on a much shorter timeline.

The clearance, however, is still going to take time to get initially (if required by the position).

Civil jobs still take 3-4 months of processing. 

[Mosesandstick]

AFAIK RK47 is from Singapore... 

Not all of us Singaporeans are like RK47...

Expat (short for expatriate) packages are usually pretty important because housing in Singapore is crazy expensive and unless you have an allowance for a car (100% import duty + a 10 year licence that costs tens of thousands) you'll probably end up on public transport. On the flip side public transport covers most areas and the island is tiny.

Back when I was in Singapore general working hours were long and tough, though I don't know how different it would be for a foreigner in a young industry. If you have nothing to lose Singapore is a good place to spend a few years. It's safe and clean and nearly everybody speaks Singlish English.

[Yegolev]

The Federal Government is pretty darn huge, so just troll through usajobs.gov until you find something to you liking. You might consider taking something that doesn't require a TS/SCI clearance, just to get your foot in the door - I'd imagine most jobs, even for sysadmins, don't require that sort of clearance.

And since you're in the Atlanta area, I'd imagine there's a pretty big federal footprint down there.

I have a period of time during which I am undergoing a redeployment process, so ideally I'll be able to get a similar (or better) job in the cloud division or public sector of HP, both of which hold more security than my current division.  I'll definitely look at usajobs.gov once the time comes, so thanks.

The thing is that I'm not an admin, I'm a variously-named engineer: integration engineer, platform engineer, system engineer, solution engineer, depending on who you are talking to.  Maybe a good illustration is that I've been designing Red Hat systems for the past year despite not having much real experience administering RH.  This also includes my recent exposure to Veritas Clustering and Storage Foundation.  I don't need to get completely into the details since I have a good understanding of corporate IT principles, ITIL, DC redundancy, DR principles, industry best-practices, blah blah; it's up to the low-paid guys to know the literal commands to apply a static route to a RHEL server.

I could get a admin job today but I don't want one of those.  Systems engineer is what I'm looking for, or systems architect if I can weasel my way into it.

There is definitely some federal jobs to be had around Atlanta.  My current boss mentioned someone he knew servicing the Federal Reserve, which would be fine in case I had to drive in.

[Paelos]

I tried several times to get government jobs in Atlanta. The white maleness got in the way a lot. Or at least that was what I was told but not told because you can't really tell people that.

Then again that was the IRS so I have no idea what happens in other parts.

[shiznitz]

But a white male in an Atlanta government office would be a minority...

[Cheddar]

I have a period of time during which I am undergoing a redeployment process, so ideally I'll be able to get a similar (or better) job in the cloud division or public sector of HP, both of which hold more security than my current division.  I'll definitely look at usajobs.gov once the time comes, so thanks.

I could get a admin job today but I don't want one of those.  Systems engineer is what I'm looking for, or systems architect if I can weasel my way into it.

There is definitely some federal jobs to be had around Atlanta.  My current boss mentioned someone he knew servicing the Federal Reserve, which would be fine in case I had to drive in.

Man, good luck.  Sorry to hear.

[Paelos]

But a white male in an Atlanta government office would be a minority...

I know right? 

[Yegolev]

But a white male in an Atlanta government office would be a minority...

I know right? 

I thought that was what you meant until you said "IRS".

[Paelos]

Almost every agent I've dealt with in Atlanta has been female across the board. I've had two black male agents. I've never seen a white male agent show up to any audit in 5 years.

[Yegolev]

I suppose I should not be surprised that Security+ is so Windows-centric.  Luckily I already know 75% of this.

[Yegolev]

I have a interesting lead which is going to be a fun bureaucratic ride, but I figure I can still work on my Security+ and then I'll finally have that shit out of the way.

I don't think I'll live long enough to get a CISSP.