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Apr 09Rise of the Optimizers
by in Feature Articles on 2009-05-26
A few years back, Brian F. was doing some consulting for a small web startup that was trying to build a platform for struggling artists to sell their music online. After about a year of "nothing of significance" (READ: they ran out of money before signing on any customers), there was little left for Brian to do and his billable hours were "indefinitely" reduced to zero. However, a year after leaving, the CEO called Brian to say that said investors had been found and that he needed some help taking his vision to the next stage.
Granted, while the investors did give the CEO a pile of cash, the company couldn't afford the luxury of funding an in-house, built from scratch system. Instead, they had found an outside e-commerce solution and it was Brian's job to give his professional "opinion" of the software.
John was in bed, nearly ready to turn out the light when his wife — who had been burning the midnight oil in the computer room — rushed in.
Pete and his manager Dick were ACME Corporation's version of The Odd Couple. They both shared in the support and maintenance of a monstrous in-house spawned order processing / network monitoring / invoice printing / slashy / slash / slash system written in Visual C++. However, while Pete kept up in the latest technology trends and was always on the lookout for new solutions to old problems, Dick was a very conservative manager with twenty-five company years under his belt. To Dick, "change" was only a Good Thing when it added up to 65¢, which was the exact amount required to buy a ginger ale from the soda machine. What kept Pete and Dick from being a perfect couple was that Dick was Pete's supervisor and often times, he got his way.
Steve had been passing by SecuriTek's in-your-face full-sized billboard job ad every day for nearly a month. They utilized the "geek appeal" of twisted logic puzzles and obtuse syntax to lure in candidates with perks in their "laid back yet professional" environment. However, along with their promises of catered lunch wishes and every-day-is-casual-day dreams, the advertisements made one thing perfectly clear - only the best and brightest C/C++ developers on the planet should apply. Thinking Hey! I'm a Top-Tier kind of guy and What the heck...I don't have anything to lose Steve decoded an obfuscated HR email address (ROT13? C'mon...) and sent off his resume.