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Journal SlashChick's Journal: Erica Needs Help. (Not A Statement of Sanity.. A Job Offer!) 17

Journal by SlashChick

I think the time has finally come to admit that I need help.

Not in the "I'm insane" way (though some of my friends would argue that ;) but in the "This business has grown too big for my britches" sort of way. The fact is that I need one of you sysadmin/programmer gurus to take me, a marketing/sales person, under your wing and grind out all these nifty little things to help me run my business better.

Here's what I'm looking for:
Absolute Requirements

First of all, you must be located in or near San Jose, CA. Yes, I know that there are many qualified techies in other places than San Jose. However, the fact of the matter is that our servers are in San Jose, and these servers will be your babies to take care of, both hardware-wise and software-wise. That means you need to be able to run into the datacenter and fix them.

Secondly, you must be willing to carry a pager and get pages from people who need reboots, kernel recompiles, etc. The vast majority of our customers do not page, but when they do, we need to be there and jump on it within 10-15 minutes. Technically, you will be on-call 24/7, but you won't be awakened much in the middle of the night -- perhaps only once or twice a month. As you deploy more APC remote reboot ports and a console server for us, you'll empower our customers to fix their own problems and drop that number down to 0.

You need to be a UNIX guru, but you need not stick up your nose at Windows, either. Again, the vast majority of our customers are running Linux or FreeBSD, but we do have the odd Windows server here and there. You don't have to love Windows; you just have to not whine about having to administer it every once in a while. ;)

You must know PHP and be willing to spend a good part of your time programming systems in it. This is an absolute requirement.

So, in summary:
* You must be located in San Jose, be able to drive to the datacenter, and meet the following criteria:
* Be an excellent UNIX systems administrator. Be prepared to administer mostly Red Hat systems, with a few FreeBSD and Windows systems thrown in for good measure.
* We'll buy you a pager or pay your cell phone bill. In return, you agree that you will be on call. Yes, you may get awakened in the middle of the night a couple times a month. But it won't be that often, and with your help, we're going to drop that down to an absolute minimum.
* Know PHP, shell scripting, and Perl. PHP and BASH scripting are a must.
* Be interested in web hosting. We'll give you a free dedicated server or two for you to play with, or we'll colo your boxes for free. (Yay for job benefits!)
* Be prepared to take a leadership role within the company. As the owner of the company, I will be taking your suggestions on how to improve processes. You must be able to step up and say "Hey, this needs to be fixed," get my approval, and run with it. You will "be your own boss" as much as you can; with only one person to report to, it will be your decision that goes.

Salary is still to be determined. Please state what you're looking for; since we're a startup on a budget, please be reasonable. Your job benefits will include a free cell phone and free dedicated boxes or colo space. It will not include traditional benefits such as health care.

This is a part-time, contract opportunity. I expect 10-20 hours a week to start and I fully expect this to be a full-time position within 6-12 months. This position is ideal for someone looking to break into the industry who may not have tons of experience but who is willing to learn and enjoy the benefits of having only one person to report to.

Right now, you will be working from home. Again, in the next 12 months, I will be looking for office space. We have big plans to expand -- this is your chance to be the technical leader of this expansion.

Please send your resume and salary requirements (for a contract of 40-80 hours per month) to erica@simpli.biz. I will be interviewing in person over the next 2-3 weeks.

Thank you!

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Erica Needs Help. (Not A Statement of Sanity.. A Job Offer!) More

Erica Needs Help. (Not A Statement of Sanity.. A Job Offer!)

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  • This sounds like just the sort of job in which I'd be interested. In fact, it's what I was basically doing for my current company before we got bought out, and I'm now part of a billion pound, million customer corporate. There are only two problems, really:
    1. I'm a long way from San Jose. Nice place though (or at least, it was 15 years ago). When my other third was in Mountain View earlier this year, she said it was nothing like how I'd described it from the late '80s, and she absolutely hated it...
    2. I suspec
    • "I suspect your salary expectations and mine are somewhat different."

      Probably. :) This isn't a job for someone who wants to be rich; it's for someone who mostly wants to learn more and is an up-and-coming sysadmin. I don't want to shortchange anyone, but we are on a budget, and that's the unfortunate reality of being a small startup in the year 2003. :)

      I know this will grow to an awesome position later; I'm really hoping for someone who is attending their last year of college and wants a FT position in,
      • I'd actually have been interested too - I should be an ideal fit apart from the PHP (although I could fix that very rapidly if needed; I've programmed in everything from Verilog, through ARM assembler, to C and Perl) and the location (I'm several thousand miles away). Oh, and the lack of any kind of work permit/visa would get in the way too... (Being the son of a US citizen only gets you a green card after a c. 3 year wait!)
      • From your description it sounds that you've got a full-time amount of work now, but either the company isn't set up to support someone in that position or the money isn't there yet.

        What's keeping it from being full time starting last week? (No reason for my curiosity. I'm not within a country mile of the person you're looking for.)
  • I'm impressed. I wish I had your ability to think about work in the middle of the night.
  • I am willing to relocate from Israel. I think California is lovely (except for LA which sucks) - just pay for my flying ticket? Okay? Thanks!
  • I'm interested, but a little bit lost:

    Do you know the way to San Jose?

    (la, la, la, la, la)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ...if you don't mind. Will you post when it's filled?
  • If only I lived near San Jose...

  • Damn (Score:2)

    by ces ( 119879 )
    I wish your servers were a little further North.

    I'm a little weaker on the PHP end than you're asking for, though I'd probably get up to speed pretty quick. I'm also a bit more experienced than you seem to be looking for but that's not necessarily a bad thing. ;-)

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