Ah, my Everquest memories of 'making the run' to ToV north and Vex Thal. Sure it was a pain in the ass, to me it only made victory sweeter - granted once you'd figured out how to pharm the good zones, it was never terribly difficult. Trying to rez your way up to Air island 7...now that *was* a memory I'd rather forget :P

One of your options is to use Salesforce Content, which is a very usable content & collaboration piece from salesforce.com. It's fully wired in to the rest of the force.com platform and CRM apps suite too, so if you're looking to build out more of your company's apps in the cloud, it's worth taking a look at it. http://www.salesforce.com/crm/marketing-automation/document-content-management/

Yep, I experience this quite frequently. On many occasions I've figured out a solution to a difficult tech problem when in the very light sleep just before waking up (or very shortly after waking up). Normally when this happens, I feel semi-aware that I'm thinking something through yet know that I'm not awake, it's hard to describe. Then finally when I do wake up and everything clicks it's eureka time!

It's not unusual for a company to have a code of conduct that isn't part of your official contract. The rules in it may not mention social networking, but the principles are the same - non-binding guidelines on being a "good corporate citizen".

And to be frank, anyone publicly airing "insider" information about their employer doesn't have leg to stand on. With the exception that if it was someone acting as a whistleblower concerning illegal events. But there are laws for those cases in western nations at least.

I have been through something similar, when my small company was acquired by a larger, established one. It wasn't always easy, but if your team sticks together, you can definitely make a success of it.

Beware the politics, petty bureaucracy, process monkeys and wannabe loudmouths who think they understand the industry though! Sure, people who have worked in big business know how the gears of industry turn, but they often don't understand how to develop good software and keep the quality high. Having said that, you'll probably be able to learn a lot through the experience.

I strongly urge you not to "play up" the notion of "staying for the transition" as another poster suggested. If you give an aloof impression from the outset, you are likely to impact the deal and cause the buyer to reorganize how they schedule your payouts so that you'll have to stay longer to get all the benefits. I've seen this happen.

To be frank, unless you really plan on building a full business yourself with all the right component parts, you'd be idiotic to turn this opportunity down. Good luck!

My suggestion is, if you don't have the experience or qualifications, try to start out with a smaller company who are searching for someone with the raw aptitude and a bit of know-how rather than employed experience.

Be able to demonstrate your skills with sample code, open source contributions, and be prepared to solve problems and write code in the interviews.

Arguably the best path to this is to throw a ton of time at hobby projects and study. Write LOTS of code. Read even more code. Work with as many tools on your platform of choice as you can. It may sound corny, but make it part of your DNA.

Passion. That's what it's all about. If your employer thinks you're passionate, dedicated, have the aptitude and really care about it, they will overlook shortcomings in qualifications and experience.

That's what I did, I had no formal qualifications and it worked for me.

Because a large number of developers are mediocre. If an employer is looking for someone productive, this is the last thing they want. It's amazing how people big themselves up on their resume then struggle to demonstrate their claimed proficiency in a language by writing a little program. I've seen this time and time again.