Job Responsibilities
1. Lead software developer. In this role, I take part in
leading team meetings, and instructing members of my team (other
software developers) in the individual tasks that they will be
assigned. This includes working with team management to
determine which resources will be best used for which projects,
helping in the planning of the individual projects and working
with the client to determine which matters are most important
and what impact they will have on the overall project. I spend
approximately 40% of my time in this role.
2. Software Developer - In leading the team in development, I
also share a role in doing a percentage of the software
development. This includes writing Object Oriented code that
ties in to the large application that our team supports. I
spend approximately 30% of my time working with this.
3. Database administrator. Along with the other roles
mentione, I am the DBA for the team. In this, I handle the
care and feeding of our SQL Server database, including enhancing
the performance of the database, managing the scheduled jobs
that run on the database, the replication of the database, as
well as handling any reviews for code that is going to be run on
the database. I spend approximately 25% of my time working
within this role.
4. Other maintenance tasks. Because we have a large system
that has been up and running for over 5 years now, there are a
number of other tasks that are required to keep everything
running smoothly. I do a number of these tasks and they take
up about 5% of my overall time.
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Job Requirements
The job that I currently have requires a 4 year degree as well
as ongoing training to stay current with the technologies that
continually develop. The company that I work for has no
problem sending myself and coworkers to any classes around the
country that are needed in order to keep us abreast of the
current technologies.
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Uppers
The best parts of the job that I work in first off deal with the people that I
work with. I thoroughly enjoy the interaction with the other members of the team
and our ability to learn from one another using our varying level of skills and
types of skills. I also enjoy the more laid back atmosphere that our company
has. We are allowed to dress casually and have flexible hours as long as we do
not abuse those hours. This makes it much easier to deal with personal issues
outside of work, and it also makes it more appealing to come into work on a daily
basis. I also believe that the company has a very nice vacation policy. We
are allotted 3 weeks of vacation each year beginning at the first of the year.
This is fairly uncommon for people just starting out at a job in my experience.
Though most places will let you work up to 3 weeks, you usually start out with
not much more than 2 weeks of vacation. The extra week is a nice little perk.
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Downers
The downers to the job are the high stress when deadlines are
coming close. As in most jobs we are a deadline oriented
position, and this can mean a number of extra hours without pay,
during those crunch times. This can be a bit of a drag at
times, both on your own personal outlook on the job as well as
your relationships with family and friends outside of the job.
I would say taht this is the worst part of the job.
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Lifestyle
The work hours for this job are 40, plus whatever is needed to accomplish the
job. On average throughout a year that will probably mean that you end up
working somewhere around an average of 45 hours a week. Many weeks that will
mean you only work 40 and many other weeks you may work up to 60 or even
potentially more. In terms of travel, we may travel a couple of times a year,
but no more than that. For a person with a family this is a very nice thing, as
I would probably not keep a job where I had to travel much more than this.
Within the company, we have social events approximately once every 3 months.
This will usually mean a gathering of some sort outside of work, but it could
also mean that the company just purchases some food or treats that are brought
into work for all to share. The dress code is casual. There are times when a
client comes in that you need to dress more formally or at least business casual,
but 90% of the time the dress is casual, meaning Jeans and a T-shirt are
acceptable. Our company has a great deal of diversity. People from all walks
of life work at our company, which is also one of the nice things about the
company I work for.
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Compensation
70000 a year for my current position. Plus 3 weeks of
vacation, 10 personal/sick days. Health, dental, vision, life
and other insurances that are standard are also included.
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Advice to Jobseekers
I would like to think that Software developers will continue to
be an important position in teh future. Though the number of
software positions has started to become flooded within the
market, there are more and more companies that are developing
software, and since computers do not appear to be going
anywhere, good software developers are going to be needed to
program them. For that reason I believe it is still a good
field to get into, just not quite as good as it was 5-6 years
ago.
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