We’re Hiring

The company I work for when I’m not working for the Mozilla Foundation, Data Connection, is looking to hire four to six software developers (either new graduates, or people with existing experience) at their offices in Enfield, North London, where I work.

I can’t promise you would get to work on or with Free software, but you would get to work with smart people for a company who are very good to their employees, and have a great culture of technical excellence. The fact that they are such a good company to work for is one of the reasons I’m currently attempting to do two jobs at once. ;-) You don’t have to be a graduate in a numerate discipline – we already have classicists, linguists and others.

If you are interested, you can find out more and perhaps apply online. Please say that I sent you :-)

If you’re not a UK citizen, that’s not necessarily a showstopper, but this post is aimed mostly at UK residents.

8 thoughts on “We’re Hiring

  1. Darren: if it’s just somewhere up North you want, we do have an office in Edinburgh, although you’d probably need to spend your first six months in Enfield. We do have a company house you could live in while you did that, though.

    If it’s York specifically, then no, I’m afraid you are out of luck :-(

  2. well any EU citizen will be allowed to work in UK without needing a permit, so why are you making ot look like it’s restricted to UK citizen ? I think many readers of your blog are european and not american.

  3. You’re right. It’s aimed at UK residents given that they are the ones most likely to be living in, or willing to move to, London – but any EU resident could apply for the job without work permit issues, and is welcome to :-)

  4. > well any EU citizen will be allowed to work in UK without needing a permit

    For sure, but it is pretty obvious that DataConnection are targeting almost only Oxbridge graduates, for example there is a requirement that just about implies Oxbridge and excludes just about anybody not educated in the UK:

    http://WWW.DataConnection.com/careers/grads/
    �Most of our graduates have all A grades at ‘A’ level, and a good honours degree (which can be in any subject).�

    http://WWW.DataConnection.com/careers/experienced/
    �have a strong academic background, with at least 3 As at A level, and a good degree in any discipline�

    and if you look at their ”casebooks” it is pretty obvious what kind of people they are looking to recruit. It is all worded cleverly, but it is easy to decode.

  5. Blissex: I think it’s rather insulting to the great deal of excellent universities in the UK to imply that none of their students have three As at A-level, or that their honours degrees are not “good”. And, quite obviously, we would accept A-level equivalents such as Highers or the International Bac.

    Data Connection recruits explicitly in at least five universities (it would be more but for lack of resources) and then hires the best people who apply. It’s true that in the past the majority of these have been Oxford or Cambridge graduates but nothing in the application or decision process means that has to be so.

    The “kind of people we are trying to recruit” are smart people who have or would have an aptitude for software engineering.

  6. �I think it’s rather insulting to the great deal of excellent universities in the UK to imply that none of their students have three As at A-level, or that their honours degrees are not “good”.�

    Yes, that’s precisely what I meant with �targeting almost only Oxbridge�, so I agree completely, and that then that it is a pity that DataConnection ends up hiring mostly Oxbridge graduates, even if for the sake of appearances �recruits explicitly in at least five universities�, never mind just UK ones.

    Sure, the wording is cleverly chosen to show no ostensible bias, and I can believe that �nothing in the application or decision process means that has to be so� as indeed that’s precisely the sort of clever code that Oxbridge graduates excel at. But then I reckon that I am more interested in the the magnitude of the odds, and whether the odds are fair. I am sure that the odds are non zero, and there may be token foreign educated persons at Data Connection.

    As to me, I wonder, given 20 CVs for each position of which 5 from Oxbridge candidates, 14 from other UK universities with 3 “A” A levels, and one with a a top marks habilitation, or a maturita`, or a baccalaureat, which one has a greater chance of going into the bin straightaway, and which ones a bigger chance to be shortlisted.

    Out of �five universities� (indeed out of all UK and foreign universities) Data Connections finds that only two have most of the �smart people who have or would have an aptitude for software engineering�, and given this I suspect that people with a non-UK high school diplomas or degrees (never mind from non top-2/top-5 UK universities) would be wasting their time to apply, even if they have a theoretically nonzero chance.

  7. Blissex: All a company can do is hire the best people from those who apply. You can make insinuations all you like, but you don’t have a shred of proof – and I have never seen any discrimination either for or against Oxbridge, or any other factor like birthplace or country of education for that matter, in the interview process.

    Again, I would encourage anyone to apply, whatever their background or place/country of education.