Easy money: Find me a new job, get $1000
I normally post under a different name, which you can find by looking at my posting history, specifically, this thread. I need to keep the search somewhat secret, so I’m adding a trivial barrier to identifying me.
Anyway, I haven’t been very good at job searches, and I have spare money, so I figured I’d just outsource the effort (in parallel with my own continuing efforts, of course). In theory, this shouldn’t even be difficult, because I’m already employed, very well, in my area of expertise, and have been for over six years, and am only trying to switch because I can’t stand my current city. (And a sense that I could be making more of my potential.)
But practice is different, and that’s where you come in. Here’s the deal: If you find me a job matching my skills and qualifications (and located per the next paragraph), and I’m there for a month, you get $1000. And to avoid making it an all-or-nothing deal, if you just get me to the interview stage, you get $100. You already know me from my posts here, so if you know someone who could use me, please connect the two of us.
I would like for it to be in (in decreasing order of preference) Austin, Houston, NYC, or San Francisco, or at least allow me to live there while earning income from the job. However, any city with a LW community is fine as long as you clear it with me first.
So, here are my skill and qualifications (resume file available, just PM or email me):
- Visual Studio with C++, C#, and Visual Web Developer; MATLAB programming, including Simulink and digital signal processing; finite-element modeling with MSC Patran and Nastran (and augmented by MATLAB); MathCAD; Mathematica; passed Fundamentals of Engineering Exam, earning EIT (Engineer-in-Training) license; perfect scores on GRE analytical and quantitative.
In my six years as an aerospace engineer, I:
- Created and refined finite element models (FEMs) of aircraft (pre- and post-modification) to predict structural response to loading; used both Patran and, at times, MATLAB, to create these models, and Nastran to compute their output.
- Participated in monitoring flight test telemetry for anomalous readings, compared test results to our aircraft FEMs to determine model accuracy, and updated parameters and assumptions to best account for such data.
- Wrote MATLAB software packages to automate the process of analyzing digital signals representing aircraft state and airframe vibrations and presenting relevant plots.
- Performed hand analysis of processed model results to do “sanity checks” of the model and to infer more detailed information about subsystems, such as their margins of safety.
- Programmed intranet database websites with Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Web Developer.
- Refactored colleagues’ code to optimize for readability, robustness, and minimal dependencies.
- Constructed mass models of aircraft, tracking changes in weight and c.g. from payload and fuel configurations, and deriving new distributions of masses to reconcile with known data.
Also, the job doesn’t necessarily have to be in engineering. I’m interested in shifting to software development, but my experience so far is with scripts rather than full application development. I would be happy with some kind of apprenticeship arrangement to someone who makes money as a freelance developer.
Have you looked at MetaSwitch? I’m currently interning in the London office, and people generally like the place—high employee retention rate. They make software and hardware for telephone companies. They have an SF office.
Edit: If you’re going to apply, please inform me beforehand, so I can claim the referal prize.
What sort of pay scale, benefits, etc. are you looking for? I have a few contacts in San Francisco that I can float you by and see if they have any openings, but it would probably be more “entry level software developer with good growth opportunities”.
I’d definitely be interested in that kind of position, please pass my name along. (er, my real one)
As for pay/benefits, I currently make about 2x the median income for the area (with health coverage), which would be hard to replicate for a big city. I’d want about 1.5x to justify the move. (As another datapoint, I make about 50% of the typical home price, but homes are cheap here.) I have a lot of savings I can draw down so I don’t need a steady paycheck—contract/piecework type employment is fine.
What’s your highest degree? I know of academic research positions in Austin where aerospace, FEM, and C++ experience would all be assets, but we’re only looking for people with doctorates, whereas it sounds like you wasted your youth doing productive things instead. ;-)
Only a BS. I started a Master’s (hence the GRE), but withdrew before completion, yes, in part, to do productive things ;-)
Putting that at the top of this post doesn’t create much of a barrier. If someone is looking for you and stumbles on this post, they will read the first few sentences. The bottom, where a reader is more likely to skimming, or the comments seem like a better place.
Also, good luck on your job search!
The idea is that someone searching on the poster’s real name would not even find this post in the first place.
Ah, I see. Still, it seems a trivial inconvenience to move that sentence to the bottom or the comments for an increase in protection, albeit I’m not sure how much of an increase it will be.
Bingo. That’s the threat model I was defending against.