For those of you who saw Mitzi's job announcement, but are more of
a backend person rather than a web developer*, my group has a job
opening on the other side of the building**, writing connectors for
the Virtual Solar Observatory, a distributed federated search
system for solar physics data:

	http://www.sesda3.com/careers/ss062-senior-software-engineer/

The quick summary of the main task:

	Most of the existing system's in Perl, using SOAP::Lite.

	Most of the catalogs are in MySQL or PostgreSQL.

	Much of the issues are reconciling data models, so
	having a physics or other science background is
	useful.


Pros:

	Pretty laid back environment.

	Working for NASA.

	Learn about the sun.

	Working with interesting people.


Cons:

	Can be aggressively laid back if you don't conform (I was threatened
	with bodily harm in my first week if I continued to wear ties, even
	though they featured cartoon characters ... I still don't understand
	how someone couldn't appreciate a Dogbert tie)

	And it's only laid back in some regards; anything that might affect
	a spacecraft or human spaceflight is taken *really* seriously; men
	with guns have been known to show up and seize machines when we have
	security breaches.

	Trying to explain to your grandmother the difference between working
	for a contractor at a NASA center, and actually directly working as
	a civil servant.

	Dealing with bureaucratic rules that make no sense (which our boss
	does his best to shield us from) and having to do tons of extra work
	when Congress threatens to shut down the government (see con #2).

	Hour long phone calls with your grandmother explaining that no, the
	sun is not going to blow up this year, and how unrealistic it is
	that the Mayans were able to pinpoint to a specific day more than
	a millennia ago when we can't be sure if it's going to rain next
	Tuesday.

	Interesting people occasionally involves scientists who are
	convinced their PhD makes them an expert in *everything* including
	your job (see http://xkcd.com/793/ )... and some of them write
	code that you have to interface with.

	You'd have to work with me.

I can answer questions about the work that needs to be done, the
group you'd work with, stuff like that.

Everything else has to go through ADNET HR.  (I couldn't even tell you
about the benefits, as I work for one of the sub-contractors)

-Joe

* Although, I wouldn't mind a web developer; our site's been in
  need of some work for years, but that's another long story.  Those
  skills were in the 'preferred' list that I was told that I should
  not have titled 'minion wishlist'

** ie, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD.  But we're a little
  more relaxed in that we'll accept U.S. citizens *or* permanent
  residents.


-----
Joe Hourcle
Programmer/Analyst
Solar Data Analysis Center
Goddard Space Flight Center