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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