
Tell HN: booking.com is looking for 40+ Perl programmers (in Amsterdam) - thibaut_barrere
Note: I'm not affiliated with booking.com - they mentioned these offers at the open-source developer conference in paris/france this week-end, so I'm forwarding the information.<p>Booking.com is looking for more than 40 perl programmers (either seasoned or beginners willing to learn).<p>They are based in Amsterdam, provide a "competitive salary + relocation package".<p>They use Perl, Apache, mod_perl, MySql, Memcache, Mason, JavaScript, Git etc.<p>They are facing a huge growth, which definitely results in interesting scaling challenges :)<p>You can contact Sheila Sijtsema at sheila.sijtsema@booking.com or have a look at http://www.booking.com/jobs
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jrockway
I never realized until recently how hard something like this is. People do not
want to move. People that hear about your job post usually have some reason to
have heard about your job post, like they can't program at all and their last
employer finally figured it out. Unfortunately, you can't know this until they
show up and you ask them a few questions about Perl. (I love how one candidate
tried to BS _me_ on a basic Perl question. "Do you know OO Perl?" "Yes."
"What's the first argument to a Perl method?" "$_". "Don't you mean $_[0]?"
"They're the same thing." Congratulations, you have clearly never written any
Perl.)

I work at a bank, and we need Perl programmers too. We can afford to pay a lot
better than booking.com, but we can't find anyone, either. It's very odd. (And
it's not just Perl, we had the same problem with Java and C#, and are having
the same problem with C++. Might as well rewrite our app in Haskell... at
least those languages have a community.)

The other thing that I see as being difficult for booking.com is that people
don't want to work with 40+ other people. Between learning "the rules" from
the people already there and teaching the new folks how to program, there is
never any time to get anything done. (My second "real job" was like this; I
was not even a "team lead" and yet all I did was teach other people basic Perl
+ Database stuff. We got exactly no work done. At least if I was by myself I
would have been able to do one person's work.)

In fact, I find the other Perl team in my office to be too big -- and they
only have 4 people!

~~~
aphexairlines
Why is Perl knowledge a requirement? I've been writing Perl in my new job
since June and almost the entire team of 10 (myself included) knew no Perl
before joining.

Check that your candidates know how to develop software, make sure they are
comfortable with functional programming so they don't break anything, and give
them a couple books (programming perl & higher order perl) to read for a week
after joining.

~~~
SapphireSun
Same here. At my current job I knew exactly 0 perl to start with. I haven't
learned all the object oriented stuff yet, but I'm cruising (and have been for
at least the past three months or more) at 4 mo. in, and I was capable of
writing some of the simple stuff after a week or two.

------
avar
Odd to see this on HN now. I took the job with Booking, just finished packing
and will be flying out to Amsterdam tomorrow. See
[http://blogs.perl.org/users/aevar_arnfjor_bjarmason/2010/10/...](http://blogs.perl.org/users/aevar_arnfjor_bjarmason/2010/10/moving-
to-amsterdam-to-work-for-bookingcom.html)

For anyone considering this I can tell you that their whole relocation package
(including the assistance they give you) is very impressive.

~~~
LoonyPandora
Working with both Ovid and Avar makes this a great opportunity to learn from
two big-hitters in the perl world.

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yoak
It's probably a bad sign. Almost no one is in a position to bring that many on
board and use them effectively, and I'm tempted to say no one is unless
they're already a fair multiple of that size. When you combine that with being
open to "beginners willing to learn" which almost no one can afford, it makes
it sound like one of the "We need 5 times what our ten guys are doing and that
means 40 more." bad decisions. Generally you don't need forty more. You need
one or two geniuses and perhaps management and replacement.

This is all based on information in this posting. I know nothing about the
company or its situation or even if they really are looking for 40+. I'm just
generally suspicious about this sort of recruiting.

~~~
AdamN
Obviously a management issue. 40 Perl developers is overkill on many levels.

If I were a Perl developer who wanted to live in Amsterdam, I would be scared
of a place looking for 40 people - it means that their management is doing
something nonsensical.

~~~
moe
Nonsensical is an understatement here, imho.

Unless this is their humorous way of celebrating the 35th anniversary of the
Mythical Man Month...

40 salaries + X! That's at least ~2mio down the drain, even if someone comes
to their senses and pulls the plug within the first year.

------
mmaunder
<http://jobs.perl.org/>

While Erlang and Haskell may get you laid, Perl remains the glue of the web.

~~~
mustpax
Not that I don't know but for the other readers here, how would one get laid
with Erlang or Haskell?

~~~
blackdog
quickly and in parallel.

------
moe
_40_?!

Are they trying to prove the infinite monkey theorem, empirically?

~~~
thibaut_barrere
I don't think really. Based on some discussion, it seems they are more adding
a pile of new servers everyday, and they also seem to do a very good job at
automating their process etc.

~~~
endtime
I don't think the number of servers you need is even loosely related to the
number of devs you need.

~~~
mustpax
You need more people to manage 1,000 servers than you do for managing just 10.
Sure, you can automate processes, but as automation becomes more sophisticated
it takes more time and resources to build and maintain. So, yes, the number of
devs does not grow linearly with the number of servers, but maybe it grows
logarithmically, or even slower. But it does grow.

~~~
moe
Note they are looking for developers, not sysadmins.

Yes, 1000 servers translates to roughly 40 racks and you'd better have a team
of sysadmins to babysit them.

Imho that doesn't have much to do with hiring 40 perl developers in one fellow
swoop, though.

~~~
sjmudd
They are also looking for DBAs if your skills lean that way.

------
Jun8
Hmm, so the news of Perl's deaths have been exaggerated then?

~~~
misterm
Perl is still very much alive and well.

~~~
borism
unfortunately if I may add :)

------
elliottcarlson
Oh man, I <3 Perl...

If it weren't for the whole family/rooted thing I would go for it - plus not
to mention I already speak Dutch.

~~~
kees
Speaking Dutch is not necessary at Booking.com.

~~~
jonasvp
But definitely a plus in Amsterdam.

You can get by fine with English but to really feel at home - you should know
the language. This is assuming you want to make the place you live in feel
like home.

~~~
jfarmer
I lived in Den Haag for three months and I was surprised at how little Dutch
was spoken on a day-to-day basis. Everyone defaulted to English all the time,
and the only people I met who didn't speak it were immigrants from other
countries (usually Russia).

I was eventually able to pronounce Scheveningen, though.

Edit: All this is to say, of all the non-English-speaking countries to go to
as an English speak, The Netherlands is probably the easiest to get by in.

~~~
fijter
I live and work in The Netherlands and if there is a non-dutch speaker in one
of my teams we default to English so everyone can follow the discussion,
although it's a bit harder for everyone to follow and it takes a bit more
time. For the younger people here English isn't a problem, for the 40+ (aged)
people it can be. For even better adaption of English you should visit
Scandinavia; In the short time I've been there I couldn't find a single person
there that didn't speak decent English.

~~~
sgt
Default to English just because there is ONE person who doesn't understand?
Come on. Be proud of your native tongue and speak it. This is how languages
die. Are the dutch willing to have their language replaced with English in 50
years?

All I'm saying is... if that one foreigner is motivated enough to stay in the
Netherlands, he better damn well learn the language. He/she will have to
anyway, in order to adapt in social settings.

~~~
tlammens
If the foreigner is motivated enough he will learn Dutch anyway, in the
meantime a common language is far more productive. English is the business
language of choice in most European countries. Also if you need to work with
teams spread all over the world it is much easier.

I guess English will evolve too, there will be a lot more influence from other
languages, caused by the internet.

------
KevinMS
Damn, being 41 years old I thought I finally find a ".com" that wasn't
practicing ageism! Guess I'll have to take my 15 long years of perl experience
and keep looking!

------
thibaut_barrere
Link: <http://www.booking.com/jobs> (although I believe email contact may be
better).

------
jacquesm
Here is the link to the actual job I believe:

[http://www5jh.openhire.com/epostings/submit.cfm?fuseaction=a...](http://www5jh.openhire.com/epostings/submit.cfm?fuseaction=app.jobinfo&id=23&jobid=31&company_id=1006&version=1&source=ONLINE&JobOwner=992281&level=levelid1&levelid1=2726&parent=IT%20&startflag=2)

40 decent perl programmers in Amsterdam is going to be tough to fill.

The only ones I know of that are good with Perl you wouldn't want to hire for
any reason.

First I thought they meant Perl programmers 40 years and older, but age
discrimination is illegal here :)

~~~
rjbond3rd
If they are "good with Perl," then why would you "not want to hire them"?

~~~
hvs
I think that he's saying that their other characteristics would make you not
want to hire them, even though they are good with Perl.

~~~
jacquesm
I was trying to be slightly diplomatic, but I seem to have failed. Let me put
it more blunt:

If you're looking for 40 people you'll be looking for team players, these guys
are really good, on their, own doing something that will never need
maintenance.

------
Dilpil
Hiring 4 people at the same time to work on the same project is a questionable
idea- 40 is just absurd. I hope we eventually hear about the aftermath of
this.

------
warfangle
If this was about four years from now, I would be all over it. I've been
toying with the idea of someday expatriating to the Netherlands.

~~~
Manfred
Why wait?

~~~
warfangle
I'm not quite finished where I am now. :)

------
balding_n_tired
Gee, I'm a 40+ Perl programmer. But Amsterdam is a few time zones away...

------
hendler
Maybe they'll finish Perl 6?

~~~
draegtun
Booking.com are a heavy user and investor in Perl5:

* [http://www.booking.com/general.ja.html?tmpl=docs/pressreleas...](http://www.booking.com/general.ja.html?tmpl=docs/pressreleases/20081216)

* [http://news.perlfoundation.org/2008/12/bookingcom_makes_a_ma...](http://news.perlfoundation.org/2008/12/bookingcom_makes_a_major_contr.html)

* [http://news.perlfoundation.org/2010/02/grant_proposal_fixing...](http://news.perlfoundation.org/2010/02/grant_proposal_fixing_perl5_co.html)

NB. Last two links look a bit naff at moment! I think they're in process of
some CSS amendments.

So Booking.com want perl5 developers and not anything related to perl6.
However if you are interested in perl6 then you can find the latest version of
Rakudo (perl6 on Parrot) here: <http://rakudo.org/announce/rakudo-
star/2010.09>

------
andrewvc
And I thought I was crazy looking for 40 unicorn trainers in los angeles

------
sgt
No you got it all wrong. These are dutch people after all.

They are looking for 40 grams of "perl".. You know what I mean? Shmoke it wiff
a pancake.

