Job Opening: CTO of BootsnAll

I can make damn good sandwiches… can I get the job? I’m still in school in Miami so I’ll need to make the sandwiches from home.

The person needs to understand Wikis? Thinking of a new bootsnall expansion are we?

Would you repeat your techie needs? I may quality if I could understand them!

I’m so qualified for this job. Too bad I’m quitting work for two years…. Oh well.

Chris - we have been using Wikis behind the scenes for a while now - and may do something someday.

Sorry to hear this Matt - I mean I am happy that you are going away, but will miss your application.

Mary: If you don’t understand it, it is probably not something you should apply for. I still love you of course.

It would be helpful to post a salary range. I understand that the final number may be highly dependent on the candidate, but some guidance would be useful to both you and the candidate in insuring a fit.

Please include your salary requirements with your application. (I will edit the above listing)

Thanks for bring that up.

Do you need any help a quick learning computin’ laygal could do???
I can make coffee! And run tedious errands!!! Plus I can cook a fabulous assortment of fine-dine Itallian!!
you could pay me in peso’s!!!!

thechickacross the street…: Sure, come on over. Our coffee maker is not working so well….and we serve beer at lunch?

Any idea of a salary range before I bother replying?

Are you paying over $150k?

Where are your developers, and how much spoon feeding do they need?

Should I bother?

If u are apply just for the money, please don’t. No offense of course.

I’m sure there are plenty of other jobs where you can be CTO for $150K+ and not have to spoon feed developers.

Thanks for asking though.

After 500+ words of what you want, it’s just strange that you say nothing about what you’re giving in return.

http://www.collegegrad.com/forum/210.shtml

“Regarding salary requirements, state on your cover letter: “My salary requirements are open.”"….

“The request is usually made by HR people who are trying to get a head start in the offer-negotiation game by asking a “freebie” question up front. That doesn’t mean that you have to answer it. Don’t give away a negotiating chip early in the process that could lock you into an artificially low salary”

Mate - put in an application. If this money thing has is the only thing that you are concerned about, it ain’t the job for you.

I will say this, we work on compensation packages that suit that person. Of course, everyone is motivated by different things. We do our best to work with each person’s strengths.

I agree with Sean on this one. Put down what you think you’re worth in your resume. If you can’t get what you put down — from BnA or from anyone else — then you’re not worth that much. If you can then great. It’s harsh but it’s the economics of the situation.

Putting down salary ranges can be a bad thing. For one, salary can be up for debate depending on the applicants. Applicants rarely fit perfectly into the position posted. There are many factors which play into how much an applicant is worth to a company and its difficult to put a number on someone when you haven’t even met them.

Second, if a company’s primary focus is not technology then it can be difficult to know what the going rate for a CTO is.

While a general price range would be good for narrowing down applicants I would not say it’s a requirement. However, I would disagree with the position being a CTO. With the emphasis on hands-on experience it sounds more like a Senior Web Developer position with a C-level title.

As for the guy asking for $150K, you can find plenty of good Senior Web Developers and CTOs that would match a company like BootsNAll for well under that price range so long as you’re not posting for the position in New York or San Fran.

*Steps off soap box*

I have all the abilities to fill the role wonderfully…in fact I think I could do that wonderful quality of work a couple thousand miles away.

Good post, Ben.

Good points Ben.

It is not a CTO position in the Fortune 1000 sense of the word. I think that folks that actually know how todo the work, have a much better grasp of what developers are trying todo and understanding of what can be done, therefore, make better decisions and managers.

Sean - you should add a disclaimer…

“BnA is to Lonley Planet as Cupertino is to Redmond. We don’t hire mercenaries, we create disciples. Jump off the rat-track an onto the Bootbus!”

I can make 200k+ working from home (most the time)… so I will give this a miss…

It seems a bit strange that a CTO is asked for, and technological contraints are placed.

I think you need more of a lead programmer…. CTO in this instance sounds more like a bullshit title.

And Sean;
“I will say this, we work on compensation packages that suit that person. Of course, everyone is motivated by different things. We do our best to work with each person’s strengths. ”

You should get a job as a HR manager.
Serious question:
Would you hire from outside the USA?

Hmm, yes. At first I thought “wow, great job! Sounds exciting.” But on further review, it does sound like you’re looking for more of a PHP Guru / IT generalist than a CTO… A CTO is typically a management title. And I agree with people desiring to see salary requirements… many people are looking for IT management positions, but aren’t willing to take a pay cut, and sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between a CTO job managing 15-40 technology people, paying $200k+, and a 1-man IT department, paying $70k…

Then again, the requirement of only 5 years experience should be the indicator to most senior IT people out there that this is not a high-salary job.
Don’t hate people for being in it for the money. It’s the primary reason most of us work for a living.

I can understand people’s appreciation for money but at the same time I certainly understand Sean’s comment that everyone is motivated by different things. Even though the pay is usually not as good, I’ve purposefully tried to stay in small companies throughout my professional life because there’s something more exciting about it. There’s not layers and layers of bureaucracy and there’s a better sense of meaning to the company you work for. I worked two contracts with Macromedia two years ago and I will never do it again — every step of the process was painful.

At first glance I would not think this is a 150K+ job just by doing a some quick research on the company. Quoting from the Company Profile: “In essence, BootsnAll is five people in a house, who love travel and want to help travelers meet one another - and, through travel, enhance their lives.” For anyone who has spent any length of time on BnA’s site you can quickly pick up that these are people with a lot of heart — it’s not a big, flashy corporate job.

Lastly there’s an issue of tact. Please do not post your salary on a public forum. Not only is it childish but it stinks of poor professional creditibility.

I just finished interviewing a guy who is my replacement for when I do my vagabonding in January and despite being more than qualified to take over, I can assure you that he will not the position simply because he was an arrogant ass. There’s more to an applicant than flashy titles they’ve carried. No one wants to hire someone that they’ll have to deal with daily when that person has no professional courtesy.

“in short, no software engineers”

It’s funny, because the vast majority of the software engineers I know (and being an electrical engineering student, I know a few of them)
a) hate windows, and only use it when forced to
b) have similar feelings towards anything .net
c) are well taught to do things well, rather than focus on the ends.

Some of them have pocket protectors though.

It’s interesting to see who all replied to this though. A bit different from the normal BootBlog comments. Too bad for me this came up now, instead of a couple years down the road, when I have some useful experience (and that wonderful bachelor’s degree) under my belt.

I am a software engineer who is skilled in visual basic/C++ and lives and breathes microsoft and plans on moving to Africa to start an IT business over there.
ASP and PHP are tools that can be used interchangeable, and its kind of funny how you say you don’t want ASP programmers, but PHP programmers are acceptable. Theres very little difference between the two, except for one is open source and the other is created by microsoft. How can you say that PHP programmers are software engineers? Absurd.
You have some pretty high requirements for someone who isnt suppose to be a software engineer. From the job description it sounds like you want a software engineer+market manager+IT consultant. The person has to work in a high stressed situation, manage employees overseas, not mention work a totally seperate job as your consultant. Let me inform you that consultants can make over 50k a year alone, not to mention a head programmer. A senior programmer with a BS and 5+ years experience. Please, my friends, take a look at DICE.com as to how much these people make. These are top of the line positions, and you want them to travel the world on top of this. Unless you hire an underqualified person or a foreigner, I think 100k + travel expenses sounds like a fair payment for this job.
Programming is a tough job, I know cause I have given my life to it. I battle outsourcing and local competition daily. I’d rather be travelling the world. Take no offense, my heart to your MacGyver and much respect to your site.

Ben, looking forward to your travel articles, thoughts….

“These are top of the line positions, and you want them to travel the world on top of this.”

Cursed are those that have to travel…

Wow - I have been super busy and I come back to even more fireworks. This is superb!.

The job entails a bit of travel, working with Chris and I on a daily basis, and managing our team of developers. For BootsnAll, this person will be our Chief Technical Officer. So many decisions, so many kewl apps to develop/direct…we think is an excellent opportunity for the right person.

The person who is right for this job, will probably be from the BootsnAll community or referred to us via the community. It most likely will not be a mercenary who asks without applying, “How much $$, How much $$” till the cows come home without understanding what BootsnAll is all about as a community and a company.

If you are at all interested, I encourage you to at least apply with an open mind and a good attitude. Maybe it will work out better than you suspect!

Does Monster.com have a feedback area on job postings? I wonder if people there would get this much heat for posting an opening. There’s things that I would have done differently if I had posted this — I wouldn’t have put down ideals and methodologies in the posting because everyone will submit a resume saying that they use “technology as a foundation and/or a lever, not a sledgehammer.” But it’s still a good posting.

The job posting is blue sky — it’s the perfect match for what they’re looking for. I have no doubt that it will produce a flood of over qualified, well qualified and under qualified resumes. Somewhere in that mess they’ll find the right mix of qualifications, salary requirements and heart.

BnA is unique in that it has a work environment that is attractive to many people. There is a web design firm called Xylem Interactive here in Denver that at one time I would have taken a paycut to work for because they had such a creative group of people and a great dynamic. They have since gone more corporate, lost the people that made them who they are and are no longer appealing as a place where great work is done.

If I wasn’t on my way out to travel I’d post a resume to BnA. Heck, I’d even like to just toss ideas around with those guys — they have so much potential.

I have changed my mind, perhaps this is an opportunity that requires rethingking my plans. Sean, expect an application from me shortly.

So then I go and make up a word like “rethingking”… Way to impress your potential employers Matt.

No worries Matt… I cant spel ither

This is from my hubby John, who can’t stand open source software being slagged off:

“I agree with Yonaton Daniyel that VB is not a software engineers’ language. He also seems to be right that there is little that asp can do that php can’t.

However, I think, php is a nice language to program in, and there is so much code that has been contributed by the open source community that it makes a great development environment.

If you really want to do be flash then you can always use java servlets or, better, write your own apache modules.

Of course, for Bootsnall,they don’t want a Microsoft engineer; it wouldn’t fit their environment. What they want is a php programmer who can handle the rest of the technology that goes with their company (databases, sysadmin etc.).”

Cheers,

Whalewatcher

hey - what’s with the dig about “no software engineers”, like? sorry if you’ve had bad experience on this one, sean, but sweng and ‘hacker’ aren’t mutually exclusive.

Mate - it is not about the experience we have had - it is about the attitude we are looking for.