For the benefit of those outside Cambridge, it's also worth knowing that Red Gate is the local rising star software business. I have now lost track of how many friends, former work colleagues and friends-of-friends have wound up working there, but it's a lot.

If I've heard about it from that many different sources, so have many other good people with relevant skills in the local area. You have to factor that word-of-mouth effect into any thinking about how successful any additional recruitment drives they've been running have been. If I hadn't gone freelance, I might have applied myself, but it wouldn't have been because of ice creams or iPads, it would have been because the company has a reputation for being a decent employer and hiring good people.