fortpoint

+1 on this answer. Ideally any interviewer intentionally sets aside time to answer your questions. If it's a total one way street that'll tell you something about the company.

In our interview process we have an informal session totally dedicated to answering the candidate's questions about anything. The setup is simple, two of our engineers and the candidate hop on a call (or meet in person) and just talk.

Many of the folks who have accepted our offers refer back to that session as the thing that really sealed the deal for them.

Reminds me of another Polish pianist (now past): Mieczysław Horszowski.

Horszowski, also a child prodigy, had his debut in Vienna in in 1902 at the age of 10. [1]

Horszowski's final performance took place in Philadelphia in October 1991 [age 99]. He died in that city a month before his 101st birthday. He gave his final lesson a week before his death. [2]

-------------

[1] Liner Notes: Horszowski- Mozart, Chopin, Schumann. Electra/Nonsuch E2 79202

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mieczys%C5%82aw_Horszowski

Has anyone noticed that the JetBrains certs are showing up as untrusted when you start Intellij or when you visit JetBrains.com ?

You're probably thinking about https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1253565/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_lk3

It's difficult for some managers to measure the productivity of knowledge workers and unfortunately they resort to tracking the number of hours there are "butts in seats". If your organization is like this you'll see people who are at work to be seen being at work, even if they're not being productive.

Japanese salarymen are the pathological example of this but I'm sure it manifests everywhere.

I'm nothing more than an amateur musician but I had the chance to study with Charlie Banacos and one of the things Charlie emphasized was avoiding relying on muscle memory.

All the exercises I received from Charlie forced me to be consciously engaged in the act of playing- never outsourcing things to muscle memory.

I think that largely this was to avoid falling into mechanically playing over changes and to be actively engaged in thinking about the music at the moment it was happening and responding to it creatively.

The Poles set up a cryptography program for mathematics students at Poznań University in 1929[1]. I believe Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki we're all associated with that program.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zdzis%C5%82aw_Krygowski

I saw Mike Stonebraker while he was on his VoltDB "tour" a few years back. He makes the same arguments. In his talk he walked through the history of database technology and discussed a similar "war" between CODASYL and SQL. He framed that debate in terms of the split between separating the concerns of your data's structure (schema) from application logic.

Fairly or not, he suggested the current fight between noSQL/Schemaless vs SQL/RDBMS was being fought in ignorance of all that went on in the 70s.

Linkable Networks | Senior Java Engineer | Boston, MA | Local and Remote (U.S. Only), https://linkablenetworks.com/available-position-senior-engin...

* Company Summary

Linkable Networks was founded on the premise that the disconnect between digital media and physical retail was a major gap in delivering a great experience to consumers. Since 2011, we’ve been nose-down building a scalable platform that provides brands and retailers the ability to engage, reward and incent their consumers directly and across any channel – online, mobile and in-store. We pioneered the concept of card-linked-offers and have taken it to the next level – always-on loyalty. Both our self-service and SaaS-based platforms enable the creation of actionable ads, coupons, offers, promotions, rebates and more that let you reward loyalty... not just discount a purchase. This is the future of Loyalty.

* Technology Stack

Java, Spring, Sharded MySql, Hazelcast, RabbitMQ

* Additional Info

We're wired into card networks and processors. We have a broad range of customers from grocery giant SuperValu where we're deployed with a first of its kind card-linked SKU offer solution to FanBank where we help enable community based Loyalty programs. We run an agile shop with 103 successful sprints under our belts. Our process has been improved over the 6 years we've been running it so that we deliver on time and without drama. Our engineers don't sit in meetings they build solutions.

* Benefits

Health and dental benefits, 401K, Short/Long Term disability insurance, Life insurance, Section 125 & Section 132 plans, paid time off, stock options, remote work opportunities, other perks and a great work environment are part of the compensation package.

If this sounds interesting, please shoot me an email at [email protected]

Linkable Networks | Senior Java Engineer | Boston, MA | Remote (U.S. Only) | https://linkablenetworks.com/available-position-senior-engin...

* Company Summary

Linkable Networks was founded on the premise that the disconnect between digital media and physical retail was a major gap in delivering a great experience to consumers. Since 2011, we’ve been nose-down building a scalable platform that provides brands and retailers the ability to engage, reward and incent their consumers directly and across any channel – online, mobile and in-store. We pioneered the concept of card-linked-offers and have taken it to the next level – always-on loyalty. Both our self-service and SaaS-based platforms enable the creation of actionable ads, coupons, offers, promotions, rebates and more that let you reward loyalty... not just discount a purchase. This is the future of Loyalty.

* Technology Stack

Java, Spring, Sharded MySql, Hazelcast, RabbitMQ

* Additional Info

We're wired into card networks and processors. We have a broad range of customers from grocery giant SuperValu where we're deployed with a first of its kind card-linked SKU offer solution to FanBank where we help enable community based Loyalty programs.

We run an agile shop with 102 successful sprints under our belts. Our process has been improved over the 6 years we've been running it so that we deliver on time and without drama. Our engineers don't sit in meetings they build solutions.

* Benefits

Health and dental benefits, 401K, Short/Long Term disability insurance, Life insurance, Section 125 & Section 132 plans, paid time off, stock options, remote work opportunities, other perks and a great work environment are part of the compensation package.

We're looking for solid Java engineers to join our team and help us build out the next level of capabilities on our platform.

If this sounds interesting, please shoot me an email at [email protected]

Sounds like a terrible situation. I wish those guys luck.

One useful sys ops practice is the creation and yearly validation of disaster recovery runbooks. We have a validated catalog of runbooks that describe the recovery process for each part of our infrastructure. The validation process involves provoking a failure (eliminate a master database), running the documented recovery steps and then validating the result. The validation process is a lot easier if you're in the cloud since it's cheap and easy to set up a validation environment that mirrors your production env.

In Java it would look like this:

List<Double> newshipping = oldshipping.stream().filter(i -> i % 2 == 1).map(i -> i + 0.5d).collect(Collectors.toList());

a bit more verbose but the essential chaining idea is there...

Linkable Networks - http://www.linkablenetworks.com - Boston, MA (office is in Fort Point Channel neighborhood) - Local Only (Work from home 3 days a week) (http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/102673/senior-cloud-sy...)

* Position: Senior Systems Engineer

* Technology Stack

AWS, Ubuntu, Sharded MySQL, Java, RabbitMQ, Ansible, Puppet, Nagios, Cacti, Graphite

* Additional Info

We're looking for solid system engineers to join our team and help us build out the next level of capabilities on our platform. This is a job where you can make a big impact and take responsibility for a managing a cloud deployed SaaS product.

We have a broad range of customers from grocery giant SuperValu where we're deployed with a first of its kind card-linked SKU offer solution to eBates where we enable in-store coupon redemption. Our business is gaining substantial momentum so we're hoping you're as excited about the challenges of scaling for success as we are.

* Company Summary

Linkable Networks was founded on the premise that the disconnect between digital media and physical retail was a major gap in delivering a great experience to consumers. Since 2011, we’ve been nose-down building a scalable platform that provides brands and retailers the ability to engage, reward and incent their consumers directly and across any channel – online, mobile and in-store. We pioneered the concept of card-linked-offers and have taken it to the next level – always-on loyalty. Both our self-service and SaaS-based platforms enable the creation of actionable ads, coupons, offers, promotions, rebates and more that let you reward loyalty... not just discount a purchase. This is the future of Loyalty.

If this sounds interesting, please shoot me an email at [email protected]

Linkable Networks - http://www.linkablenetworks.com - Boston, MA (office is in Fort Point Channel neighborhood) - Local Only (http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/102673/senior-systems-...)

* Position: Senior Systems Engineer

* Technology Stack

AWS, Ubuntu, Sharded MySQL, Java, RabbitMQ, Ansible, Puppet, Nagios, Cacti, Graphite

* Additional Info

We're looking for solid system engineers to join our team and help us build out the next level of capabilities on our platform. This is a job where you can make a big impact and take responsibility for a manging a cloud deployed SaaS product.

We have a broad range of customers from grocery giant SuperValu where we're deployed with a first of its kind card-linked SKU offer solution to eBates where we enable in-store coupon redemption. Our business is gaining substantial momentum so we're hoping you're as excited about the challenges of scaling for success as we are.

* Company Summary

Linkable Networks was founded on the premise that the disconnect between digital media and physical retail was a major gap in delivering a great experience to consumers. Since 2011, we’ve been nose-down building a scalable platform that provides brands and retailers the ability to engage, reward and incent their consumers directly and across any channel – online, mobile and in-store. We pioneered the concept of card-linked-offers and have taken it to the next level – always-on loyalty. Both our self-service and SaaS-based platforms enable the creation of actionable ads, coupons, offers, promotions, rebates and more that let you reward loyalty... not just discount a purchase. This is the future of Loyalty.

If this sounds interesting, please shoot me an email at [email protected]

hi aurelianito, thanks for replying. we can only consider remote candidates within the U.S.A.

Linkable Networks - http://www.linkablenetworks.com - Boston, MA (office is in Fort Point Channel neighborhood) & Remote (U.S. Only) (http://careers.stackoverflow.com/company/linkable-networks)

* Company Summary

Linkable Networks was founded on the premise that the disconnect between digital media and physical retail was a major gap in delivering a great experience to consumers. Since 2011, we’ve been nose-down building a scalable platform that provides brands and retailers the ability to engage, reward and incent their consumers directly and across any channel – online, mobile and in-store. We pioneered the concept of card-linked-offers and have taken it to the next level – always-on loyalty. Both our self-service and SaaS-based platforms enable the creation of actionable ads, coupons, offers, promotions, rebates and more that let you reward loyalty... not just discount a purchase. This is the future of Loyalty.

* Technology Stack

Java, Spring, Sharded MySql, Redis, RabbitMQ

* Additional Info

We're wired into card networks and processors. We have a broad range of customers from grocery giant SuperValu where we're deployed with a first of its kind card-linked SKU offer solution to FanBank where we help enable community based Loyalty programs.

We run an agile shop with 80 successful sprints under our belts. Our process has been improved over the 5 years we've been running it so that we deliver on time and without drama. Our engineers don't sit in meetings they build solutions.

We're looking for solid Java engineers to join our team and help us build out the next level of capabilities on our platform.

If this sounds interesting, please shoot me an email at [email protected]

Speaking as a hiring manager, showing me a cool hack is nice but acing a phone screen requires:

* you know something about my company and why you want to work here (visit our corp. site, interrogate the recruiter, read up on our press and know something about our space)

* you know what we're looking for and understand that we're talking to you because there's some intersection between your experience and our search criteria.

* for that intersection in the venn diagram of our candidate requirements and your resume, brush up a little so that you can speak to how you used technology X. If it was 2 years ago or less know it well... if we're talking 10 years ago being more general is fine.

* be able to describe how you got to where you are in your career and where you want to go.

* know who you're talking to in the phone screen and LISTEN to what they're asking you. i can't count how many folks i ask to describe how they built a particular solution go on to just ramble on about feature descriptions and process without ever getting to how something was built.

Linkable Networks - http://www.linkablenetworks.com - Boston, MA (office is in Fort Point Channel neighborhood) & Remote (http://careers.stackoverflow.com/company/linkable-networks)

* Company Summary

Linkable Networks was founded on the premise that the disconnect between digital media and physical retail was a major gap in delivering a great experience to consumers. Since 2011, we’ve been nose-down building a scalable platform that provides brands and retailers the ability to engage, reward and incent their consumers directly and across any channel – online, mobile and in-store. We pioneered the concept of card-linked-offers and have taken it to the next level – always-on loyalty. Both our self-service and SaaS-based platforms enable the creation of actionable ads, coupons, offers, promotions, rebates and more that let you reward loyalty... not just discount a purchase. This is the future of Loyalty.

* Technology Stack

Core Stack : { Java, Spring, Sharded MySql, Terracotta, RabbitMQ }

Mobile : { iOS, Android }

* Additional Info

We're wired into card networks and processors. We have a broad range of customers from grocery giant SuperValu where we're deployed with a first of its kind card-linked SKU offer solution to FanBank where we help enable community based Loyalty programs.

We run an agile shop with 80 successful sprints under our belts. Our process has been improved over the 5 years we've been running it so that we deliver on time and without drama. Our engineers don't sit in meetings they build solutions.

We're looking for solid Java engineers to join our team and help us build out the next level of capabilities on our platform.

If this sounds interesting, please shoot me an email at [email protected]

Linkable Networks - http://www.linkablenetworks.com - Boston, MA (office is in Fort Point Channel neighborhood) (http://careers.stackoverflow.com/company/linkable-networks)

* Company Summary

Linkable Networks was founded on the premise that the disconnect between digital media and physical retail was a major gap in delivering a great experience to consumers. Since 2011, we’ve been nose-down building a scalable platform that provides brands and retailers the ability to engage, reward and incent their consumers directly and across any channel – online, mobile and in-store. We pioneered the concept of card-linked-offers and have taken it to the next level – always-on loyalty. Both our self-service and SaaS-based platforms enable the creation of actionable ads, coupons, offers, promotions, rebates and more that let you reward loyalty... not just discount a purchase. This is the future of Loyalty.

* Technology Stack

Core Stack : { Java, Spring, Sharded mySql, Terracotta, RabbitMQ }

Mobile : { iOS, Android }

* Additional Info

We're wired into the three largest card networks: Visa, Mastercard and Amex. We have a broad range of customers from grocery giant SuperValu where we're deployed with a first of its kind card-linked SKU offer solution to FanBank where we help enable community based Loyalty programs.

We run an agile shop with 70 successful sprints under our belts. Our process has been improved over the 4 years we've been running it so that we deliver on time and without drama. Our engineers don't sit in meetings they build solutions.

We're looking for solid Java engineers to join our team and help us build out the next level of capabilities on our platform.

If this sounds interesting, please shoot me an email at [email protected]

Linkable Networks - http://www.linkablenetworks.com - Boston, MA (office is in Fort Point Channel neighborhood)

* Company Summary

Linkable Networks is a digital media company that bridges the gap between consumer purchases and advertising by enabling brands to link product discounts and special offers directly to consumers’ existing credit/debit cards via Linkable Networks’ gateway to financial institutions.

Off-line sales still make up over 90% of retail business in the U.S. We're using our integrations into the transaction rails of the three largest card networks to complete the chain of attribution from offer presentment to brick-and-mortar purchase.

* Technology Stack

Core Stack : { Java, Spring, Sharded mySql, Terracotta, RabbitMQ }

Mobile : { iOS, Android }

* Additional Info

We're wired into the three largest card networks: Visa, Mastercard and Amex. We have a broad range of customers from grocery giant SuperValu where we're deployed with a first of its kind card-linked SKU offer solution to FanBank where we help enable community based Loyalty programs.

We run an agile shop with 68 successful sprints under our belts. Our process has been improved over the 4 years we've been running it so that we deliver on time and without drama. Our engineers don't sit in meetings they build solutions.

We're looking for solid Java engineers to join our team and help us build out the next level of capabilties on our platform.

If this sounds interesting, please shoot me an email at [email protected]

One of the big issues with this approach is that your data is going to be sitting there in memory unencrypted. If you're caching any of this data in a second level cache that persists to disk you'll be writing cleartext. If the entity happens to implement a naive toString and then logged to disk you'll see that clear value in your log file.

Amazon's environments meet PCI standards and there are folks with PCI Level 1 companies running their infrastructure in AWS and storing credit card data there.

Linkable Networks - http://www.linkablenetworks.com - Boston, MA (office is in Fort Point Channel Neighborhood)

* Company Summary

Linkable Networks is a digital media company that bridges the gap between consumer purchases and advertising by enabling brands to link product discounts and special offers directly to consumers’ existing credit/debit cards via Linkable Networks’ gateway to financial institutions.

Off-line sales still make up over 90% of retail business in the U.S. We're using our integrations into the transaction rails of the three largest card networks to complete the chain of attribution from offer presentment to brick-and-mortar purchase.

* Technology Stack

Core Stack : { Java, Spring, Sharded mySql, Terracotta, RabbitMQ }

Mobile : { iOS, Android }

* Additional Info

We're wired into the three largest card networks: Visa, Mastercard and Amex. We have a broad range of customers from grocery giant SuperValu where we're deployed with a first of its kind card-linked SKU offer solution to FanBank where we help enable community based Loyalty programs.

We run an agile shop with 64 successful sprints under our belts. Our process has been improved over the 4 years we've been running it so that we deliver on time and without drama. Our engineers don't sit in meetings they build solutions.

We're looking for solid Java engineers to join our team and help us build out the next level of capabilties on our platform.

If this sounds interesting, please shoot me an email at [email protected]

Linkable Networks - http://www.linkablenetworks.com - Boston, MA (office is in Fort Point Channel)

# Position

Java Engineer

# Company Summary

Linkable Networks is a digital media company that bridges the gap between consumer purchases and advertising by enabling brands to link product discounts and special offers directly to consumers’ existing credit/debit cards via Linkable Networks’ gateway to financial institutions.

Off-line sales still make up over 90% of retail business in the U.S. We're using our integrations into the transaction rails of the three largest card networks to complete the chain of attribution from offer presentment to brick-and-mortar purchase.

# Technology Stack

Core Stack : { Java, Spring, Sharded mySql, Terracotta, RabbitMQ } Mobile : { iOS, Android }

# Additional Info

We're wired into the three largest card networks: Visa, Mastercard and Amex. We have a broad range of customers from grocery giant SuperValu where we're deployed with a first of its kind card-linked SKU offer solution to FanBank where we help enable community based Loyalty programs.

We run an agile shop with 64 successful sprints under our belts. Our process has been improved over the 4 years we've been running it so that we deliver on time and without drama. Our engineers don't sit in meetings they build solutions.

We're looking for solid Java engineers to join our team and help us build out the next level of capabilties on our platform.

If this sounds interesting, please shoot me an email at [email protected]

Linkable Networks - http://www.linkablenetworks.com - Boston, MA (office is in Fort Point Channel

Company Summary

Linkable Networks is a digital media company that bridges the gap between consumer purchases and advertising by enabling brands to link product discounts and special offers directly to consumers’ existing credit/debit cards via Linkable Networks’ gateway to financial institutions.

Off-line sales still make up over 90% of retail business in the U.S. We're using our integrations into the transaction rails of the three largest card networks to complete the chain of attribution from offer presentment to brick-and-mortar purchase.

Technology Stack

Core Stack : { Java, Spring, Sharded mySql, Terracotta, RabbitMQ } Mobile : { iOS, Android }

Additional Info

We're wired into the three largest card networks: Visa, Mastercard and Amex. We have a broad range of customers from grocery giant SuperValu where we're deployed with a first of its kind card-linked SKU offer solution to FanBank where we help enable community based Loyalty programs.

We run an agile shop with 64 successful sprints under our belts. Our process has been improved over the 4 years we've been running it so that we deliver on time and without drama. Our engineers don't sit in meetings they build solutions.

We're looking for solid Java engineers to join our team and help us build out the next level of capabilities on our platform.

If this sounds interesting, please shoot me an email at [email protected]

I've found quite the opposite. Most developers hate comments because they represent extra work. That work manifests itself in the creation and upkeep of the code. We've found that addressing comments as part of our code review process made a big difference in keeping things up to date.

Regarding the issue of expressiveness: I never find myself commenting about what is obvious in the code itself. Often I'm writing about some thinking behind why something was done a certain way OR identifying expectations of downstream systems that can't be expressed using code. Code enough in environments where you're interacting with multiple disparate systems and you'll find that some well placed comment providing the broader context for the code is extremely helpful to folks encountering the code the 1st time or to yourself a year later when you're incorporating a new feature and have forgotten about all the concerns wrapped up in the code.

With the todo issue- we require folks to include a JIRA issue number along with the todo. If something was left undone then it needs to be recognized where we manage our backlog and flagged as a technical debt to be addressed.

Interesting idea. Speaking as someone who manages a bunch of folks I don't find assigning action items w/o due dates very helpful. Is there a facility to specify a date?

Credit card companies do not have this data. They only see the transaction total not the items in the basket.