tomh

Thanks very much for posting this, it looks great.

Err, should your website be generating this error on my resume though? It overparsed my position titles, and now I can't seem to delete any positions due to an uncaught DOMException.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/azk8t9wjsk20nbv/your-show-less-but...

Plus, there's starting to be a lot of promise in Ukrainian startups - Looksery had a great exit a few years ago, and now Grammarly has just attracted $100M+ https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/08/grammarly-raises-110-milli...

No worries at all - sooooo, I've never been fined myself but the stories I hear vary from expat to expat. One refused to pay and got a 'black stamp' in their passport barring them from reentry for 6+ months.

Not wanting to speculate, I've looked up one source and it looks like the fine is between 850-1700 Ukrainian Grivna, which is currently trading at around 25 to the dollar: http://www.frishberg.com/index.php/en/newsletters/196-ukrain...

It used to be that way, but Ukr border control has instituted a '90 out of every 180 days' rule. You can get around that with a proper business visa (usually granted for 1 year), or by using two passports, or by paying a fine upon leaving the country if you overstay.

Kharkiv, Ukraine: university town, lots of IT companies and meetups, cold but not as cold as Moscow or Estonia, very cheap prices, US/EU passports get 90 days entry, visa-free.

There is this whole Russia thing (we're 50km from the border), so if that's a problem, try Kyiv or Lviv or Odesa.

Funny you should recommend flying - I think we all know someone who's done that already?

http://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/category/flying/

The application makes the job look like it's based in Tel Aviv. Can it instead be 100% remote?

I was fired for not moving back to the USA. I was lucky enough to turn that to my advantage.

In 2012, I was living/working remotely in Ukraine (still am) as a single support dev, having worked for the same company since 2003. Around the time of my annual review, the founders asked me to move back to their main office in Massachusetts. I didn't see this as a serious enough offer, however, because despite the facts that a) moving is a pain in the ass, and b) my wife would have to go through the US immigration process, the founders weren't forthcoming with any offers to offset this process like a raise, moving allowance, etc. It was pretty much a 'move and take all the costs on yourself' message.

I visited them in the USA in April and again they said 'we really need you in the States' and I asked about what kind of support we'd get, and got a 'hmm, good point, we'll get back to you' response. Come mid-May, I was fired over the telephone.

The insult to injury came with the 2-week severance package which required me to sign a 3-year NDA. The founders assured me this was a 'standard practice'.

I passed on that, because I was able to line up a consulting gig right away, and later that year I was able to get hired by their competitor, to not only develop the same product but to recruit and train a team of Ukrainian developers to build the product. So now, I'm a Senior Manager where I was a Senior Support Dev before.

Pro-tip for founders: be up-front about the package you are offering when you want someone to move across the ocean for your company. Also, good idea to not be cheap about the severance package to employees who have been with you the longest and know the most about your core product.

Location: Ukraine currently (US Citizen)

Remote: yes

Willing to relocate: no, unless the opportunity is perfect

Technologies: Java, Spring, Javascript, XML, SQL, REST/SOAP web services, Project Management, Team Lead, Clinical Data Management, Standards Compliance for Applications (CDISC, 21 CFR Part 11)

Resume: upon request

Email: tomh [at] xig.li

Have lead/built teams of 6-8 local developers dedicated to managing software products consisting of 1M+ lines of code. Working currently in the open-source health/clinical data management space, have been doing so for the last 10+ years.

Location: Kharkov, Ukraine

7:30-8:15 Wake up, get out of bed, shower, coffee

8:30-8:45 Walk to work, open up the office for the rest of the staff

9:00-14:00 Work work work work. Since we have an 'open office' there are no set meetings but as the manager I will be usually having sit-downs with each of my reports and figuring out what's going on. Also will engage in Skype-chats with my other reports/colleagues (we have remote developers in Europe and Africa)

14:00-17:30 Wind down with a long lunch or work on extra projects if there is a tight deadline (usually the case)

17:30-18:00 Close up the office and walk home

18:00-18:20 Standup with the USA office (there are ten hours' difference between CA and UA), get updates on what is going on and get latest assignments

18:30-19:30 Dinner break

20:00-22:00 Skype calls with the USA for work, usually with PMs and clients based in the USA. Can also include answering emails, answering forums, or running demos/presentations over the GoToMeeting

22:00-midnight or 1am - cycle down, watch some streaming shows, goof around on a tablet, go to sleep

There's actually a few takes on the history, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Greenspun#ArsDigita_his...

But you are right, that CEO was not the right guy for the job. His personality + Philip's no-bullshit attitude ended it.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned F*cked Company so far: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company

I graduated from ArsDigita University in 2001. Right time, right place to see stuff completely implode. I must have sent 100+ resumes during 2001, and temped at Harvard for a while until getting a job through a friend in Feb 2002, in Java development. It wasn't great, so I kept up the job search and finally went to grad school in 2003 while finding a part-time consulting job, also in Java. That kept me afloat until I graduated in 2006, and moved out of the USA.

Looking back, the companies acted like they could do no wrong, and it bit them hard. ArsDigita was a dot-com darling for a while, but it did crazy things like sign ten-year leases for a branch office that could seat 20-30 people and they had 2-3 actual employees in that city.

I remember in ArsDigita University, we weren't based in the actual office but a place about a metro stop away (where ITA Software based themselves a decade later, yay lisp), in the basement. We started the program in September, and one day in March we were let into a larger, nicer office on the first floor and were told that AD also rented this part as well, anticipating another 20 or so programmers would work here as well. It remained empty until we moved out of the space later that year.

In the early 90s, I traveled from St Petersburg, Russia to London's Victoria Station. I'm pretty sure the route does not exist any more, as it involved going through all the Baltics, Poland, Berlin, and eventually the Oostende-Dover ferry and on to London. All in all, it took about three days (including a 12-hour layover in Berlin).

Add to that six missing and many jailed: http://www.rferl.org/content/ukraine-dead-missing-jailed/252...

Keep in mind that it is a combination of the last few posts he's made in Russian, each one trying to deliver an impartial message of what is going on in Kiev.

His previous post was even entitled, "Maidan through the eyes of the police and Berkut" so he is trying to be as impartial as he can: http://zyalt.livejournal.com/984379.html

It looks like they are being used more against Berkut holding shields; once they break against those, the flaming contents then flow over the shields' owners.

Much like in this short video (you will have to excuse the gallows-humor soundtrack, it's not my intention to make light of the scenario): http://coub.com/view/hgsj

And former Georgian President Saakashvili is coming to the USA to teach, as a Senior Statesman: http://fletcher.tufts.edu/News-and-Media/2013/12/20/Presiden...

Same here. Pinboard had a great site, great design, and just did the 'one job' very well when Delicious misstepped, and took a lot of their users. I've been using it for 1+ years now and love it. #alittlelatetotheparty

Also, keep in mind that this article was written in October of 1998. Pre-Gates Foundation, Pre-Windows Vista even. Most of us don't have the same view of Bill Gates (or Microsoft itself) now that we once did.

+1 for bioinformatics - adding to that are the issues surrounding the complexity of the data (look up HL7 or CDISC to see how complex) and also the legal standards and ramifications (HIPPA, 21 CFR Part 11) of working with clinical research.

In short, getting domain knowledge in the above are essential to solve the tough problems at the big-pharma or national-bio-labs level.

(PS to the other poster looking for bioinformatics programs: I suggest you look in Boston - Tufts, MIT, Harvard etc)

I only met Aaron once, in 2000, when he looked like this: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/000291

I was always amazed that the wunderkind with the pizza stain on his shirt that visited us at Arsdigita University accomplished so much. He was reserved, but focused, forthright at such an early age. I couldn't help but feel he was a little disappointed in the rest of us, but he never showed it.

RIP, Aaron. We'll miss you.

Same here - mine was all alpha characters, seven characters, and the hash with five 0's was in the file. Guess who just changed their LinkedIn password today? And included some numbers?

Sneakers (1992). Too many secrets.

Interesting to note you get the VIM mug even by searching on the word 'emacs': http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/mugs/7bbe/?pfm=Search...

Idea #2: Great idea, but many of the hurdles you have to jump over in order to immigrate are always served on a case-by-case basis, and are difficult to standardize.

For example, in most EU countries in order to get a work visa you have to display a reason why employer X should hire you over a citizen of their own country, i.e. what skill puts you over the rest of the populace who already pay taxes.

A counter-example is Cyprus, which will give you residency in 4-6 months if you buy property there. So, the only hurdle is $$$.

A more measured, focused version of this idea would be to start with a recruiter, a lawyer and a site: JobsInCountryX.com. As soon as that is moderately profitable, move on to country Y, Z, etc and cover the planet.

Waltham, MA. OpenClinica LLC is hiring (onsite, part- and full-time)!

https://openclinica.com/openclinica-careers

OpenClinica is an open-source clinical data management system that has been deployed to labs and universities around the planet. If you are passionate about clinical research, open standards, open source, agile methodologies, and actively creating and contributing to a startup culture, come join us.

Out technology stack is Java, Spring, Hibernate, Postgres, some Oracle, jQuery, and XSL/XML transformations. If interested, feel free to email me through thickerson at openclinica dot com.

Interesting side note about InterSystems - I interviewed there a few times about 10 years ago, and the first step was a written exam in Mumps (the programming language). Turns out it's popular in the healthcare space, being used in both InterSystems Cache and VistA, the open-source medical records system used by the Veteran's Administration:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/256876/tips-for-learning-...

+1 to that. I clicked through expecting an article and found an advert. Crass, crass, crass.

You might also enjoy my own account of ArsDigita University:

http://aduni.org/~tomh/rants/aduni_five_years_later.html

Nice to hear the ToC lectures are still being used 10 years later.

Waltham, MA, local only, no remote. H1B a possibility.

OpenClinica is hiring Java Developers (Java EE + Spring + Hibernate + Eclipse + Maven, etc), Inside Sales Associates, Clinical Trial Setup Managers and others. Check it out here:

https://www.openclinica.com/openclinica-careers

Feel free to contact me if you have questions. (Email in sig)