Ruby on Rails Jobs

The application framework "Ruby on Rails" (ROR) has received a lot of developer and press buzz over the last two years. Are there actually companies out there using ROR in production? And, more importantly, are there jobs?

Comsui.com has been keeping track of the number of jobs posted on Monster.com which list Ruby as a required skill for over two years now. On July 2, 2005 there were 32 job listings. As of yesterday, September 29, 2007, there were 512 jobs listed. This is a fairly significant gain in the number of open positions.

Perhaps there is more to Ruby on Rails than just hype. A quick search for "Ruby on Rails" yielded 371 jobs asking for Rails experience.

Silicon Valley Jobs - Part II

Stanford University has stirred the Silicon Valley pot for many years. Many companies have sprung forth since Fred Terman encouraged two of his graduate students to form a company around some of their engineering ideas, Hewlett Packard.

Stanford currently has over 400 open jobs.

Silicon Valley Jobs, Part I

And in the beginning there was Xerox Parc, and it was good. The Palo Alto Research Center is where many of things that we take for granted today in computing were born. It opened in 1970 and gave us innovations like Ethernet, Smalltalk, laser printers, Windowing Graphical User Interfaces (GUI), and probably play dough. It was one of the many drivers of innovation that gave Silicon Valley its high tech reputation

They are still there today and have several job openings.

Jobs Abroad - Iraq

Currently the comsui.com database has 454 job openings that require at least some travel to Iraq. For many these jobs would seem risky at best and highly dangerous at the worst. Although I have neither served there nor worked there as a civilian contractor I do have several friends who have done both.

As a civilian contractor you can expect to be stationed either in the Green Zone, or on one of the many smaller bases located throughout the country. In general these are safe areas, probably safer than where I grew up. The problem is getting there. You have to run the gauntlet of road side bombs, random militia attacks and other dangers. If you are there full time then you will probably get a two week break in the middle of your twelve month contract. One last note, as you probably have guessed, the night life if non-existent. For a break you can catch a ride to the nearest British base or the Green Zone if you want to hit a pub (from what I here the Brits are the only force that maintains pubs for their soldiers and are generally hospitable).

The rewards of working in such a hostile place can be two-fold. First, the jobs pay very well and the first $80,000 is tax free (consult your tax advisor). Second, whether you agree with the war or not, you are generally helping make the area a better place for your fellow man. Pretty altruistic, but almost everyone I know who has been there has that feeling.

If you are still interested here is a list of currently open positions.

The influence of small companies on the job market

I have often seen in the news that "small business" drives the economic engine of the United States. I took a look at the current open jobs listed on Comsui.com to see what influence small businesses have on the job market. First, my assumptions: A small business is any company that has less than 25 job openings and a large business has 25 or more job openings.

Currently there are 2651 different small companies with open jobs (this is not nationwide as the Comsui.com database has some strong regional tendancies).

There are 228 large companies with open positions.

Comsui's job of the week is Voting Test Specialist at a small company in Denver named, Systest Labs Inc. The importance of such a job seems high as its purpose is to verify voting machines.

Take Care,

James

Approaching Three Million Jobs Indexed

My site, comsui.com, is now approaching 3 million jobs in its database. I have been writing spiders to gather jobs from corporations and governments around the world for years now. It is now approaching a pretty cool milestone. Like a father watching a child grow I am pretty proud of the growth in the number of job postings that comsui.com has indexed. Take a look and hopefully you find it usefull.