I, John Hunter, work for the American Society for Engineering Education as an Information Technology Program Manager. My work on this blog is not associated with ASEE and the opinions I express are mine and not those of ASEE. That said, we are looking for a Ruby on Rails developer at ASEE, in Washington DC.
class Employee < ActiveRecord::Base
acts_as_programmer
has_many :talents
has_and_belongs_to_many :computer_languages
after_create :schedule_interview
validates_inclusion_of :salary,
:in => 60000..80000,
:message => “should be between $60k and $80k a year”
validates_inclusion_of :years_of_experience,
:in => 2..7,
:message => “should be between 2 and 7 years”
validates_presence_of :resume
validates_interest_in :ruby_on_rails
validates_interest_in :agile software development
REQUIRED_LANGUAGES = ["Ruby","Perl","Python","JavaScript","Lisp"]
def validate
errors.add_to_base(“You must know one of the languages”) unless
(computer_languages.map{|x| x.name} & REQUIRED_LANGUAGES).size > 0
end
def schedule_interview
self.interviewer = Interviewer.create(
:name => “Keith Mounts”,
:url => “www.asee.org/about/contactASEE.cfm“,
)
save
end
def hire
vacation_days = 15
telecommuting_days_per_week = 0..2
office_location = “dupont circle metro stop, washington, dc”
environment = “friendly”
company = “american society for engineering education”
save
end
end
class ApplyController < ApplicationController
def index
@employee = Employee.new
end
def apply
@employee = Employee.new
if @employee.update_attributes(params[:employee])
flash[:notice] = "Thanks for applying! I'll get back to you very soon!"
redirect_to :action => “thanks”
else
render :action => “index”
end
end
end
Modified from job announcement created by Sean Stickle when he was at ASEE. Related: Ruby on Rails Job Opportunity
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Keeping Out Technology Workers is not a Good Economic Strategy
Posted on April 21, 2009 Comments (3)
The barriers between countries, related to jobs, are decreasing. Jobs are more international today than 20 years ago and that trend will continue. People are going to move to different countries to do jobs (especially in science, engineering and advanced technology). The USA has a good market on those jobs (for many reasons). But there is nothing that requires those jobs to be in the USA.
The biggest impact of the USA turning away great scientists and engineers will be that they go to work outside the USA and increase the speed at which the USA loses its place as the leading location for science, engineering and technology work. This is no longer the 1960′s. Back then those turned away by the USA had trouble finding work elsewhere that could compete with the work done in the USA. If the USA wants to isolate ourselves (with 5% of the population) from a fairly open global science and engineering job market, other countries will step in (they already are trying, realizing what a huge economic benefit doing so provides).
Those other countries will be able to put together great centers of science and engineering innovation. Those areas will create great companies that create great jobs. I can understand wanting this to be 1960, but wanting it doesn’t make it happen.
You could go even further and shut off science and engineering students access to USA universities (which are the best in the world). That would put a crimp in plans for a very short while. Soon many professors would move to foreign schools. The foreign schools would need those professors, and offer a great deal of pay. And those professors would need jobs as their schools laid off professors as students disappeared. Granted the best schools and best professors could stay in the USA, but plenty of very good ones would leave.
I just don’t think the idea of closing off the companies in the USA from using foreign workers will work. We are lucky now that, for several reasons, it is still easiest to move people from Germany, India, Korea, Mexico and Brazil all to the USA to work on advanced technology projects. The advantage today however, is much much smaller than it was 30 years ago. Today just moving all those people to some other location, say Singapore, England, Canada or China will work pretty well (and 5 years from now will work much better in whatever locations start to emerge as the leading alternative sites). Making the alternative of setting up centers of excellence outside the USA more appealing is not a good strategy for those in the USA wanting science, engineering and computer programming jobs. We should instead do what we can to encourage more companies in the USA that are centralizing technology excellence in the USA.
Comment on Reddit discussion.
Related: Science and Engineering in Global Economics – Global technology job economy – Countries Should Encourage Immigration of Technology Workers – The Software Developer Labor Market – What Graduates Should Know About an IT Career – Relative Engineering Economic Positions – China’s Technology Savvy Leadership – Education, Entrepreneurship and Immigration – The Future is Engineering – Global Technology Leadership
Categories: Career, Economics, Engineering, Students, Technology
Tags: Career, commentary, computer science, Economics, Engineering, jobs, John Hunter, programming, quote, Technology, USA