The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Jobs

Job ad seeks devs to work two hour days in Australia

Small waking time overlap enough for Perth company hit by tight jobs market

Customer Success Testimonial: Recovery is Everything

Want to work a two-hour work day in Australia, without all the hassle of moving to the anitpodes?

Perth company Realcognita may have just the job for you, after it published a job ad seeking staff whose “Working hours must at least overlap 2 hours of Perth business hours (GMT+8).”

Right now that means almost anyone from Europe to Japan could conceivably get the gig without doing horrid things to their sleep cycles, while unusually nocturnal coders in the Americas could also apply.

Realcognita provides IT services including ERP and CRM of to its parent, building company BGC, and is casting the net wide because Perth, capital of the State of West Australia, is currently a boom town. Record prices for minerals found in remote parts of the state have seen wages soar in the mining industry, attracting many workers to the mines. Perth is the nearest metropolis and a natural base for the services industry supporting mining, but is still thousands of miles from Australia's major population centres in Sydney and Melbourne. That leaves Perth throbbing with activity, but short of skilled workers.

“Staff here in Perth are very expensive and senior developers are extremely hard to find,” explained Michael Zwiener, Realcognita's manager for enterprise software development.

Zwiener says a job with a two hour overlap is made possible by the fact Realcognita “uses a good production process which helps dividing the work into achievable work packages. These work packages are well enough specified for a developer to work on without much need of further clarification.”

Dividing work into small slices means the company can work with what he calls “top-sourced resources” from anywhere, an arrangement he prefers to “working with lower qualified local resources.”

“There is a trade-off, but the complexity of the systems we build asks for strong technical leads to specify the work and strong developers to do it. We have worked like this for many years and have been very successful doing so.”

“We use Skype for every day communication and spec the work out in great enough detail,” he adds. “This works surprisingly well. The developers support each others via Skype streams, so none has to work 'on an island'. We chose top end developers and they naturally tend to create a community. That is our 'Geek Effect' if you want.” ®

Cloud storage: Lower cost and increase uptime

Anonymous Coward

2 hours a day? I'm not doubling the hours I work.

Anonymous in case the boss is reading ;-)

5
0

Re: Boom or bust?

Maybe, but this still strikes me as poor deal for those of us in the northern hemisphere.

Live in Britain. Enjoy British weather. Suffer British prices. Have a British standard of living. Get paid a British salary. Be packed in to our over-crowded island. Be subject to our rubbish infrastructure and useles spublic services. Watch your savings being diluted and half your salary being frittered by the incompetents and criminals who govern Britain. But work to make Aussies rich.

I wish my great grandad had stolen a loaf of bread. Or more likely, I wish he'd been caught.

2
0

Re: The state is called Western Australia, not West Australia

The reason I didn't choose send correction is because this isn't the first occasion, a visit to the geographical naughty step is in order for someone at El Reg

2
0

More from The Register

 breaking news
The Reg's best-looking reader reveals list of jobs for the beautiful
Our sexy mole goes undercover in a world without ugly people
Girls, beer and C++: How to choose the right Comp-Sci degree for you
You're just a child. But trust me, I'm a headhunter
Don't like Mondays? Check out the job boards
Vacancies in London and Bristol for your perusal
When to say those three little words: 'I am quitting'
Ruthless headhunter also dispenses tips on when NOT to
Career opportunities, the ones that sometime knock
Also: Win a Nexus 7 with reed.co.uk and The Register
Australia shuts up shop for tech temps
Government clamping down on temporary workers
Short-staffed website swaps DOGS for DEVELOPERS
Pimp a programmer, score cash-for-a-canine
Unemployed? Ugly? Ugh, no thanks, says fitties-only job website
'Don't ogle our beautiful members' begs CEO
Think you're ready to make a big career bet? Read this first...
Reg headhunter serves up array of crystal balls