From: jef@jefraskin.com
Subject: [BayCHI Discussions] How To Read a CHI Job Placement Ad Date:
February 28, 2004 2:24:49 PM PST
To: discussions@baychi.org
HOW TO READ A CHI JOB DESCRIPTION
Jef Raskin
Looking though a listing of openings for CHI practitioners, I realized that newcomers to the field may not be used to the special vocabulary employed in these advertisements. For example, in housing ads, "cozy" means "not much larger than a dog house." CHI ads are more subtle, but with practice can be understood. When I ran into this ad, I had to translate it. The lines from the original ad are indicated by a bullet. My comments are preceded by ">". I swear that I did not make up even one word of the ad, it is a real ad. Really.
• USER EXPERIENCE PROGRAM MANAGER
> Due to title inflation, "manager" is the lowest rank in the company. Other ads from this company were for "Director of comestibles experience" and "Manager of grass length."
• Location: XXXXXX
> I have x'd out the location and not revealed the name of the company to help save the advertiser some embarrassment and me a lawsuit. But the location isn't important because you won't be paid enough to afford a house or apartment anywhere near the company.
• Description: • Your mission: Guiding the design and delivery of integration software meeting customer needs, on time, with the highest quality.
> The experienced reader's interpretation: You gotta be kidding. No non-trivial task can be done both on time and with the highest quality. Most projects are schedule-driven, and no promises that you will be allowed to do quality work will be kept if the time is running out. And just what does it mean to "guide" the work?
• You will guide the design and delivery of the user experience for an integration software product that enables corporate-level developers to build and deploy scalable, highly-available, application integration solutions based on business process management, EAI, web services and other B2B technologies.
> Willy Messerschmitt, a famous WWII airplane designer, noted that "The air ministry may have any features it wants in an airplane, so long as they do not also require that it fly." And what is a "corporate-level developer"? What other levels are there? Would anybody design a non-available solution?
• You will have primary responsibility for design and program management of the user experience of the product.
> They promise responsibility but offer no authority. That is, you cannot affect the requirements or schedules but you take the fall when the project fails. You will be required to use 10 words where 3 will do. If this ad simply said that you were to "design and manage the development of the user interface" instead of the three preceding bullets, I'd be less suspicious.
• You will be responsible for the overall conceptual model by which customers design, specify and maintain their integration solutions. Your goal will be to make that model easy to learn and effective to use. We expect that the clarity and elegance of our conceptual model will become even more of a competitive differentiator than it already is.
> Watch that "our conceptual model". It tells you that there already is an interface and that there will be little room for creative work. In other words, they have a product, the interface is a dog, and you are expected to groom it. In the unlikely event that the existing interface is any good, then the company once had a competent HCI staff; I'd ask myself: Why did they leave?
• Additionally, you will lead the design of the three primary user interface aspects to the product: the IDE, the management console, and the transformation mapper.
> The specs for these three aspects come from engineering, management, and marketing. The specs don't agree, but the decisions as to which to use are all yours to make. And whichever you make, two out of three major divisions of the company will be mad at you. Enjoy.
• The IDE for enables integration project participants to rapidly construct and configure business integration solutions.
> That was not even a sentence.
• It uses well-known and easily understood concepts to tackle difficult problems. In this environment, an integration team can access applications and create processes, data transformations, message queues, Web services, user interfaces, portals, and more. Further, the entire breadth and depth of the world's leading application server is only a click away so that customers can leverage their valuable business logic.
> Give me a break. If they did have a "director of comestibles experience", the job description would probably begin, "You will personally have full responsibility for a multidisciplinary effort, cooperating with all departments to assure an effective user experience and continued operation of a wide variety of state-of-the-art, enterprise-ready, semi-automatic and fully automatic warm and cold beverage producing and dispensing aids by the use of effective refilling strategies and integrated sanitation solutions".
• Administration and management console gives customers Web-based run-time management and administration analytics to ensure that their integration solution is up and running and performing at peak levels. Customers are able to monitor and manage their integration solutions through a simplified, secure, browser-based administration console. They can manage process flows, message broker activities, work lists, application views, and trading partners all in one place, and third-party management tools can also be used within the same console.
> They left out "metrics", "efficiency", "productivity","ROI", "competitive advantage", "standards", "state-of-the-art", and a few more business candy-words, though it is admirable that they got in so many in so short a space. I have no clear idea what all this means. Neither do you. Neither do they.
• Integration Product has a sophisticated visual mapper for data transformation.
> Not to mention warp drive. Note the classy elison of the definite article.
* You will work hand-in-hand with
> Under the thumb of
* highly motivated,
> under threat of imminent firing
* industry-savvy
> past their prime
* product managers, and a top-flight development team, with a proven track record of delivering market-winning products in this space.
> Outer space? Anyway, a proven track record can be compiled by successfully riding the Boston-Washington Amtrak line, or even BART.
• Key responsibilities: Drive development process to ship high quality, successful products on time every time
> Maybe you can turn out great products on time every time. I can't. I know that the inevitably self-contradictory requirements always change 4 working days before shipment. Anybody who has a resumé which lists "great products on time every time" is not to be trusted. Any company's HR department that would ask this is also not to be trusted. Perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on them: They might be merely incompetent.
• Key contributor to product design
> You contribute your key when you return from the restroom
• Strong ownership of the user experience
> Too bad, you signed away any ownership in the Intellectual Property agreement when you were hired.
• Contribute to and manage product specification-a project architect working with our development architects and product manager
> A camel is a horse designed by a committee.
• Responsible for ensuring the end user experience meets customer expectations
> Which expectations are defined only after delivery, when the customer gets to try the product.
• Facilitate communication and negotiation within the team
> You mean I have to talk with those idiots?
• Develop and maintain the project schedule and report project status
> A coded message here: it means that you won't have any secretarial assistance.
• Drive the process of making critical trade_off decisions.
> What is it about this company that has them use phrases such as "drive the process of making critical tradeoff decisions". And always remember that "tradeoff" means to trim the product development and testing cycle to meet irrational time and budget constraints.
• Drive and manage risk assessment and risk management.
> If you are any good at risk assessment and management, you are not planning on responding to this ad.
• Manage bug prioritization
> This, for once, is easy. Nobody ever gets beyond fixing the first two or three. You can forget the rest.
• Interact with customers
> When it comes to interacting, I recommend "A Midsummer Night's Dream." You can be Oberon or Titania.
• Responsibilities for discussion: • Manage user experience staff responsible for: • UI Specifications • User research • Graphics design
> You are expected to do all this by yourself. So you won't be bored in your gray cubicle, you can also:
• Develop and manage user experience processes: • UI design/UI specifications • User research • Graphics design
> and, while you are at it,
• Coordinate cross product consistency in both products and processes
> You are permitted to assure consistency as long as you don't require any changes in existing interfaces for already-shipping or already-designed products. And you must precisely follow the Windows interface guidelines while creating a unique, branded, contemporary, state-of-the-art look-and-feel that will visually and operationally enhance the customer experience. I'm surprised they left that out.
• Key skills required
> When do we get to the non-key skills?
• Conceptual modelling. • Willingness and ability to dig deep into a highly technical product.
> Always ask what you are getting into when asked to dig deeply.
• Willingness to learn about and understand integration from the customer perspective. • Outstanding user experience design skills • Information architecture and interaction design are more important than graphic design. A usability expert who is expert at human computer interaction. • Usability testing and analysis.
> They left out "is a black belt in at least seven oriental martial arts and can play the Shostakovich Cello Concerto from memory".
• Exceptional at working with a team to drive excellence in design.
> "Working with a team" means that you know how to (1) kowtow to the boss, (2) remember that it is the schedule that rules, not the stated design objectives or company mission statement, and (3) can make sure that it is someone else who gets blamed and laid off at the next crunch.
• Able to ship the right features at the right time. Pragmatic, analytical, good at prioritization and trade-offs. Understanding of the integration marketplace; product-oriented vision; specification and planning; project management; process orientation; exceptional communication; team leadership; knowledge and experience with quality assurance; ability to handle and manage tight schedules
> I knew that the schedules would be tight. I knew it all along. They tried to hide it down here. By the way, "pragmatic" is just another term that means "willing to sacrifice quality to meet schedule".
• and demanding teams.
> Especially handling them when they are demanding raises and your boss is stonewalling.
• Qualifications
> Nobody is qualified for this job
• A Bachelors degree or equivalent in interface design, human computer interaction, computer science or related field and 5+ years related experience needed.
> Why the word "needed" at the end? Because nobody proofread this so that it could go out on schedule.
• A demonstrated track record of excellence in software interface design for both production software products and Web clients desired. Bring your portfolio!
> If you're that good, why are you looking for a job with this company?
• You should have a track record of successfully working with development teams to ship great software.
> That means you didn't work for Microsoft.
• Desired: Experience with enterprise level software applications. Experience in IDE design and development. A background in Enterprise Application Integration, Business Process Management, B2B and Web Services. Knowledge of middleware applications server market. Knowledge of J2EE applications development. Must be very customer focused, with excellent communication and analytic skills.
> Also desired: doesn't mind highly redundant job advertisements, loves corporate doubletalk, and buys bridges whenever offered the opportunity to do so.
• Experience with portal software.
> Anybody who's used AOL or Yahoo is experienced with portal software.
Subject: [BayCHI Discussions] How To Read a CHI Job Placement Ad Date:
February 28, 2004 2:24:49 PM PST
To: discussions@baychi.org
HOW TO READ A CHI JOB DESCRIPTION
Jef Raskin
Looking though a listing of openings for CHI practitioners, I realized that newcomers to the field may not be used to the special vocabulary employed in these advertisements. For example, in housing ads, "cozy" means "not much larger than a dog house." CHI ads are more subtle, but with practice can be understood. When I ran into this ad, I had to translate it. The lines from the original ad are indicated by a bullet. My comments are preceded by ">". I swear that I did not make up even one word of the ad, it is a real ad. Really.
• USER EXPERIENCE PROGRAM MANAGER
> Due to title inflation, "manager" is the lowest rank in the company. Other ads from this company were for "Director of comestibles experience" and "Manager of grass length."
• Location: XXXXXX
> I have x'd out the location and not revealed the name of the company to help save the advertiser some embarrassment and me a lawsuit. But the location isn't important because you won't be paid enough to afford a house or apartment anywhere near the company.
• Description: • Your mission: Guiding the design and delivery of integration software meeting customer needs, on time, with the highest quality.
> The experienced reader's interpretation: You gotta be kidding. No non-trivial task can be done both on time and with the highest quality. Most projects are schedule-driven, and no promises that you will be allowed to do quality work will be kept if the time is running out. And just what does it mean to "guide" the work?
• You will guide the design and delivery of the user experience for an integration software product that enables corporate-level developers to build and deploy scalable, highly-available, application integration solutions based on business process management, EAI, web services and other B2B technologies.
> Willy Messerschmitt, a famous WWII airplane designer, noted that "The air ministry may have any features it wants in an airplane, so long as they do not also require that it fly." And what is a "corporate-level developer"? What other levels are there? Would anybody design a non-available solution?
• You will have primary responsibility for design and program management of the user experience of the product.
> They promise responsibility but offer no authority. That is, you cannot affect the requirements or schedules but you take the fall when the project fails. You will be required to use 10 words where 3 will do. If this ad simply said that you were to "design and manage the development of the user interface" instead of the three preceding bullets, I'd be less suspicious.
• You will be responsible for the overall conceptual model by which customers design, specify and maintain their integration solutions. Your goal will be to make that model easy to learn and effective to use. We expect that the clarity and elegance of our conceptual model will become even more of a competitive differentiator than it already is.
> Watch that "our conceptual model". It tells you that there already is an interface and that there will be little room for creative work. In other words, they have a product, the interface is a dog, and you are expected to groom it. In the unlikely event that the existing interface is any good, then the company once had a competent HCI staff; I'd ask myself: Why did they leave?
• Additionally, you will lead the design of the three primary user interface aspects to the product: the IDE, the management console, and the transformation mapper.
> The specs for these three aspects come from engineering, management, and marketing. The specs don't agree, but the decisions as to which to use are all yours to make. And whichever you make, two out of three major divisions of the company will be mad at you. Enjoy.
• The IDE for enables integration project participants to rapidly construct and configure business integration solutions.
> That was not even a sentence.
• It uses well-known and easily understood concepts to tackle difficult problems. In this environment, an integration team can access applications and create processes, data transformations, message queues, Web services, user interfaces, portals, and more. Further, the entire breadth and depth of the world's leading application server is only a click away so that customers can leverage their valuable business logic.
> Give me a break. If they did have a "director of comestibles experience", the job description would probably begin, "You will personally have full responsibility for a multidisciplinary effort, cooperating with all departments to assure an effective user experience and continued operation of a wide variety of state-of-the-art, enterprise-ready, semi-automatic and fully automatic warm and cold beverage producing and dispensing aids by the use of effective refilling strategies and integrated sanitation solutions".
• Administration and management console gives customers Web-based run-time management and administration analytics to ensure that their integration solution is up and running and performing at peak levels. Customers are able to monitor and manage their integration solutions through a simplified, secure, browser-based administration console. They can manage process flows, message broker activities, work lists, application views, and trading partners all in one place, and third-party management tools can also be used within the same console.
> They left out "metrics", "efficiency", "productivity","ROI", "competitive advantage", "standards", "state-of-the-art", and a few more business candy-words, though it is admirable that they got in so many in so short a space. I have no clear idea what all this means. Neither do you. Neither do they.
• Integration Product has a sophisticated visual mapper for data transformation.
> Not to mention warp drive. Note the classy elison of the definite article.
* You will work hand-in-hand with
> Under the thumb of
* highly motivated,
> under threat of imminent firing
* industry-savvy
> past their prime
* product managers, and a top-flight development team, with a proven track record of delivering market-winning products in this space.
> Outer space? Anyway, a proven track record can be compiled by successfully riding the Boston-Washington Amtrak line, or even BART.
• Key responsibilities: Drive development process to ship high quality, successful products on time every time
> Maybe you can turn out great products on time every time. I can't. I know that the inevitably self-contradictory requirements always change 4 working days before shipment. Anybody who has a resumé which lists "great products on time every time" is not to be trusted. Any company's HR department that would ask this is also not to be trusted. Perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on them: They might be merely incompetent.
• Key contributor to product design
> You contribute your key when you return from the restroom
• Strong ownership of the user experience
> Too bad, you signed away any ownership in the Intellectual Property agreement when you were hired.
• Contribute to and manage product specification-a project architect working with our development architects and product manager
> A camel is a horse designed by a committee.
• Responsible for ensuring the end user experience meets customer expectations
> Which expectations are defined only after delivery, when the customer gets to try the product.
• Facilitate communication and negotiation within the team
> You mean I have to talk with those idiots?
• Develop and maintain the project schedule and report project status
> A coded message here: it means that you won't have any secretarial assistance.
• Drive the process of making critical trade_off decisions.
> What is it about this company that has them use phrases such as "drive the process of making critical tradeoff decisions". And always remember that "tradeoff" means to trim the product development and testing cycle to meet irrational time and budget constraints.
• Drive and manage risk assessment and risk management.
> If you are any good at risk assessment and management, you are not planning on responding to this ad.
• Manage bug prioritization
> This, for once, is easy. Nobody ever gets beyond fixing the first two or three. You can forget the rest.
• Interact with customers
> When it comes to interacting, I recommend "A Midsummer Night's Dream." You can be Oberon or Titania.
• Responsibilities for discussion: • Manage user experience staff responsible for: • UI Specifications • User research • Graphics design
> You are expected to do all this by yourself. So you won't be bored in your gray cubicle, you can also:
• Develop and manage user experience processes: • UI design/UI specifications • User research • Graphics design
> and, while you are at it,
• Coordinate cross product consistency in both products and processes
> You are permitted to assure consistency as long as you don't require any changes in existing interfaces for already-shipping or already-designed products. And you must precisely follow the Windows interface guidelines while creating a unique, branded, contemporary, state-of-the-art look-and-feel that will visually and operationally enhance the customer experience. I'm surprised they left that out.
• Key skills required
> When do we get to the non-key skills?
• Conceptual modelling. • Willingness and ability to dig deep into a highly technical product.
> Always ask what you are getting into when asked to dig deeply.
• Willingness to learn about and understand integration from the customer perspective. • Outstanding user experience design skills • Information architecture and interaction design are more important than graphic design. A usability expert who is expert at human computer interaction. • Usability testing and analysis.
> They left out "is a black belt in at least seven oriental martial arts and can play the Shostakovich Cello Concerto from memory".
• Exceptional at working with a team to drive excellence in design.
> "Working with a team" means that you know how to (1) kowtow to the boss, (2) remember that it is the schedule that rules, not the stated design objectives or company mission statement, and (3) can make sure that it is someone else who gets blamed and laid off at the next crunch.
• Able to ship the right features at the right time. Pragmatic, analytical, good at prioritization and trade-offs. Understanding of the integration marketplace; product-oriented vision; specification and planning; project management; process orientation; exceptional communication; team leadership; knowledge and experience with quality assurance; ability to handle and manage tight schedules
> I knew that the schedules would be tight. I knew it all along. They tried to hide it down here. By the way, "pragmatic" is just another term that means "willing to sacrifice quality to meet schedule".
• and demanding teams.
> Especially handling them when they are demanding raises and your boss is stonewalling.
• Qualifications
> Nobody is qualified for this job
• A Bachelors degree or equivalent in interface design, human computer interaction, computer science or related field and 5+ years related experience needed.
> Why the word "needed" at the end? Because nobody proofread this so that it could go out on schedule.
• A demonstrated track record of excellence in software interface design for both production software products and Web clients desired. Bring your portfolio!
> If you're that good, why are you looking for a job with this company?
• You should have a track record of successfully working with development teams to ship great software.
> That means you didn't work for Microsoft.
• Desired: Experience with enterprise level software applications. Experience in IDE design and development. A background in Enterprise Application Integration, Business Process Management, B2B and Web Services. Knowledge of middleware applications server market. Knowledge of J2EE applications development. Must be very customer focused, with excellent communication and analytic skills.
> Also desired: doesn't mind highly redundant job advertisements, loves corporate doubletalk, and buys bridges whenever offered the opportunity to do so.
• Experience with portal software.
> Anybody who's used AOL or Yahoo is experienced with portal software.
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Re: Amusing Job Ad Interpretation
Sun, February 29, 2004 - 10:01 AMah, I remember reading this ad in a baychi job list.
I love Jef's comment, no argument here.
I have noticed ever year, requirements for CHI jobs are getting higher and very specific. There aren't enough computer science graduates from U.S. to meet the industry's needs, and there are even fewer HCI graduates.
I could also see from the employer's point of view - they have limited buget, customers and analysts are screaming that you have unusable product, and etc.....so they are confused and desperate.
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Re: Amusing Job Ad Interpretation
Sun, February 29, 2004 - 4:59 PMUnfortunately we're in a new type of role that's up against legacy engineering practices that make our job more difficult than it should be. Perhaps all usability professionals should be assigned an armed guard in order to practice more effectively until organizations catch up with user-centered design and evaluation.
But things *are* getting better; I still remember the days when we were called "the flower arrangers" inside Xerox, a supposedly foreward thinking company because it actually had usability people.
Thanks for making us smile, Ji. :)
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