Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, originally uploaded by Elias Schwerdtfeger.

One of the so-called “soft” services – i.e. services that aren’t quantifiable in the same way as, say, consulting hours – that RedMonk has traditionally offered to clients has been job related. We’ve never formalized the service to date (in spite of requests that we do so), believing that it’s more effective as an opportunistic offering versus one at scale.

But we have been more actively connecting interesting people to interesting opportunities lately. Part of it is the economics: the recession has widen the number of available resources, obviously, but it’s also proving to be fertile ground for more startups than you’d think. Throw in the fact that those enterprises that are successfully weathering the economic malaise see in it opportunities to more cost effectively acquire people and, well, we’re busier.

So, quickly, here’s what this means for you:

• RedMonk Client? Give us a call and tell us what you need. If it seems like something our crowd would be interested in, we’ll stick it up on @monkjobs and if not we may know someone who fits the bill. If you want us instead to be on the lookout for a certain type of person, we’ll keep our eyes peeled for you.
• Not a RedMonk Client? We won’t be able to personally interact with you about the opportunity and certainly can’t promise to post every gig we get, but if it’s interesting send it along and if we agree it’ll go up on @monkjobs.
• Looking for a Gig? First, follow the aforementioned @monkjobs on Twitter: we’ll keep that reasonably up to date with jobs that we think are interesting, differentiated, or both.

That’s all for now, but if there are other ways we can help do let us know. Connecting good people with cool jobs is one of our favorite things to do.

Sara Dornsife at Austin OSUG

Originally uploaded by webmink

It’s been a tough few weeks on the job loss front. This morning’s inbox brought the less than wonderful news that Caterpillar was laying off twenty thousand, Home Depot seven, and Sprint Nextel eight. Last week, as many of you have seen – and asked us about – a few of the technology stalwarts that announced volume RIFs and/or planned reductions, generally in response to the challenging economic climate.

But as grim as the outlook and painful as the layoffs continue to be the reality is that the times represent an opportunity for surviving firms to acquire premium talent.

One such talent, as Ted Leung discusses, is Sara Dornsife. My description of her is simply the following: she is one of the finest community/developer marketers and social media experts that I have ever known. And given that I help run a developer-oriented analyst firm, you’d be correct in assuming that I’ve known a great many.

Sara’s done too much in her career for me to easily summarize here, but I think the thread that ties together her various efforts is her singular creativity. With many community and developer audiences essentially immune to traditional marketing and outreach techniques, the priority for those looking to engage with such audiences should be non-traditional thinkers. Which Sara is, quite demonstrably. The venue for the Best of OSCON events she threw on Sun’s behalf every year? A parking garage. Her t-shirt designs? Those word puzzles that frustrate the hell out of 11 year olds and yours truly, but are not only comprehensible but quite clever to the rest of the world’s population.

Nor is she outbound only. As one of the better Twitterers I follow – and I am hyperselective – she’s comfortable using it and other social media tools to engage with audience types in true, Cluetrain-style conversational marketing.

Many of you who know me are probably wondering right about now where the disclaimer is on this, so I promise not to disappoint: Sara is a very good friend of mine. But before you conclude that the above is more favor than an accurate reflection of her true abilities, you might want to take a look at what Tim had to say about her. Or what Wez Furlong – the PHP dev behind the PHP/DTrace probes – had to say about her events. Or maybe you’d accord more weight to her nomination for The Statesman’s Social Media Awards. Or perhaps her ringing LinkedIn endorsements.

And so on and so forth.

The opportunity in front of you is clear: if you want one of the best community/developer marketers and social media experts on the planet, I respectfully suggest that you get in touch. Quickly. Because the conversations are already rolling and she won’t last all that long.

P.S. Feel free to ping me if you’d like either a personal intro or reference.

I’m a bit late with these notices, and given the profile of the developers in question not to mention the respect that I have for both, the positions could well be filled already, but just in case I wanted to note that their respective firms are hiring.

Adrian Holovaty (EveryBlock) Position: Python Screen Scraper (Chicago)

If you’re not familiar with EveryBlock, and you live in one of the supported cities (Chicago, New York or San Francisco) I suggest giving it a look. It’s a natural extension of the work original done at Chicagocrime.org, and thus guaranteed to be interesting work. Consuming data of all kinds – be they restaurant reviews, crime statistics, even liquor license requests – EveryBlock that repurposes this through a form og geospatial normalization, thus making it usable. Cool stuff.

Anyway, Adrian’s looking for someone with the following skillset:

• Mastery of screen-scraping
• Experience programming in Python
• Experience with geographic data

If you feel like you fit that bill, jump over here and throw your name into the ring. Given my massively failed efforts with Adrian’s templatemaker framework this past summer – not knowing Python didn’t help much – I’m pretty sure I’m not qualified, but you might be

Havoc Pennington (LiTL) Position: Multiple (Boston)

You may know Havoc from his time at Red Hat, or from his contributions to the GNOME community, but I’m most interested in his vision of the Online Desktop. Probably because it’s one that I strongly agree with.

Whether or not it’s related to his current work at LiTL is undetermined at this point because the firm is mostly stealth, but there are some parallels in the little that is public about the firm:

LiTL is a well funded startup developing a consumer product that involves hardware, software, and online services. We’re looking for talented folks to help us create our iconic first product (and many products to come).

Anyway, irrespective of whether it’s related to the Online Desktop idea, it sounds like cool work. And hell, it’s in Back Bay, which is within an easy walk of one of the finer places on this planet.

If you’re game, the LiTL folks are looking for a Lead Server Dev, a Senior UI Dev, Release and Quality Engineer, and a Software Interaction Designer. Details are available here.