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Wednesday was thycotic's first Microsoft
Certification Exam Day. This is a new initiative at our company to
put dates to our goals and focus our minds on certification. Most of
our consultants have one or two certifications on their list for annual employee
goals. Human nature usually allows this to slip a few months or more as
deadlines, projects, vacations and life in general seems to get in the
way!
How does it work?
Every 2
months a date is picked and each consultant books the next exam of their
choice. This sets a firm date and helps build developer team spirit as the
date gets closer. It also allows for some trading of company Exam Cram
books and some advice (without violating NDAs of course!) on how to
prepare. thycotic reimburses consultants for each exam that they pass so
there is a monetary incentive too!
The Results
I passed my third
exam (70-316 ... the winform with C# one) and now have MCAD status. I
was a little apprehensive on this exam since most of our project work involves
ASP.NET and not WinForms meaning some of the material was new to
me. I used my favorite series of books and really had a fun time learning some new stuff (yes, *my* definition
of fun). Bryant
passed the ASP.NET exam and has a shiny new certificate to prove it.
The response to the initiative seems very
positive. Things always seem more fun when you do them together.
Pair Certication, anyone? :-)
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thycotic is currently looking for a strong .NET developer with an interest in Test Driven Development to join our team. Part of our standard interview process is to "pair program" with a candidate to introduce them to one of our typical code bases, company APIs, team practices and general fit. I love this approach since it provides wonderful context for digging into the nitty gritty of their technical understanding. The approach is most definitely a two way street and both sides get to try out the fit - after all who wants to hire someone where the job isn't going to work out after a few months!?
We have been interviewing several candidates (mostly local) but one candidate (who will remain unnamed) was based on the West Coast. So, what do you do? Sure, big fancy consulting companies might just fly the candidate out with all expenses paid, etc. but we are a lean operation and we work smart to deliver the most value to our clients.
Our answer: We coordinated our timezones to have myself and another developer (Bryant Smith) available for some "tri" pairing with the candidate. Our office manager, Hari, organized the right network connectivity to get VNC access into one of our pairing workstations. The candidate then called our toll free line (1-877-TDD-2WIN of course! Who else would have a TDD toll free line but thycotic!?) and connected through VNC over the internet to our offices in Vienna, VA. We maintained a three person pairing session with the candidate for about 4 hours and wrote some interesting code and had plenty of discussion. There was a little lag at one point but nothing too severe.
Did we hire him? Unfortunately after everything being very positive on both sides, he decided to pursue a developer job in a specific vertical market that has always interested him but it was still a great experience for everyone (and the client even got the use of a 3 person "pair" without paying for it! :-) )