We are excited to announce more details about the Uncon at tek13! This year we are honored to have Michelangelo van Dam (@DragonBe) serve as our Uncon chair. Michelangelo has done this for numerous other conferences in the past and we are deeply thankful to him for agreeing to help organize our Uncon as well.

This year's unconference will be an entire track happening all days of the conference instead of just later in the day on some days. If you're planning on attending the event and either didn't get a talk accepted or just want to talk about something you love, you should consider signing up when you arrive. Sessions for the next day will be selected at the end of each day from the ones added to the schedule.

Last week PHP developers from around the world converged on Chicago, IL - US, for the 7th annual php|tek conference. Over the course of three and a half days there was a lot of learning, sharing, networking, and all the other usual stuff that goes on at these types of events. As usual, the conversations were great, the food was edible and the wifi sucked. Along the way though, new friendships were forged and new ideas were hatched.

Cal talks about some of what makes conferences great and gives examples like Elizabeth Naramore's keynote, sessions on topics like Node.js and XDebug and developers passionate about the projects they represent. He mentions the evening activities (community building) including the Unconference and Hack-a-thons as well as a mixer/gaming night.

No confernece is perfect and tek '11 is no exception to that rule. However, attendees were exposed to new ideas, inspired by thought provoking keynotes and given the space and tools to create. That is the real value of a conference to me, planting the seeds.

This week I am in downtown Chicago making new friends and attending sessions and parties at DrupalCon '11. I will have to say, I've been to a lot of conferences in the past 6 years but it is rare that I meet a community that is as enthusiastic and friendly as the Drupal community.

He talks about some of the presentation including the keynote by Dries Buytaert that mentioned the contribution levels to Drupal, Drupal 8 and an encouragement to the Drupal community that the future of the software was secure. In the second post he looks at a few details of the conference - the food situation (management, not quality), the size of the rooms vs the number of attendees, the event's wifi and communication situations.

Summary
We're looking for a Director of Development to oversee continued development of a SaaS B2B platform for the exchange of media assets. The Director of Development will supervise all application and website development projects from conception to completion. As with many startups, this applicant will be willing to wear many of the hats of his/her future team such as Systems Administrator, front- and back-end Developer, and occasional Customer Support. This team leader will need a proven background in both development and project management and will have a true entrepreneurial spirit and be up for the rewards of an exciting, funded internet startup.

Essential Duties:

• Lead a team of web developers to maintain and improve an innovative SaaS website.
• Full-cycle ownership of application development including:
• Gathering requirements and scoping projects.
• Recommendation of development approach.
• Prioritization and distribution of development tasks.
• Creation of and adherence to a strict development schedule based on Agile/Scrum methodology.
• Management of and participation in all quality control and functionality testing plans.
• Deployment of updates to live site through SVN.
• Work with management team to understand functionality requirements and write business and technical specifications documents.
• First responder to any live site issues.
• Handle all System Admin duties and interaction with hosting provider.
• Maintain server environment.
• Develop and document best practices for web development.
• Maintain a working knowledge of current and emerging technologies and solutions.

Required Skills:

• 8+ years of web development and project management.
• Solid understanding of and proficiency in PHP, MySQL, Apache in Linux environment.
• 3+ years experience with image serving, such as Getty Images, Scene7 or similar, with particular focus on the Retail industry.
• Strong team management experience
• Successful track record of analyzing requirements, putting together estimates, and delivering projects successfully and on schedule.
• 8+ years of relational database design.
• Expert understanding of subversion
• Experience with Content Management Systems, including WordPress.
• Good knowledge of CSS.

Other Qualifications:

• Live samples of prior development efforts.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills and the desire to work directly with technical and non-technical (business side) staff.
• Enjoy working in a team environment.
• A creative mind that can produce unique strategies and ideas for future functionality.
• Demonstrable critical thinking and problem solving abilities

Submit resumes and information to jobs@shotfarm.com

CakeFest 2010 has come to a close. After 4 days of jam-packed talks, workshops, lightning talks and social outings, we're sad to see it finish. I'd like to thank the community for their ongoing and ever increasing support. Both for the community and for the CakeFest conference itself. Without the passionate community around CakePHP, we couldn't achieve events like CakeFest 2010.

They mention some of the sponsors that made the event possible - like Microsoft, GitHub and ActiveState - as well as some photos from the event and links to twelve of the presentations that were given over the four day event.

TEK X is a great conference event for professional PHP developer. It takes place in Chicago between May 18 and 22 and hosts tutorials and sessions from some of the best speakers in the PHP market. We're currently accepting proposals for talks; the Call for Papers is open until November 23.

The TEK X conference will be at the Sheraton Gatewy Suites (near the O'Hare airport) and will take a broader focus than previous MTA conferences - this time they're encouraging presenters to "think outside the box" and not just limit themselves to PHP-related topics. They're also looking for advanced programming techniques, development/management practices and talks on similar technologies.

Interested? Submit a session! You can find out more about pricing and signup here.

The ideal candidate would have experience as an engineer and architect for object oriented websites using PHP, with MySQL/Oracle and Linux.​ Strong experience with engineering, developing and coding sites is a must.​

The Senior PHP Developer will plan, research, develop logic, code, and test and deploy several web projects with minimal assistance.​ They will need to know how to build a PHP web application from the ground up, as well as modify and build on existing code.​

Requirements:

• 3+ Years in web development using PHP for commercial websites
• Solid understanding of object oriented programming
• Develop / maintain applications and Web Services using LAMP
• Experience working with trading and investment data is a plus
• Excellent communication, team-work and problem solving skills
• Demonstrated excellent analytical, decision-making skills and willingness to take on big challenges and solve complex problems
• Ability to think strategically about business issues, manage deadlines, drive closure between cross-group teams, and communicate recommendations
• Ability to make strategically-sound decisions with little information in an fast moving environment, and be able to influence change and drive process and structure

Please send your resume, along with cover letter and contact information to: hrsupport@zacks.com

View our website at www.zacks.com

We just introduced the final schedule for our upcoming php|tek 2009 conference, which will take place in Chicago between May 19 and 22. We have tons of great presentations planned from PHP luminaries like Andrei Zmievski, Sebastian Bergmann, Eli White, Sara Golemon, Terry Chay and many more.

php|tek 2009 will be held in Chicago May 19th through 22nd and there's still spots to signup if you want to attend. Pricing ranges from $400 USD (tutorials only) up to $1,100 USD for a full pass (conference and tutorials) with discounts for alumni of previous php|architect conferences, government employees, members of PHP/MySQL/Linux user groups and many more.

Established and rapidly growing Chicago-based commodity futures brokerage and consulting firm seeks qualified candidates for a full-time employment opportunity.

Our firm uses the web extensively as the foundation for our financial-modeling & consulting service. In addition, technology plays a key role in our educational offerings as well as our marketing efforts. The ideal candidate will play an important role in building and maintaining these tools, should have 2 or more years of applicable work experience and meet the following requirements:

Essential Skills:

• Coldfusion, PHP, Javascript and HTML language expertise
• SQL proficiency
• User interface and user experience design aptitude

Other Important Requirements:

• Innovative instincts and an entrepreneurial spirit
• Attention to quality and detail
• Financial Industry (Futures, Options, Trading, Hedging) understanding
• Graphics editing experience and talent
• Microsoft Office exposure
• Comfort with Apache, Linux, MySQL

The position offers the right person an exceptional opportunity to learn and professionally grow in a friendly, mentored, and dedicated working environment. Growth potential includes excellent benefits package and competitive salary.

If you have the indicated skills and an enthusiastic, positive attitude, we would like to hear from you. Please email your resume to hedgeconsultant@yahoo.com

Sun Trading currently has an opening for a Back Office Developer to be based in our Chicago office. The Back Office Developer will be in charge of developing and supporting a web-based reporting system that handles trade reconciliation, position keeping, balance, profit and loss calculations, and task management.

The candidate must have ability to multi-task and effectively prioritize their workload in a highly dynamic environment. Familiarity with financial markets is highly desirable, but not essential. The candidate will be expected to gain new financial knowledge as needed.

Qualifications

• Bachelors of Science in Computer Science or related field
• Minimum two (2) years of work/hands-on experience with relational databases
• Knowledge and experience programming PHP or similar web-based technologies
• Solid troubleshooting skills
• Excellent understanding of SQL
• Excellent understanding Linux/Unix Environments
• Familiarity with scripting languages (Perl, UNIX Shell, awk, etc) is required.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and oral
• Results oriented, highly flexible, team player
• Familiarity with financial markets is desirable
• Accounting/Balancing Experience a plus

Cover letters are mandatory. Email resumes to jobs@suntradingllc.com