The Company

Apex Systems is a leading provider of technical and professional staffing solutions to Fortune 1000 and mid-sized clients across North America. With a core focus on Information Technology, Business Applications, Accounting & Finance, Legal, Telecommunications, and Engineering, and a proven recruiting model, Apex Systems has become one of the most in-demand staffing companies around for providing short-term, long-term, and temp-to-perm staffing solutions.

Apex Systems is looking for a PHP developer to work onsite at a large healthcare client of ours in Tampa, FL.

The Job

You will be designing and building systems on a PHP / MySQL platform. You will be improving existing functionality and building new features and systems. You will be involved in every step of the process including design, implementation, deployment, support and maintenance.

• Designs and constructs web pages/sites including incorporating graphic user interface (GUI) features and other techniques.
• Maintains and provides ongoing design of the website.
• Interviews clients to help them clarify goals.
• Designs digitized images, banners, bullets, charts, image maps and other graphics to enhance appearance of site.
• Applies knowledge of programming techniques and computer internet systems.
• Custom tailors a plan for site using combination of graphic and written material, and modifies proposal as necessary.
• Writes, or edits and formats, copy to present message effectively.
• Designs screen displays to accomplish goals of site.
• Provides specifications, using flowcharts and diagrams, into sequence of detailed instructions and logical steps for coding into language that can be processed by computer.
• Converts project specifications into sequence of detailed instructions and logical steps for coding into language that can be processed by computer, applying knowledge of computer programming techniques and computer languages.
• Applies knowledge of database design standards and database management.
• Programs, runs and tests programs.
• Determines if project requires new programs or modifying existing programs that access data stored in databases.
• Replaces, deletes, or modifies codes to correct errors.
• Writes documentation to describe program development, logic, coding, and corrections.
• Assists in solving operating problems with site.
• Reads manuals, periodicals, and technical reports to learn ways to develop programs.
• Manages version control s/w including test to production promotion model.
• Modifies/compiles underlying system components (e.g. Apache, )
• Designs and implements new databases.
• Generally supervised environment.
• Effort requires following well-defined standards.
• Decisions and actions may affect programs or projects.
• Budgets own time to carry out assigned duties.
• Multiple but similar tasks requiring some choices from among clearly defined alternatives.
• Differing but recurring problems and/or duties.
• Required procedural proficiency and attention to policies and guidelines.
• Thinking may be guided by standard practices.
• Key benchmark: procedural proficiency, thinking guided by standard practices.
• Individual performance of or supervision of several different activities usually in a single function.
• Requires integration and coordination of work.

Essential Skills

• PHP, MySQL, JavaScript
• E-Commerce and/or highly transactional databases
• UNIX exp w/Sun/Solaris or Linux
• Object Oriented Programming
• LAMP and PDF.Lib a plus

Please send your CV to Pbuell@apexsystemsinc.com , including phpdelevoper.org in the subject of your email.

WHAT WE DO:
Very simply put- Red Ventures acquires customers for Great Brands through a myriad of direct marketing channels. We combine analytical marketers, high performing and often unique direct response marketing channels, a superior web and sales infrastructure, with a robust technology and reporting platform. We partner with industry leading brands such as DIRECTV, SIRIUS Satellite Radio, and ADT Home Security Systems. Red Ventures success has recently been recognized by Inc Magazine with the #4 ranking on their Fastest Growing Private Companies in the US list and by DIRECTV as their Dealer of the Year!

WHY SHOULD YOU WANT TO WORK HERE?
Red Ventures' company culture is what gives us our competitive advantage and what attracts top talent from all over the nation. We give our employees the freedom to drive their career direction and to create their own growth opportunities. There is an amazing energy and determination to our team but it comes in a casual office environment with no bureaucracy and no dress code. To be a real player in our company you must be passionate about your work and we expect that passion to run over into the rest of your life. Red Ventures requires that our employees have a healthy work life balance where fun and excitement are a common theme.

We offer unique benefits to our employees such as company sponsored Happy Hours, Cook Outs on our back patio and quick games of 3 on 3 on the basketball court. Tired of paying for parking? We have free parking and our office is conveniently surrounded by restaurants, shops, a fitness facility, and a daycare center. While we are very proud of our current benefits, we look internally for suggestions on ways to continually improve our benefits! We offer a top-notch work environment for our developers, that includes Eclipse with SVN using two development machines and three monitors!

SR. SYSTEMS ANALYST/WEB DEVELOPER POSITION:
Due to our growth we are seeking a Sr. Systems Analyst/Web Developer to be in a lead technical role on one of our businesses. This position requires the developer to have the business savvy to translate vague business requirements into tangible and accurate technical requirements as well as to anticipate future requirements within the design of new systems. This person should have experience in real-world LAMP (Linux/FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl) development as well as a proven record participating and working with the business side of a company. This person must be well-experienced in large scale complex database design, query creation, and data integrity checking, processing, and reporting.

The primary job responsibility for this position is to provide PHP programming and functionality for a wide variety of consumer-related websites, intranets, extranets and web-based applications. This entails designing, evaluating, updating and maintaining OO and non-OO applications in PHP with a heavy emphasis on database design and reporting. This is the perfect opportunity for LAMP Developers looking to play a key role in creating enabling technology for a successful online and offline marketing company. This position will have a large development component based on the business requirements produced during business strategy sessions and day to day business requirements and changes.

Successful candidates will have demonstrable experience building real online applications in a LAMP environment and will be able to make a meaningful contribution from day one. They will be comfortable working with team members at all levels and departments within the organization. These individuals will be willing to share their opinions and insights with business leaders on a daily basis in order to affect rapid decision cycles and effective technical solutions to business requirements.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree in Information Sciences or similar field
• 6+ years of solid PHP and MySQL development
• Strong working knowledge of HTML, DHTML/CSS and Javascript
• Ability to translate business requirements into system design
• Ability to partner and work in a fast-paced, collaborative team environment
• Strong debugging skills and the ability to easily and quickly read and
• modify existing code
• Sense of humor
• Desire to roll up your sleeves and dig into the work!

Junior, Mid-Level & Senior Positions Available

We are looking for a full-time system/software architect. This person will be part of a high-performance team made up of an elite group of architects and developers. Strong communication and conceptual thinking is a must. This position is for someone who enjoys complex technical challenges and working with other senior level architects to build a system. Our architect is hands-on and performs other activities such as writing, analysis on alternative design paths, and diagramming design application interconnects.

Our architect is our representative to technical managers and clients in our high-performance, defense and security-minded environment.

In order to be considered for this position, you must:

• Be able to obtain a security clearance
• Have hands-on development using object oriented principles, software patterns, algorithm analysis, language specific experience '" J2EE or .NET
• Experience with designing Oracle database and SQL Server based applications and systems.
• Experience with clustering (e.g., Microsoft Clustering, Oracle clustering, Weblogic clustering or Load balancing).
• XML knowledge (SOAP, REST, etc)
• Have experience with Capacity Planning
• Have security experience, be familiar with software/system attack vectors such as buffer overflows, etc and be able to explain how the attacks work
• Be comfortable in speaking in front of technical individuals and management
• Thrive wearing multiple hats, be flexible, and be able to work effectively in an informal entrepreneurial setting.
• Have an exceptional level of integrity, raw intelligence, creativity, energy, and passion.
• Have outstanding communications skills.
• Have a technical BS degree or higher.

Pluses:

• DITSCAP, FISMA or related process experience with custom applications

For more information on Elluminates Software see their website

In their new strategy staatement, eZ systems states why they develop the software they do, how it all relates to the eZ publish CMS, and a mention of their plans to built on top of the eZ platfom.

They look at the "mature market" that is the realm of PHP, noting it's a perfect time for them to make this move. They also talk about their development being done in "the PHP way", popular in the community. Their new focus is one driven by the community, too, adapting itself to the current climate of the market. They're also seeking to raise up the standard of their development, at the same time, raising the bar for other PHP platforms out there.

The second post just notes that the slides from the eZ publish Conference 2006 are now online. They primarily discuss the recent developments with the eZ platform and eZ application server.

eZ systems announced the development of the eZ platform, which will ship with a PHP application server called "eZ application server".

Of course, eZ platform will be build on top of eZ components.

You can get the complete details on the project from this official announcement on their site.

The list includes:

• PHPNuke (general)
• Drupal (general)
• Coppermine (images)
• WordPress (blogging)
• phpBB (forums)

Tim includes links to all of the resources and screenshots of each package in action. It's interesting to have a summary of some of the more major offerings lined up like this - a good starting place to branch from for other CMS research.

It it, they cover a bit of Tobias' background, why he enjoys using PHP as much as he does, his position and feelings on open source software, as well as some opinions on PHP adoption and the Zend Framework.

Of course, they finish it off with the one question that every web developer (dealing with dynamic content/languages) gets asked in an interview - "What do you think of Web 2.0?" Read on to check out his answer.

You don't seen much on this kind of connection, but there has to be a need for it in companies out there (espeically with the widespread usage of SAP).

Via Chris' blog, I came across this posting that discusses the perceived lack of security in PHP. Others have already made excellent points in response to the author's claims'"which, basically, boil down to the fact that he seems to confuse security with a limitation in functionality.

What? Is he serious? Well, yes'"and for one simple reason: security means different things to different people. The level of input filtering that may be needed for my software does not necessarily fit the requirements of other people's needs. The goal of the language is to remain as simple, powerful and efficient as possible. It is then up to the developer to determine the level of additional functionality that he requires and implement it'"and that includes security.

He goes on mentioning things like the Zend Framework and eZ Systems - all development platforms that are working to provide a secure environment for any developer to work in. Of course, not all developers need that much "protection" in their code, and are happy to work within something a bit more lean (he gives an example of Rasmus)...]]> Tue, 24 Jan 2006 06:39:52 -0600