Yahoo Search is looking for a Web Services Geek. Here's the official job pitch:

Come be a part of a team working to revolutionize the search experience for our users. We are looking for a highly motivated and experienced engineer who is passionate about Web Services, platforms, and enabling a new generation of search-based applications on the Internet. Y! Search has a wealth of content and services, and we want to make it accessible to more people, more devices, and more applications.

I won't bore you with the whole job listing. Instead, I'll summarize by saying this: Ideally, you'll have a good deal of Web Services experience and terms like REST, SOAP, RDF, and WSDL don't scare you. Of course, programming is a necessary part of the job too. Perhaps you've got experience in a compiled language (C/C++/Java) and a scripting language (Perl/PHP) in a Unix/Apache environment? That'd be perfect.

If this sounds interesting, please send me your resume in a non-Microsoft Word format. ASCII, PDF, and HTML work well. If you have a record of your experience with or interest in web services on your blog or a public mailing list, point me at that too.

This full-time position is on-site at Yahoo's headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA. As with many engineering jobs here, telecommuting happens but you're going to be in the office on a regular basis too.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments section. I'll answer what I can. Or e-mail me if you're not comfortable asking in public.

Posted by jzawodn at October 18, 2004 10:54 AM

Reader Comments
# Adam Trachtenberg said:

Personally, I would be looking for someone who is scared of SOAP, RDF, and WSDL, but maybe that's my phobias talking.

on October 18, 2004 11:33 AM
# Jeremy Zawodny said:

Oh, I didn't say sacred of *dpeloying*, just scare of the terms. That's a good topic for the interview. :-)

on October 18, 2004 11:39 AM
# Al said:

Yahoo web services? Cool.

on October 18, 2004 01:21 PM
# Manuzhai said:

So is Yahoo! getting into the WS-Position, or the WS-Loyal Opposition? (If you can divulge any information on that, would be interesting.)

on October 18, 2004 02:37 PM
# Jeremy Zawodny said:

Most of us don't care. If users want REST, we'll deliver REST. If they want WS-Something, then that's what we'll deliver.

But looking at Amazon.com's experience, I'd expect to see a lot of RESTful stuff.

on October 18, 2004 05:29 PM
# Al said:

A lot of people use Amazon's stuff via SOAP.

Any idea when Yahoo web services will start becoming available for use?

on October 18, 2004 06:27 PM
# Jeremy Zawodny said:

Al:

Not compared to REST. It's about a 80/20 split as of the last time I asked Jeff.

As for when, yes, I do have a good idea about that. ;-)

on October 18, 2004 06:32 PM
# Al said:

Jeff...BEZOS??? I was just judging from Amazon's forums - most people who post there appear to use ECS (AWS) via SOAP via nusoap or .Net.

Come on...WHEN??!!

on October 18, 2004 06:44 PM
# Ask Bjørn Hansen said:

I was just judging from Amazon's forums - most people who post there appear to use ECS (AWS) via SOAP via nusoap or .Net.

Maybe just because that's so much more trouble than REST. Or because people who know what they are doing will use REST. ;-)


- ask

on October 18, 2004 08:24 PM
# Jeremy Zawodny said:

No, Al. Jeff Barr. He runs the Web Services program at Amazon.

And Ask is right. Usage numbers show that REST is way more popular. But more folks using SOAP are asking for help. What's that tell you?

on October 18, 2004 08:48 PM
# Steve Friedl said:

> But more folks using SOAP are asking for help. What's that tell you?

... that Amazon does a terrible job supporting its webservice users with SOAP, causing them to reinvent the wheel and work around bugs in Amazon's system.

on October 18, 2004 09:06 PM
# Al said:

Ahm, I never said they were asking for help. The biggest problem right now is that MS broke SOAP in .Net somehow.

REST is easier/better? How so? With nusoap I just directly call functions and get a nice array back. With REST don't you have to deal with big long obtuse URLs, call/fetch results, parse XML (yuck), put it in vars, etc.

on October 18, 2004 09:49 PM
# Adam Trachtenberg said:

SOAP rocks on .NET and Java, and SOAP sucks for all open source languages. That's why you see all these posts about trying to use SOAP in PHP, Perl, Python, etc.

Most of the open source SOAP implementations are based around the RPC/Encoded model, but .NET has moved to Doc/Literal, where support is more sketchy. There's also all sorts of issues with types. This causes serious interop woes.

I feel I can speak confidently about the state of PHP support, and I can forward along this nice quote about Perl's SOAP::Lite module: "Beware craziness with datatypes. Beware that SOAP::Lite is a steaming pile of undocumented shit." (http://use.perl.org/~Ovid/journal/21252) I'll let Python users chime in for themselves, but I've heard similar things from Nelson. Something about passing an array of integers, I believe.

on October 18, 2004 09:57 PM
# Al said:

SOAP rocks on .NET and Java

but .NET has moved to Doc/Literal, where support is more sketchy. There's also all sorts of issues with types. This causes serious interop woes.

How is it that you're not totally contradicting yourself?

on October 18, 2004 10:07 PM
# Al said:

that Amazon does a terrible job supporting its webservice users with SOAP, causing them to reinvent the wheel and work around bugs in Amazon's system.

Wrong.

on October 18, 2004 10:09 PM
# Adam Trachtenberg said:

Because "where support is more sketchy. There's also all sorts of issues with types" applies to PHP, Perl, and Python. For instance, if you can use NuSOAP with eBay's WSDL, then I'd be impressed (but happy).

on October 18, 2004 10:40 PM
# Anonymous coward said:

"If this sounds interesting, please send me your resume in a non-Microsoft Word format. ASCII, PDF, and HTML work well."

darn - i'll have to convert my cv without the boss seeing me do it....

"This full-time position is on-site at Yahoo's headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA."

Teleworking/Relocation from Europe , an option?

on October 19, 2004 03:10 AM
# Steve Friedl said:

> Wrong

Wow, Al, you really blew away my argument there - guess all that time I burned on the project with Amazon merchant interface - working around their bugs and random system changes - was a figment of my imagination.

on October 19, 2004 07:49 AM
# Tim said:

SOAP does not suck in all open source implementations. gSOAP is a damn fine piece of software that not only performs superbly and runs anywhere. Sure this doesnt help people that code in interpreted languages, but you cant make a blanket statement saying all open source soap implementations suck because they dont.

on September 7, 2006 05:14 AM
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