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
Personally, I would be looking for someone who is scared of SOAP, RDF, and WSDL, but maybe that's my phobias talking.
Oh, I didn't say sacred of *dpeloying*, just scare of the terms. That's a good topic for the interview. :-)
So is Yahoo! getting into the WS-Position, or the WS-Loyal Opposition? (If you can divulge any information on that, would be interesting.)
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.
A lot of people use Amazon's stuff via SOAP.
Any idea when Yahoo web services will start becoming available for use?
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. ;-)
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??!!
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
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?
> 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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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).
"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?
> 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.
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.
