Tuesday, November 14, 2006

iotum Job Opening: QA Expert

by alec on November 14, 2006

We are looking for smart, creative, energetic, honest and hardworking people to help us build our QA team.

Your role will include being responsible for designing, developing and executing a comprehensive test strategy for the full suite of applications and services that Iotum provides. For the right candidate, this Quality Assurance position can evolve into a position of responsibility for building and leading a team of Quality Assurance engineers.

Primary Responsibilities:
• Provide continuity with the existing QA and test procedures in place at iotum

• Design, develop and execute test strategies and plans that cover all Iotum service offerings.
• Design and implement QA processes and QA infrastructure
• Work closely with internal groups such as Product Management, Engineering and Support to improve the overall offering as well as help resolve critical customer issues.
• Establish, track and report Quality Assurance support metrics

Secondary Responsibilities:

• Build, manage and mentor a Quality Assurance team

Qualifications/Skills/Competencies
• 3+ years in Quality Assurance working within the software industry – mobile applications and internet/networking experience preferred
• Knowledge of QA testing methodologies with experience in software development.
• Experience working with cross-functional teams including development, marketing and support to ship quality product on schedule.
• Excellent Communication Skills (verbal and written): Ability to communicate with both technical and non-technical customers.
• Excellent Project Management and Coordination Skills
• Entrepreneurial attitude, takes initiative and invites responsibility; comfortable in an unstructured, fast-paced environment

• Leadership experience building and managing world-class QA teams

• Knowledge and experience with security will be an important asset.

Personal Characteristics:
A passion to build a world class organization and accomplish great things
An assertive, entrepreneurial, get-it-done attitude
A desire to work hard and play hard! Email resumes to: hr@iotum.com

Location:  Ottawa.

Start Date: Immediately.

Contact: hr@iotum.com

Interested in moving to the top of the list?

Our ideal candidate will be able to demonstrate familiarity with software development concepts, as well as working knowledge of writing test plans. Here are two of our interview questions for the QA position. By completing them in advance, on your own time and without the presence of an interview panel, you have the opportunity to show that our mutual expectations are in alignment, and bump yourself to the top of the list.

1. For an array (list) of random integers that may be both positive and negative, write a procedure that will find a set of sequences of length ‘n’ with the maximum sum. So if the list was {4, 1, 3, 2} and n=2, the output should be {4, 1}, {3, 2}.

2. Choose a favourite software application or web process, and write a test plan to ensure that the product is ready for public consumption. For example, you might test the sign-up procedure for a web-based e-mail service.

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Jangl Goes Beta

by alec on November 14, 2006

Jangl officially unveiled their beta this morning. Available everywhere in the US, on any mobile handset, and targeted at the same dating crowd as TalkPlus, it seems as if the companies must have been in an unofficial horse-race to get their beta’s into market. 

Free until sometime in 2007, Jangl allocates a new number for each contact, and based on a combination of call-in number, and caller-id, determines where the call should terminate.  It’s a very clever system, and just the ticket for people who value privacy.

I had a chance to talk with Jangl CEO Michael Cerda, and Tim Johnson last night on the telephone about their beta, which they characterize as being more like the Google Beta, or a Skype Beta — out there for a while to gather user feedback, and validate some of their ideas.  The idea is to use the Jangl branded beta to vet those ideas, and then roll them out to their partner networks, like Match.com (announced last week).  So, Jangl direct will hint at future, and is the place where you will see the early adopters. They have a bunch of ideas around SMS, and MMS and publishing content to a phone number that they will explore. 

Jangl sees itself capitalizing on the benefits of anonymity and privacy. The basic thrust is that people, more so now than ever, meet other people on line. Most are people you’ve never met face to face.  In addition to phone calls there are all kinds of other places to embed their service.  For instance, Michael talked about building a widget for myspace or blogs allowing customers totake advantage of the ubiquity of the internet, while preserving the anonymity. Click the widget, and have a privacy protected conversation with the blog owner.   In fact, they see users having multiple Jangl ID’s for different roles –myspace, business.  Marshall, over at TechCrunch, is a skeptic about the value of the business Jangl ID, but who knows?

As always, I am interested in funding stories.  They closed $2 million in funding 12 months ago, and another $7 million last July.  With just $1 million they got Match.com into a pilot and private beta, and it was then that they raised the other $7 million.  One of the secrets of keeping their burn low is having just 18 people.  The other is that, even just 5 years ago, they would have had to build their own infrastructure.  Today they “rent” the infrastructure from Synoverse and Level 3. 

Nice job!

I asked about a developer play.  Not yet.  They haven’t figured out the details of how to handle third parties being able to programmatically create Jangl numbers.

911?  That’s handled by the network operator, not them.  No problem.

Law Enforcement?  Handled by the infrastructure owner, not Jangl.  No problem.

Jangl is neat, and another great example of a new Voice 2.0 application made possible by the shift we’re experiencing in the telecom market today. 

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TalkPlus "Sneak Peek" Debuts

November 14, 2006

TalkPlus announced a US West Coast beta today.  For customers on Cingular, T-Mobile, or Sprint, you can get a second number for your cellular mobile — a TalkPlus number.  The idea is that the number can be used as a “second line” for business, dating, classified ads, online auctions, social groups, or for a second [...]

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PhoneGnome 2.0 Rocks

November 14, 2006

PhoneGnome 2.0 just went live. David Beckemeyer and his team have dropped a blockbuster update on the world. The price has been cut dramatically.  The introductory price of $59.99 is pretty compelling.  But, what would you think if that was $59.99… and it included all the long distance calling you wanted to friends, and family?  [...]

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Music on the N93: Not So Cool.

November 14, 2006

The Nokia N93 has three major groups of features:  phone, photography, and music. I’ve written about the phone, and photography features previously.  Now for music.  Nokia provides a simple music manager application on the PC to synchronize tracks with the phone and media player capabilities on the handset.  Think of it as a simplified Windows Media Player or [...]

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