Join our company and help build the world's first search engine for data. We're seeking a motivated person to lead various efforts on client projects and data collection.
Company: Datafiniti
Location: Houston, TX
Web: www.datafiniti.net
Our Company
Datafiniti provides two products: the Datafiniti search engine and 80legs, a web crawling service. Our search engine product provides a structured, searchable database of all information on the web. Our web crawling service allows anyone to collect data from the web with the power of over 50,000 computers. With both products, our goal is to make web data available and accessible to everyone through highly usable and enjoyable tools.
We are a technology startup, but already have hundreds of clients and thousands of users of our products. Retailers use us for pricing analysis, marketers use us for lead generation and brand monitoring, and many other businesses use us for a wide variety of custom needs.
About the Position
The project lead will be responsible for making sure client projects and various data feeds are delivered efficiently and at a high quality level. We'll also be looking to this person to generate ideas on where and how to collect certain types of data that we'll need. Some specific details:
Client Projects
We often have client projects that need to be designed, implemented and maintained. Here's the workflow around client projects:
- Sales person takes in a lead, generates client interest and develops an initial set of specifications. These specifications will typically be in the client's words (and thus not perfectly aligned with how our team will want to receive specs).
- The project lead would work with the sales person to re-design the client specs so they match internally-suitable specs. This would involve mapping the project to one of our major project types, identifying which websites or sources we'll be using to collect the data, identifying what data is available/possible to collect (and which isn't), and so on. On occasion, you may need to communicate directly with the client via phone or email.
- Once the sales person has closed the project, the project lead will begin implementing the project. Implementation can be done either by the project lead himself or by any available developer team (which may come from our core staff or outside staff).
- The project lead would work to meet each of the deliverables on the project. Once deliverables are complete, he would setup the client so client has access to the deliverables (setting up an 80legs account, delivering an app, etc.).
- After deliverables are shipped, the project lead would monitor any ongoing deliverables to make sure they are performing per client expectations.
Of course, we always want to be on the lookout for any operational improvements we can do to make the above steps more efficient. On the engineering side, this could include building monitoring tools, code libraries, better documentation for dev teams, etc. On the business side, this could include recruiting better developers, following better processes, etc. The project lead has his feet on both sides.
Data Feeds
Beyond client-specific projects, we have a constant and growing need to ingest more data, particularly for our search engine product. The project lead would be tasked with actively thinking of new sources of data and managing/implementing the processes for getting new data. While we have a heavy dependence on web crawling and using our 80legs product for most of this work, we don't need to rely exclusively on web crawling. We are currently also using mechanical turk and a few API sources. The project lead should have a good grasp of what's available or be able to effectively research possible data sources.
The project lead may do some of the implementation himself, but as the company scales, there will be a greater focus on leading developer teams.
Requirements & Skills
Here are some skills that will be necessary for this job:
- Java programming: We use Java for almost everything and have a decent Java code base built up for developing web crawling data feeds. It's more important to know how to effectively program (specifically OOP) than to be an expert Java programmer.
- Dev team management: Being able to review code, provide specs and manage developers is of course a needed skill. Ideally the project lead is capable of improving the overall quality of his dev team through guidance, coaching, etc.
- Ability to creatively think about data sources: There will be times when it's not obvious what sources we can use. Being able to research sources will be important.
- Understanding how website content is generated: Understanding things like GET, POST, Ajax, etc. will come in handy as you design web crawlers. Sometimes it's not immediately apparent how to get data from a site, but some inspecting of the requests being made will reveal a path.
The above skills are what's needed now, but as the company grows (hopefully quickly!), other skills will become important like identifying and recruiting developer talent.
Our Culture
Datafiniti has a strong engineering and product-focused culture. We believe in building high-quality tools that are easy to use while delivering powerful benefits to our users. Although we have very ambitious goals, we have a laid-back work life. Everyone works hard, but we have fun doing it. We have a small, focused team and treat everyone like family. If you enjoy working on challenging problems using cutting edge technology with a team of engineers and hackers, you'll love working at Datafiniti.
Additional Details
- Competitive salary for early to mid-level experience
- Retirement and health benefits
- Flexible vacation policy
_Contact_:
To apply, please email
careers@datafiniti.net.
Please, no contacts from recruiting or staffing agencies.
|
Prev
Twitter |
Facebook |
RSS |
About KDnuggets