Saturday, April 18, 2009

Cotopia: Over 1 Million games played

That's right folks - we've had over 1 million games played!! Isn't that awesome? It makes me very happy that we've been able to bring our community that much fun. I mean seriously, more than 1 million games, I can hardly believe it. It's been a good ride for us on the development team and I hope that we'll soon celebrate by releasing the long awaited mobile game of Go.
I'd like to send a big 'Thank you' to our community for making this happen.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Economy and IT jobs in Sydney

I thought that I'd quickly comment on the state of affairs regarding IT / jobs / economy here in Sydney. I was affected by the economic downturn just like many others, as companies shed contractors to tighten their budgets. This was around 2 months ago. I has taken me 8 weeks to find work - half of that time spent looking while I was finishing off my previous contract at a great Sydney IT firm Object Consulting. 8 weeks is the longest it has taken me to find work since 2002. Usually I have a job withing 2-4 weeks.

I normally look for senior developer positions related to JavaME or Core Java / Swing, which is not where most of hiring happens - any Java developer will know that majority of advertised jobs resolve around web, databases, finances, or insurance (i.e. gather financial/insurance data on the web and stuff it into a DB - not my cup of tea). This definitely doesn't the job search any easier but it ensures that usually I find something at least somewhat interesting.

In addition to taking a few extra weeks to find a job I also have to say that the compensation packages on offer are not exactly what they used to be a year ago, but they aren't completely unacceptable either.

To sum up - I believe there is work to be found even for those of us that are a little more picky, even though it may take longer to find it and one may have to do with less money.