Also, I've heard the Berkeley Lab jobs require a drug test. Can you speak to that?
Only for jobs where you drive a vehicle in an official capacity, e.g. shuttle driver. See the policy document to which mkhorton linked.
Readit Newsdwinston commented on Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2019) · Posted by u/whoishiring
Materials Project | Berkeley, CA | ONSITE | Full-time | https://materialsproject.org
Berkeley Lab (https://www.lbl.gov/) is looking for a talented web developer who will work on building powerful web-based tools for materials scientists on the Materials Project team (see https://materialsproject.org). The Materials Project is one of the world’s foremost databases of computed materials science data, and has helped pioneer a change in how we design and search for new materials, with a large active community of users in both academia and industry. We use millions of CPU hours a year in our calculations, and all of this data is publicly available and free of charge, and we develop all our software openly and under open source licenses.
This is a great opportunity for a developer with an interest in science and energy-related innovation. You'll work with a team of scientists and engineers and will have a major impact on any aspect of the project that interests you — from application architecture to data visualization.
A successful applicant will have experience in:
* HTML/CSS
* JavaScript — someone who is happy to help maintain our legacy platform {Backbone.js, CoffeeScript, Require.js} but is also not afraid of new technologies where appropriate {React / Plotly Dash}
* Web services technologies and REST APIs
* Information visualization — knowledge of javascript graphing libraries such as {d3, HighCharts, Plotly} and understanding of information visualization techniques highly relevant
Ideal applicants will also be experienced with:
* Python and Django (or similar framework)
* Writing unit- and end-to-end tests for client side applications
* Unix environments
* User interface design principles
A successful applicant will also:
* Be keen to work as part of a small team, including working with other researchers (graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, collaborators) who are excited about sharing their data with the world
If you're interested in applying, or you simply want to ask some questions about the position (I’m the team’s lead web dev), feel free to ping me at dwinston@lbl.gov. The official position description and application portal is at <https://jobs.lbl.gov/jobs/web-developer-1934>, but because Berkeley Lab is a public research institution, the hiring/contract style is different than a typical industry job (e.g. “1-year term appointment” means guaranteed for 1 year at minimum -- this position definitely has long-term, extension-without-reapplication potential; full benefits start from day 1; etc.), so again please feel free to ping me for any clarification. :)
Oh, and I learned about the Materials Project from a "Who's Hiring" thread several years ago, so yay HN.
Materials Project | Berkeley, CA | ONSITE | Full-time | https://materialsproject.org
Berkeley Lab (https://www.lbl.gov/) is looking for a talented web developer who will work on building powerful web-based tools for materials scientists on the Materials Project team (see https://materialsproject.org). The Materials Project is one of the world’s foremost databases of computed materials science data, and has helped pioneer a change in how we design and search for new materials, with a large active community of users in both academia and industry. We use millions of CPU hours a year in our calculations, and all of this data is publicly available and free of charge, and we develop all our software openly and under open source licenses.
This is a great opportunity for a developer with an interest in science and energy-related innovation. You'll work with a team of scientists and engineers and will have a major impact on any aspect of the project that interests you — from application architecture to data visualization.
A successful applicant will have experience in:
* HTML/CSS
* JavaScript — someone who is happy to help maintain our legacy platform {Backbone.js, CoffeeScript, Require.js} but is also not afraid of new technologies where appropriate {React / Plotly Dash}
* Web services technologies and REST APIs
* Information visualization — knowledge of javascript graphing libraries such as {d3, HighCharts, Plotly} and understanding of information visualization techniques highly relevant
Ideal applicants will also be experienced with:
* Python and Django (or similar framework)
* Writing unit- and end-to-end tests for client side applications
* Unix environments
* User interface design principles
A successful applicant will also:
* Be keen to work as part of a small team, including working with other researchers (graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, collaborators) who are excited about sharing their data with the world
If you're interested in applying, or you simply want to ask some questions about the position (I’m the team’s lead web dev), feel free to ping me at dwinston@lbl.gov. The official position description and application portal is at <https://jobs.lbl.gov/jobs/web-developer-1934>, but because Berkeley Lab is a public research institution, the hiring/contract style is different than a typical industry job (e.g. “1-year term appointment” means guaranteed for 1 year at minimum -- this position definitely has long-term, extension-without-reapplication potential; full benefits start from day 1; etc.), so again please feel free to ping me for any clarification. :)
dwinston commented on SAT to Add ‘Adversity Score’ That Rates Students’ Hardships nytimes.com/2019/05/16/us... · Posted by u/ckinnan
The SAT is designed and delivered by a private, for-profit company. They are providing additional information that they think will add product value for their customers (schools). Do we want our public schools to continue encouraging/requiring such products?
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab | Berkeley, CA | Full-Time | ONSITE, VISA okay
Berkeley Lab’s Energy Storage & Distributed Resources Division has an opening for a Software Developer. The Software Developer will be part of a team that drives the Materials Project (https://materialsproject.org/) in new and exciting directions as the number and diversity of our simulations grow. You will occupy an important role in a small team composed of both computer scientists and materials scientists, a team which will continue to grow and evolve as our fast-paced project pushes new boundaries.
Job posting: https://jobs.lbl.gov/jobs/materials-software-developer-1700
dwinston commented on Productivity Is About Attention Management nytimes.com/2019/03/28/sm... · Posted by u/gotocake
There's a general misconception between being productive and being effective.
One can fill their days by completing many mindless tasks and consider themselves as productive, but in the end hardly any of those tasks really matters.
On the other hand, another person may only complete one or two tasks in a very short time during their day but these were critical tasks that could generate much higher values. This subsequently makes the person more effective than their peers.
The output values must be weight in determining if one is really productive. Effectiveness triumphs mindless productivity.
This is quite similar to the cognitive and decision fatigue principle which indicates that each of us only has a limited pool of cognitive resources and so we must be very selective in choosing what activities we engage in.
To remain highly effective, not just being productive, particularly for a project manager, it's imperative to spend time only on tasks that require critical decisions to be made, and to delegate the rest. When you take on more tasks than you can handle, like some are misunderstanding this may help them appear as productive, it will undoubtedly affect the quality of each of your decisions and the project will suffer.
> To remain highly effective, not just being productive, particularly for a project manager, it's imperative to spend time only on tasks that require critical decisions to be made, and to delegate the rest.
This mirrors Andy Grove's practice (detailed in his book High Output Management) of focusing on "high-leverage" activities, where "leverage" he defines as the ratio of output/impact versus time spent.
Hacker News threads about tipping are always rough. US tipping is not complicated. You are being asked to share with a service worker's employer some of the burden of compensating them. The notion that you're rewarding exceptional service is a polite fiction. Depending on where you are, the tip is either expected or it isn't. Unfortunately for the mindset of a typical software developer, there won't be much clarity on this point; you'll have to rely on context clues to determine whether and how much of a tip is expected. You can reasonably withhold a tip from someone who is actively hostile or incompetent, but really all you're doing is making yourself feel better. If payment and the tip is expected up-front, you can either buy into the cost-sharing dynamic of tipping, or you can not.
Very few people in the US are going to admire a principled stance you take against tipping. The moral of the opening breakfast scene in Reservoir Dogs was not that Steve Buscemi was a smart and principled dude. Harvey Keitel was the one you were expected to admire in that scene.
A very easy, relatively pleasant way to get through life in the US if you're well-off enough that you routinely buy coffee in expensive coffee shops: just always tip. Anywhere there's a tip line. You never have to figure anything out, and sometimes people really appreciate it.
To elaborate on this, there are currently only seven US states that require employers to pay tipped employees full state minimum wage before tips: Alaska, California, Nevada, Oregon, Minnesota, Montana, and Washington. For seventeen states, the state minimum cash wage payment is the same as that required under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act ($2.13/hour).
This is not to justify abstaining from tipping in the seven "full-minimum-wage" states. This is merely to provide some quantitative clarification of "being asked to share with a service worker's employer some of the burden of compensating them".
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dwinston commented on Mozilla Accepting Applications for its Open Source Accelerator webfwd.org/apply... · Posted by u/breck
The application is unviewable with Javascript disabled.* Note to applicants: please consider the value of progressive enhancement.
* I had temporarily disabled Javascipt on Firefox for debugging something a couple days ago. I had been using Chrome since then, but decided to open Firefox for this. I was confused until I tried to check my Gmail, whereupon I was informed that I had Javascript disabled. Oops. I've re-enabled Javascript.
dwinston commented on A Dad’s Plea To Developers Of iPad Apps For Children uxdesign.smashingmagazine... · Posted by u/pascal07
The idea that "nagging works" is widely used to craft advertising for children's television (source: The Corporation (film)). Is the march toward such advertising in this nascent children's entertainment medium inexorable?