Hire Ben Simo!

I have four or five blog posts in the hopper, each almost ready to go. I’m working on a whole book and a chapter of another one, and I’m on a deadline that I’m about to blow. The kids are still out of school, and I really should be cooking dinner right now. And yet…

As I write, one of the best testers that I know is looking for work. His name is Ben Simo. He lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado (my understanding is that he’s willing to relocate). He’s well-versed in LoadRunner and Performance Center, like many other testers. Unlike (alas!) so many other testers with those bullet points on the résumé, he’s not inclined merely to go through the motions and use tools for checking. He is an astute, passionate critical thinker, entirely focused on investigating and defending the value of the products for which he’s responsible by identifying problems that threaten that value. And yet’s he’s not of the Quality Assurance school; he entirely understands that assuring quality is the responsibility of those who produce and manage the work—programmers, writers, designers, artists, and managers. His job, as he sees it, is to make quality assurance possible. He collaborates with the project community, investigates the product ,and provides the most important, most timely information he can to the people who are producing and managing the work. With that, they can make the decisions they must make, informed by the very best technical information that he can provide.

He’s past President of the Association for Software Testing; he was Conference Chair for the 2009 Conference for the Association for Software Testing; he maintains one blog called Questioning Software and another called Is There A Problem Here?. He was recently given a three-part interview by UTest; you can read that here, and here, and here.

And, as of this writing, he’s available. For someone looking for a tester, he’s like the dream date that you spy across the dance floor whom a friend tells you is single, smart, modest, and well-off. The only issue is that maybe he’s a little too modest. He won’t be on the dance floor for long, because some organization will come along and sweep him off his feet. And that organization will be exceptionally lucky.

And that organization could be yours. His email address is ben at qualityfrog (period) com.

Postscript: Ben’s been hired by a company near Phoenix, AZ. You had your chance!