My background is in software engineering; I spent several years as a professional programmer, first at Microsoft up in Redmond, and then at a succession of smaller companies. (See my full resume.)
A few years ago, I started working with a nonprofit on their website. I quickly discovered that their previous "web developers" had opened serious security holes on their web server, probably due to inexperience rather than malice.
This seems to be a systemic problem among nonprofits: they need people with a fairly high level of technical skill, but it's hard to hire those people if you don't have that skill yourself. As a result, nonprofits frequently end up with folks who are great HTML coders, but are in over their heads when it comes to programming and security.
Because of my software engineering background and my intimate knowledge of UNIX and Windows, I was able to go in to website updating jobs with a much better understanding of what's going on "under the hood" than most web developers do. This gave the organizations I worked with a tremendous advantage.
Typically, an organization hired me for some combination of these reasons:
- To update and maintain an existing site.
- To develop new interactive features for a website.
- To conduct a security audit and put in place a security policy.
- To triage an existing website or network once something has gone wrong.
Every org wants to keep their website up to date and prevent security glitches in their network, but often they don't have the expertise on staff to do so. I helped them make sure their data was safe, their network was safe, their website was current, and, if appropriate, helped them hire someone full-time to continue the work.
These days, I'm back to regular software development, but I still think about the issue of hiring. There aren't really any good solutions out there - certifications are meaningless, and recruiters often suffer from the same bootstrapping problem - meaning they don't have the technical knowledge to appropriately screen, either. The best way to hire is via the recommendation of someone you know and trust, but what if no one in that category knows anyone who does the kind of work you need?
I have the same problem hiring someone who does work I'm not familiar with, such as an accountant or a lawyer. Recommendation sites, such as Angie's List and Yelp, help a little, but since I (usually) don't know the person doing the recommending, the help is limited. Is there a way to harness the power of personal recommendations across a broader group? I haven't seen it yet.
