We are searching for prospective employees who know how to effectively work on teams and can efficiently complete projects. We want engineers with software experience as well as professionals with applied GIS knowledge. We want employees who can stay focused and have the discipline to fix software errors and issues. We need staff who can stay intellectually curious and diagnose hard-to-solve software problems. We need more than people who can solely dream up the possibilities—we need employees who have the discipline to implement and deliver results founded on great ideas.
We like employees who have done well in school. For example, many of our employees have completed master's degrees or higher. We like the discipline and personal responsibility that is demonstrated by setting high goals and meeting such accomplishments. Applied knowledge is a very important trait that we look for. We want employees who have experience utilizing what they have learned. We find that great insight comes from building new systems, completing projects, and applying the concepts and principles learned in the classroom.
In addition to these characteristics, we look for individuals who have special skills and experience in one or more of the following disciplines:
Design—from being able to understand and faithfully implement a design to leading a design effort on a software project.
Development programming—the skills and discipline necessary to create great software.
Writing—the ability to write clear user documentation on how to apply ArcGIS to address real problems. This requires a solid understanding of GIS methods and concepts.
Testing—the ability to test our software in ways that we expect our users to deploy our systems, in addition to isolating, diagnosing, repairing, and resolving software problems. This is to ensure that Esri software works as expected, scales to large data sizes and numbers of users, and is robust and continues to work around the clock. This is one of our most important roles in ArcGIS development.
Applications programming—the ability for .NET, Java, and Web developers to use ArcGIS to build custom applications, extensions, and solutions. This includes capturing the best practices and methods for ArcGIS developers to employ in their day-to-day work.
Software release—the process of managing the release of robust, high-quality software products in which all issues have been uncovered and resolved. This includes the responsibility to deliver software patches and service packs for existing software releases that address key issues encountered by our users.
User support and deployment—the ability to understand the tasks our users must perform, the methodology or best practices to accomplish critical work tasks, and how we can improve our software to better support users in their daily operations. This is achieved by using the software in the same manner as our customers and can involve working side by side with customers to learn about and better understand our users' needs.