employment opportunity for new college graduate

[David Hough]

The Sun floating-point software support group has been authorized
to hire a "new college graduate" to learn how to do the things
we do, namely 

  1. Run and analyze the results of test suites for the floating-point and 
     back-end groups. This will require the ability to understand some of the
     vagaries of floating-point arithmetic and how optimizing compilers work.
  2. Craft new test programs and revise existing programs to conform to the
     engineers requirements of test coverage and ease of use. This will require
     skills in programming and the use of standard Unix tools as well as 
     software quality assurance/engineering.
The ideal candidate would have training in numerical analysis and floating
point arithmetic on computers, training in optimizing compilers and in software
testing. This is unlikely unless we find someone with an advanced degree and 
work experience. So we want either training or 
experience in one or more of
    - numerical analysis
    - floating-point arithmetic
    - scientific computing
    - software quality assurance/engineering

There are peculiar restrictions associated with the peculiar way that these
positions are funded, namely the most recent degree should be completed
between December 1990 and June 1991, with no professional employment
exploiting that degree since.  Note that the most recent degree could
be bachelor, master, or doctorate, so experienced candidates aren't excluded
if the experience predates the degree.

It's hard to say exactly what we're looking for, since most people end up
in this line of work by accident and without much relevant training.  A
perverted intolerance for the sort of minor errors and discrepancies that
normal people learn to live with appears to be in order; compulsive attention
to balancing checkbooks to the nearest penny might be a positive indicator.
Or the ability to recall humorous or exciting
anecdotes involving floating point 
arithmetic would seem to distinguish good prospects from programmers
in general, who don't see anything funny or exciting in this subject.

Worldwide broadcast of this posting
would be far less helpful than bringing it to the
attention of a few good prospects.

Candidates may contact me at my new official canonical work address,

	David.Houghaeng.sun.com