Area 101 Work Values

Daily Duties at Area 101:

Area 101 serves over 400 Fortune 500 Companies and a variety of universities and governmental organizations with web-based software for the management of catering and food service operations. Their products include Food Venue, a 500+ page order entry and management application written in ASP.NET / C#, SQL Server, Commercial, Food Venue functionality using several pages and AJAX in lieu of page-to-page navigation of Food Venue, and Adrenaline, a development framework based on highly abstract representations of business processes (the Business Process Engine, or BPE), data stores (the Data Access Service Layer, or DASL), User Interfaces (the UI Engine), and code (relying heavily on reflection). Implemented key DASL capability of retrieving hierarchical data based on dataset/data table definitions and dynamic filters in Adrenaline. Assumed sole control of Adrenaline after the Director of Product Development left. Implemented conditional branching, spawning of, and return from sub-processes in the BPE. Achieved the following with respect to Commercial: Updated an entire order (in up to 10 database tables) using a single SQL Server call/transaction with information received from the client in a single AJAX/web method call. Developed server-side (C#) and client-side (JavaScript) infrastructure facilitating addition of new elements to the UI and dramatically reducing overall volume of JavaScript and business logic therein. Used this infrastructure to define, display, and validate inputs for 57 different reports, 21 different searches, and other UI elements. Eliminated 179 web pages for displaying report results, and facilitated the addition of new reports and searches. Enabled user’s ability to: execute reports and continue working with immediate feedback on progress, cancel long-running reports, view past reports, schedule report execution for off-peak hours, and share report inputs and outputs with other users. Rapidly returned specific pages of search results via new stored procedures whose Food Venue equivalents would time out with large data sets and the same parameters. Developed infrastructure for generically displaying search results, navigating among the pages, and saving users’ grid preferences (e.g. visibility and ordering of columns, and search/inputs used to populate it on application startup). Developed a generic JavaScript object for gathering and exporting information on JavaScript and C# call stack and performance, used to identify specific performance issues and bugs.

What they like about Area 101:

A hiring company that offers alternative approaches to pay, performance bonuses, and/or equity in the firm is very attractive to you. You're generally less interested in working for an organization offering only traditional, salary-based compensation, one with limited opportunity to acquire equity in the firm, or one that does not actively promote skill development. In addition, you are more likely to choose a company that offers a variety of internal career options, with defined career paths. You view the learning of new skills and development of your expertise as key to your career advancement. These aspects of an organization may become even more important to you as you progress in your field, and are especially critical if you change career or occupation.

Tags

SQL, T-SQL, SQL Server, .NET, ASP, ASP .NET, JavaScript, Microsoft, Windows, Analysis, Design, Architecture, n tier, n-tier, distributed, web, Build, Documentation, Support, Excel, Word, Visio, OO, Object Oriented, Visual Basic, VB, Integration, user controls, mentoring, Visual Studio, Visual Source Safe, HTML, DHTML, ADO, ActiveX, COM, DCOM, Access, IIS, web services, web methods, VB Script, VBA, CSS, DOM, SQL-DOM, Clipper, Ajax, JSON, MTS, MS Project, XML, XSL, XPATH, SOAP, Telerik Controls, Sarbanes-Oxley, SOX, Workflow modeling, on-line applications, Accounting, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable, Cash Receipts, Human Resources, Back office, customer facing, insurance, brokerage firm, transportation, shipping, customer service, abstraction, infrastructure, user interface, UI, Reflection, DOS, C-Sharp, C Sharp

Skills

Software Implementation, Requirements gathering, Logical and physical design

These are some of the questions we asked our climbers about their experiences with Area 101: