StarPound is on the move.  We have some big announcements that will hit the wire soon, including one that is going to send tremors through an entire industry.  Wish I could say more about it right now …

At any rate, the good news is that we’re hiring.  Job descriptions below - if you know someone that might be a good fit, I’d certainly appreciate any referrals.

Immediate opportunities (details for each are down below):

• Enterprise Project Manager
• Network Administrator
• System Administrator
• Business Analyst
• Java/J2EE Developer

StarPound provides an on-demand, open-source platform for enabling large enterprise customers to design, deliver and adapt communication-enabled business processes. Additionally, we provide an entire PBX and call center suite built on top of our core platform.

Successful candidates must be comfortable wearing a lot of hats in a fast-growth, emerging startup company (venture-backed).  And, they must be passionate about your job, and willing to do whatever it takes to be successful.  If you are interested, please visit our website (www.starpound.net) or contact Dottie Thornton via email with your resume (dthornton at starpoundtech.com).

Enterprise Project Manager

Requirements:

• Project reporting, monitoring, and milestone success on complex enterprise projects
• Experience within contact center, CRM, telecommunication services, or e-business industries is desirable
• Experience with web services, web integration is a plus
• Leadership and mentoring experience.
• Minimum 7 years relevant project management experience required.
• Excellent communication, presentation and interpersonal skills.
• Strong organizational and time management skills.
• Project Management professional (PMP) Certification a plus
• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent Project Management work experience

Network Administrator

Requirements:

• 3+ years of professional experience in networking field
• One or more of the following industry recognized certifications (or equivalent experience)
  • Cisco CCIE (R/S, SP, Security, Voice, Storage)
  • Cisco CCNP, CCIP, CCDP, CCSP, CCVP
  • Juniper JNCIE (M/T, ER)
  • Juniper JNCIP-MT, JNCIS-M/T, JNCIS-ER, JNCIS-FWV
  • Foundry FNCNE, FNCNP
  • ISC2 CISSP
• Deep Expertise in at least one of the following areas:
  • Data Center Network Architectures and Design
  • OSPF, BGP, MPLS, QoS
• Highly Desirable Skills:
  • Advanced understanding of IP/MPLS communications theory, design and functionality - Advanced understanding of VoIP technologies, such as H.323 & SIP
  • Experience designing and implementing QoS standards and technologies across platforms to ensure strict service guarantees (SLAs) for Voice and Video.
  • Strong working knowledge of network management and testing tools (at a minimum ethereal/wireshark)

System Administrator

Requirements:

• 3+ years of experience required
• Linux, MySQL, load balancing routers
• Asterisk, shell scripts, cron
• Distributed architectures, Fault tolerant clustering
• SIP, telephony experience a plus
• Performance tuning

Business Analyst

Requirements:

• Experience within contact center, CRM, financial services, or e-business industries is desirable
• Minimum 3-5 years relevant experience required.
• Excellent communication, presentation and interpersonal skills.
• Strong organizational and time management skills.
• Experience with CRM systems and processes is desirable.
• Experience with process modeling tools is desirable.
• Must have strong experience with J2EE Middleware
• At least a basic understanding of BPMN

Java/J2EE Developer

Requirements:

• 3+ years of experience required
• JBoss, MySQL, JSF, Struts, Linux
• GWT, WSDL, XML, Eclipse plugin development
• Asterisk, VoIP, SIP, PBX, ACD, IVR, CTI
• VoiceXML, UML, BPMN, Model-driven development

Cheers.

The other day, someone wrote me an email asking me to explaining how StarPound’s platform compared to Asterisk.  After I replied, it occurred to me that it might be worth taking a moment to blog about this topic.

First, if  you aren’t familiar with Asterisk, it is the leading open-source software PBX and telephony package out in the marketplace.  They’ve done a remarkable job in creating something of enormous value.  I will go so far as to say I think Asterisk has quickly become an integral part of the open source enterprise stack.  Asterisk was created by Mark Spencer of Digium fame.

Asterisk is a telephony engine and toolkit.  Meaning you can use it as the underpinning of lots of really cool telephony apps.  You can use it as a PBX, a gateway, a media server, and even in call center contexts.

StarPound, while also an engine and toolkit, builds on top of toolkits like Asterisk.  StarPound consists of a visual business process modeling tool, and a suite of application servers that allow you to automate those processes.  For those processes that need to be “communication-enabled” (see: CEBP at Wikipedia), StarPound’s platform has telephony-related tools that tie into components at the Asterisk level.

StarPound relies upon external telephony engines like Asterisk to provide under-the-hood call control and media serving functionality.  Note:  We’ve done in-house integration and testing of FreeSwitch, and will be rolling out production support for that platform soon.

On top of all of these components, we have developed a suite of enterprise applications specifically aimed at call centers and enterprise PBX users.  These applications are incredible on their own merit, but also serve as great examples of the types of applications that can be built with the StarPound platform.  A lot of the confusion comes from people who equate StarPound as a “PBX in the cloud” company solely.  They think “PBX in the cloud”, and then immediately think Asterisk.

Even though we have a cloud-based PBX application, we typically don’t host it for individual companies.  That isn’t our model - that is the model of Vocalocity and others.  We are the type of company that powers another company that wants to be in that space.  We’ll have some big announcements to make soon on that …

So the short answer is, we are built on top of telephony toolkits like Asterisk and FreeSwitch, but that is really only a small portion of our overall capabilities.  StarPound is more accurately described as a software platform that automates business processes by turning them into web and voice services.  In fact, our PBX and call center applications are driven by, guess what?  Business process models automated through StarPound!  If you want to change something in your PBX or call center, you don’t fiddle with config files - you visually edit the “way” the application is supposed to work - the process model.

A great way to describe it  … with StarPound, you model what an application is supposed to do, not necessarily how it is supposed to do it.

Cheers.

The folks at TAG asked me to help get the word out on their new entrepreneurial survey.  Details and link below!

Subject:  GA Entrepreneurs: Join TAG’s Research Panel

Let your opinion be known: Opt in to TAG’s Entrepreneur Survey

Dear Georgia Entrepreneur,

Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) requests your participation in an important entrepreneur needs assessment survey currently underway.

Your feedback will directly influence programs and policies that affect all entrepreneurs in Georgia.  This is your chance to be heard.

Please take one minute to join our research panel by clicking here: Entrepreneur Survey Opt-in.

Within two weeks of joining the TAG Research Panel, you will receive the “Entrepreneur Needs Assessment Survey” with questions about your needs and experiences.  After you complete our survey, Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) will send you a free copy of “2008 State of the Industry Report: Technology in Georgia.”  This report, which will be published in March, will include hundreds of charts showing technology job growth, venture funding practices, sector growth, the results of this survey, and much more.

We thank you in advance for your participation.

Sincerely,

Tino J. Mantella - President, Technology Association of Georgia (TAG)

The Entrepreneur Survey is sponsored by the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), an independent non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion and economic advancement of Georgia’s technology industry.

Cheers.