Rudedog,
Super secret cool stuff in Omaha right?
--
February 21, 2000, Issue: 1101
Section: Times People
Mellow lifestyle a draw for EEs in Kansas, Oklahoma
Adam Marcus
For those who wonder if the Midwest is feeling the ripples of the nation's
high-tech boom, recruiters in the region insist that America's heartland has the
beef. "The market is tight," said Dave Nelson, a senior technical recruiter at
J.M. Neil (Kansas City, Mo.). "There are quite a few openings and not many
people."
"The market is pretty good," agreed Kelly Kitt, a technical recruiter in
Tulsa-based AeroTek's contract engineering division. Both Tulsa-home of
American Airlines-and Oklahoma City have fairly strong aerospace needs, but
smaller companies have sprung up too.
Kitt said his company imports job seekers from around the world, and has
never had anyone say, "Oklahoma, no way!" to an offer. "The more I travel,
the more I like Oklahoma," said Kitt. "There's plenty to do, and no traffic."
In Kansas, "things have really started to pop in the last couple of weeks," said
Dixie Lee Bell, a recruiter with Computer Professionals in Overland Park. The
city is home to Sprint, which is merging with MCIWorldCom, a union that has
many in the recruiting business fretting about synergies. But Bell thinks the joint
company will still have a strong need for engineers in Kansas, particularly
given the strength of Sprint's wireless unit, PCS. She called PCS the
company's "crown jewel, and the reason MCI wants Sprint."
In addition to telecommunications, Bell said she's seeing many opportunities in
the state for programmers, particularly those familiar with Java and
object-oriented development. Much of Bell's job is selling people on the
merits of Kansas. "We have everything that all the big cities have, but we don't
have the horrendous problems," she said. "Growth is steady but not sporadic
and huge. We have four seasons of the year but not extremes in temperature.
We're surrounded by rivers and lakes." Public schools are "superior," Bell
said, and housing is abundant and affordable.
Kansas City is the headquarters of two major software companies: Cerner,
which develops systems for health care management, and DST Systems, one
of the leading makers of mutual fund software products. Cerner is looking for
a client help desk systems administrator with a degree in computer science
and for applications developers with three to five years of programming
experience in VB and C ++.
DST is also seeking programmers, including those with experience in Java,
Visual C++, MFC and AS/400.
Steve White, owner of Techlink in Kansas City, Mo., said the city is
becoming increasingly dotted with smaller software and telecom companies
and Internet startups, as venture capital finds the region more appealing.
"There's high demand for Java developers," White said, predicting that "We're
going to see more and more of it in the next year."
Sprint has dozens of jobs available for engineers and programmers. It needs
software engineers for its Internet activities in Kansas City, test engineers,
network engineers and applications developers.
In Oklahoma, Williams Communications has openings for senior engineers
with knowledge of Internet Protocol, ATM or frame relay.
Carrier Access Corp., another communications company, also has slots to fill
in Tulsa. Carrier is looking for embedded-software test engineers with at least
three years of experience in embedded-system design of telecom equipment.
The Colorado-based company is also hiring circuit designers.
Finally, Compaq has a handful of vacancies to staff in Omaha, Neb., for
software designers, design engineers and product engineers.
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