Ryan starts a new job
Posted by Ryan Rickerts
I’m in my 2nd week at a new job. I’m an “associate programmer” at Saturna Capital Corporation.
What is Saturna? Well, you could check out their website. Basically, they (we?) provide brokerage services as well underwriting mutual funds, managing 401(k)s, IRAs, and the like. I don’t actually know what all this means, which is all part of the fun! I have to learn quite a bit the investment industry, as well as a new language and platform.
The custom program (a.k.a. application) I will be working on is called Neptune. It was originally written over a decade ago by the company founder, Nick Kaiser, to manage their funds and other internal business. It is written in and runs upon a rather uncommon database development software called 4D (or 4th Dimension). It has been maintained sort of “on the side” by a few different people over the years. Now there will be two full-time people maintaining and improving it, so it should get much better. If not, maybe we’ll just have to re-write it using something like Rails!
Another really nice, unique feature about this business is it’s almost entirely run on Macs! We made the switch at home a few months ago when I got Susie a Mac Mini. I have been running on my MacBook Pro for well over a year now. So my life is almost entirely cleaned out of that junkie crack called WinDough$, and I’m loving it.
There are more fringe bennies, like being located at the core of downtown Bellingham, one block away from the Co-op and across the street from the YMCA (where I get a free membership and a discounted one for Sue and Q), free haircuts at the salon downstairs, lots of cool people to meet and chat with, and so forth.
I will post more as I learn more. In the meantime, check out my stylish, professional photograph for the staff directory (click to see it in context):
