TORONTO, JANUARY 31 , 2007 – Tucows Inc. (TSX:TC, AMEX:TCX)
plans to release its fourth quarter fiscal 2006 financial results on Thursday, February 8, 2007, following market close. Company management will host a conference call on Thursday, February 8, 2007 at 5:00 p.m. (ET) to discuss the results and outlook.
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Here's another job opportunity that's opened up at Tucows: NOC Assistant. The details are below — if you're interested, email your resume and a cover letter (make sure that NOC Analyst is the subject line of your email) to our HR Department at hrdept@tucows.com!

Join our group of talented Analysts in monitoring, analyzing and resolving system and network troubles.  Bring your technical expertise in:

• Configuring and maintaining UNIX servers
• TCP/IP concepts
• DNS
• RAID technologies
• Email protocols

LDAP

• Web server farms
• Backup and recovery technologies
• Shell scripting

To complete your skills you possess post-secondary education in computer sciences or engineering, and 1-2 years experience with the technologies.  In addition you have strong problem solving and analytical skills, excellent verbal and written skills, and proven time management skills that will aid you in our faced paced production environment.  We‚Äôre also looking for flexible individuals, as our NOC Center operates 24×7x365 ‚Äì applicants must be available to work rotating shifts and on short notice.

What is “Email Services”?

We've got a job opening for a product manager for Email Services, which comprises two of our biggest services:

• Hosted Email: Lets you offer email service to your customers without the hassle. As the name implies, we host and maintain the email server, while you manage email accounts via a web interface or API. We take care of the headaches of running the system, so you can concentrate on taking care of your customers.
• Email Defense: Our anti-spam/anti-virus service, which you can use in conjuction with either our hosted email service or any other email service out there. As with hosted email, we run the system and maintain it, you provision the service and focus on customer service.

What We're Looking For

We're looking for the right person to manage these services, boost the profitability of our email portfolio and develop new email services to offer to our partners. If you've got an understanding of email and the email business, the skills and creativity to develop new services on our email platform and the experience and industry contacts to back you up, we've got a job for you!

As the product manager for Email Services, you'll be working with a number of different people within Tucows:

• Business analysts, to determine requirements.
• Developers, to turn those requirements into reality.
• Marketing (which includes me), to figure out things like the go-to-market strategy, and to help them understand the product positioning, key benefits and target customer.
• Sales, to help them sell email services.
• Key customers, who may have special requirements and feedback.

Key Responsibilities

Responsibilities of the position include:

• Managing the entire product life cycle from strategic planning to tactical activities, from launch to retirement of the product within your portfolio.
• Justifying new business lines through market demand assessment and financial justification.
• Specifying market requirements for current and future products by conducting market research supported by continual contact with customers and prospects.
• Act as a subject matter expert for the products within your portfolio to the company.
• Continually assess and improve on the success of your portfolio with key stakeholders.
• Developing and implementing launch plans for new products, working with all departments to execute.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate for the position will have these qualities:

Related Experience / Unique Skill Set

• 3 or more years' worth of experience in product management
• Knowledge of technology, and yes, extensive experience with email is preferred

Education

• A post-secondary degree, preferably in business or computer science.

Interpersonal Skills

• You must possess a unique blend of business and technical savvy; a big-picture vision, and the drive to make that vision a reality.
• You must enjoy spending time in the market to understand their problems, and find innovative solutions for the broader market.
• You must be able to work with minimal supervision and be capable of exercising independent judgment across a broad range of situations.
• You must demonstrate an ability to learn new technologies quickly.
• You'll need superior verbal and written communication skills.
• You'll definitely need excellent time management and organizations skills, and a high comfort level in an ever-changing, fast paced environment.
• You must have the ability to work collaboratively as part of cross-functional teams.

Does This Sound Like the Kind of Job For You?

If it does, please email and resume and cover letter to hrdept@tucows.com; make sure that the subject line contains Product Manager, Email Services.

Recommended Reading

Be sure to check out our pages on hosted email and Email Defense.

We've got a couple of new job openings here at Tucows:

• Oracle DBA — it's been filled!
  
• Data Center Technician — it's been filled!

Read on for more details, and if you're interested, send your resume and cover letter to hrdept@tucows.com; be sure to mention the position for which you're applying in the subject line.

Oracle DBA [Update: This position has been filled!]

[This position has since been filled, but we're leaving the post up for reference.]

We're looking for an Oracle DBA — here's the info about the position, straight from the Human Resources folks…

Main Purpose

Primary responsibility will be the administration and pro-active management of a 24×7 Oracle Production environment. This position will require being part of a Tier 2 on-call rotation schedule. Your primary duties will encompass responsibility for various Tucows‚Äô Oracle databases (with prime responsibilities for hosted messaging) including proactive monitoring and problem resolution, trend analysis, capacity planning and management, vulnerability management, procedure and configuration documentation as well as project participation for any new and related projects.

Secondary duties will likely include support and administration of other database technologies – specifically MySQL.

Key Reponsibilities

• Plans, coordinates and administers matters related to all Tucows Oracle databases, including base definition, structures, documentation, upgrades, long-range requirements and capacity planning, operational guidelines and protection
• Evaluates and executes requests for database configuration changes. Provides input to development and reporting teams to support efficient usage of Oracle resources
• Ensures accuracy and completeness of data in master files and various support tools, such as base dictionaries
• Establishes and maintains security integrity controls according to Tucows‚Äô policies
• Formulates and monitors policies, procedures and standards relating to database management
• Will be called upon to plan and direct the following: troubleshooting, recovery, tuning of the database, software installation and upgrades, resolving Oracle errors and failures, auditing activities, and resource utilization
• Secondary objective will be to take on the above responsibilities for MySQL and Postgres production databases on a timetable appropriate for the skill level

Ideal Candidate Profile

Related experience / skill set:

• Minimum of 5 years of related experience
• A seasoned and experienced Oracle Database professional with a full understanding of industry practices and company policies and procedures
• Must be able to resolve a wide range of issues in creative as well as practical ways
• Ideal candidate would also have experience as a MySQL DBA or developer
• Will work on problems of diverse scope where analysis of data requires evaluation of identifiable and intangible factors. Must demonstrate good judgment in selecting methods and techniques for obtaining solutions

Educational requirements:

• Successful completion of post-secondary education in Computer Sciences or Information Technology
• Oracle DBA Certification considered an asset

Required interpersonal skills

• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Attention to detail required, must be methodical and thorough in problem solving
• Must be team-oriented with ability to work well with multiple teams in a cross-functional setup
• Highly adaptable with ability to work in a fast paced demanding environment
• Excellent time management skills to meet demanding timelines
• Excellent planning and documentation skills
• Self-motivated, with strong sense of ownership and urgency to deliver projects / tasks in a timely fashion

Data Center Technician [Update: This position has been filled!]

[This position has since been filled, but we're leaving the post up for reference.]

We're also looking for a data center technician, and here's the info about the position. Please note that this position involves travel to the UK and the US (a plus, in my opinion; I still like business travel), so it's open only to people who've got the necessary travel documents.

Main Purpose

As a Data Center Technician, you will be responsible for overseeing all Tucows collocation facilities with operational direction from the Data Centre Team lead. This includes adhering to defined Deployment standards, Change management processes and detailed documentation & inventory tracking.

Key Responsibilities

• Adhere to deployment & change standards for all Tucows collocation facilities
• In cooperation with the Data Centre Team Lead, maintenance of all related documentation including: to scale vertical rack diagrams (physical server/device layout for each rack); to scale ceiling rack diagrams (bird eye view of all racks); detailed power map (all circuits and type, attached PDUs, special connectors, etc.); remote power/PDU port inventory (for each server/device, what PDU(s) and port(s) are used); Ethernet cabling inventory (what Ethernet port used by each server/device); telecommunications service inventory/details
• Assist with all deployments at collocation facilities including: space planning/expansion; power requirements/deployment; rack assignment for all servers/devices; maintain inventory of all hardware at each collocation facility
• Candidate may be required to travel once a month on average to remote facilities in the US and the UK for 5 days at a time (excluding travel time) on average

Ideal Candidate Profile

Related experience / Unique skill set

• 2+ years related experience with collocation facility management
• Good understanding of electrical systems in a data centre environment including transformers, generators, UPS systems, PDUs, etc.
• Good understanding of mechanical systems in a data centre environment including chillers, airflow fundamentals, deployment best practices, etc.
• Good working knowledge of TCP/IP networking basics a strong asset
• Some working knowledge of server hardware including installation of hard drives, motherboards, memory, hard drives, etc.
• Windows and Linux Operating system experience an asset

Education

• Ideal candidate will have at least 2 years of post graduate experience in hands-on facilities management in a Data Centre environment

Interpersonal skills

• The ideal candidate will be able to maintain good relations with the NOC and Operations departments as well as the many vendors being managed to support the collocation facilities. The NOC and Operations departments would be considered the primary customer.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills

Other

• The candidate will be required to travel once a month on average to remote facilities in London and the US for 5 days at a time (excluding travel time) on average
• Must have ability to travel freely to international destinations

Those who know Tucows probably know us as either a) a download site or
b) a domain name company. Both of these are of course true, however
providing email services to ISPs and hosting companies is now a big
part of our business and one of our focuses going forward. We provide both a
fully hosted Email Service, where we host webmail, SMTP, POP, IMAP,
filtering, etc. and an Email Defense Service where we do the spam and
virus filtering, and then forward the clean mail to our customer’s mail
server. We currently have millions of paid-for mailboxes. In an effort
to create more awareness about what we do and to generate some
discussion on the spam topic, I wanted to give you some insight into
what we’re doing and get your opinions/thoughts on what you’re seeing
and hearing from your customers.

Since September 2006, we’ve seen a 100% increase in email attacks and
spam hitting our email services. In August we had just over 1 billion
email connections to our hosted Email Service and Email Defense Service
systems, which was relatively ‘normal’. However, what has happened
since then is something that I don’t think we or anyone else has
accurately projected. Steadily increasing since September, November
connections topped out at around 2 billion. This certainly kept our
24X7 Abuse Team and our systems hopping. What we saw is certainly in
line with what everyone else providing email services has seen,
although few of the other big players publish their numbers. A sample
stat is that the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) reports that the
number of distinct spoof Web sites rose 52% in October 2006 to a
record-shattering 37,444, up from 24,565 a month earlier.

In order to try to keep up with the mounting attacks, we added more IP
based filtering at both the network and application layer to block
connections at the door, worked diligently to improve filtering rules/
techniques and spent $1 million on our email infrastructure.

Even after doing that though, we’re not yet totally happy with how well
we’re defending against attack. Although we are definitely blocking a
ton of spam and keeping many people happy, because of the significant
overall volume increase and new tactics employed by spammers with image
spam, many end users are seeing more spam in their inbox than they were
used to.

One question I have is what is an acceptable accuracy rate? Do end
users expect 96% catch-rates with zero false-positives OR do they base
their acceptance on how many spam get through (not the percentage that
are caught). The ‘industry’ generally only talks about catch-rates and
accuracy, but more and more I think that end users only really care
about how much spam gets through to their inbox and everyone has their
own personal threshold. The people I’ve talked to tell me that they
don’t care nor do they find it acceptable that the spammer has launched
their annual fall spam campaign and this will result in their mailbox
having 10 spam instead of the normal 5 spam. Sure, deleting another 5
messages isn’t a big deal to some, but at the end of the day most
people just want it to go away. For me personally, I have about 100
messages a day that are put in my spam quarantine, but if 5 messages
get through the filter, I’m not happy.

Something almost all end users don’t realize is that we‚Äôre blocking a
lot more than they see even if they have a spam quarantine. Even though
it looks to me as if filtering caught 100 messages today, in fact for
every 100 put into quarantine many more have been blocked right at the
gate because of IP filtering/connection management mechanisms. I can
tell you that on average about 52% of connections are blocked by the IP
filters/connection management techniques versus 21% of connections that
is blocked by the content filters. A good chunk of these blocked
connections won’t be directed at the mailboxes we host, but are rather
Directory Harvest Attacks and other attacks directed at the domain. The
fact that the service they use is doing much more than is visible –
again, they probably don’t care. However, the cost of filtering mail is
only increasing and the more we move toward blocking mail at the door
and not saving everything in a quarantine, the less visible spam
filtering value end users will have in what the service provider is
doing for them and that’s assuming that the end user even looks at
their quarantine today.

If it’s true that end users really only care about how much spam gets
through to their inbox, then we all have some work to do. If people
care, we should do a much better job of educating (and for Tucows it
will need to start with many of you, our partners).
We want to be able to demonstrate to those of you that only outsource your
filtering to Tucows that we are doing a hell of a lot of work to protect
your email infrastructure by giving you visibility into all the attacks
that we‚Äôre blocking. And after that, maybe you’ll think about outsourcing
the pain of it all (email and filtering).

So tell us your thoughts…
What is an acceptable accuracy rate?
Are your customers noticing this influx? How are you dealing?

Here's yet another job opening: MySQL System Administrator. Here's the info I have on the position:

Primary responsibility will be the administration and pro-active management of 24×7 MySQL Production environments. This position will require being part of a Tier 2 on-call rotation schedule. Primary duties will encompass responsibility for various Tucows‚Äô MySQL databases including proactive monitoring and problem resolution, trend analysis, capacity planning and management, vulnerability management, procedure and configuration documentation as well as project participation for any new and related projects.

Secondary duties will include support and administration of other database technologies – specifically Oracle and possibly Postgres.

The position's key responsibilities are:

• Planning, coordinating and administering matters related to all Tucows‚Äô MySQL databases, including base definition, structures, documentation, upgrades, long-range requirements and capacity planning, operational guidelines and protection
• Evaluating and executing requests for database configuration changes. Providing input to development and reporting teams to support efficient usage of MySQL resources
• Ensuring accuracy and completeness of data in master files and various support tools, such as base dictionaries
• Establishing and maintaining security integrity controls according to Tucows‚Äô policies
• Formulating and monitoring policies, procedures and standards relating to database management
• You'll be called upon to plan and direct the following:
     
  • Troubleshooting
  • Recovery
  • Tuning of the database
  • Software installation and upgrades
  • Resolving MySQL errors and failures
  • Auditing activities
  • Resource utilization
• Transition into taking on similar responsibilities for Oracle and/or Postgres Production environments on an appropriate timetable for skill level with Oracle and Postgres

Here's the experience and skill set we're looking for:

• Minimum of 5 years of related experience
• A seasoned and experienced MySQL Database professional with a full understanding of industry practices and company policies and procedures
• Must be able to resolve a wide range of issues in creative as well as practical ways
• Ideal candidate would also have experience as an Oracle or Postgres DBA or Developer
• Will work on problems of diverse scope where analysis of data requires evaluation of identifiable and intangible factors. Must demonstrate good judgment in selecting methods and techniques for obtaining solutions.

Think you're up to the job? Apply by emailing your resume and cover letter to hrdept@tucows.com; be sure to include MySQL Sysadmin in the email's subject line.

Here's another job position we need to fill: Technical Support Analyst. Here are the details of the position…

The Technical Support Analyst provides responsive technical support to customers in solving product functionality problems. S/he may also provide background support for other Tier 2 team members.

The responsibilities of the position include:

• Responding to customers' telephone or email queries regarding problems
• Monitoring major customer environments to ensure a high level of system / application availability
• Determining the nature and likely causes of the problem, recommends corrective action and guides the customer through the necessary steps
• Reviewing more urgent or complex problems with product support to ensure appropriate measures are taken
• Acting as interface with third party suppliers (these may be internal or external contacts)
• Assisting Quality Assurance by testing products and reporting problems
• Makeing recommendations regarding technical support procedures
• Training employees on products and technical procedures
• Providing technical support and assistance to sales personnel and customers through the selling cycle
• Providing product installation and customization as well as after-sale support

Technical support is one of our branches where we need to be available to our customers at odd hours, so please note that to qualify for the position:

• You must be able to work eight-hour shifts between the hours of 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM
• You may be required to perform on-call / shift work over weekends

Requirements for the position are:

   
• 2 – 3 years' experience in a Call center customer support environment (e-mail and phone support)

   

• Ability to document frequently asked questions (eg., “How do I perform this procedure?”)

   

• Experience and strong understanding of at least some of the following:
         
  • Web based email packages
  • Managed DNS packages
  • DNS Management tools
  • Blog software
  • Website building software

   

• 2 years experience administering email and web servers (Apache, Stronghold, Microsoft, IIS)

   

• Experience with:
         
  • Linux on Intel (Red Hat)
  • Solaris on SPARC/Intel (versions 2.5.1, 2.6, 7)       
  • BSD-based systems on Intel (FreeBSD)
  • Perl scripting
  • SQL
  • Microsoft SQL Server (versions 7.0, 2000, 2005)
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2003 Server

   

• Experience with the following would be beneficial:
         
  • Mail (Sendmail, IMAP, POP)       
  • FTP (wu ftpd, ncftpd)       
  • PHP programming skills       
  • Familiarity with Banter ticketing system   

Since the position involves dealing with customers, you're going to need the following “soft skills”:

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to learn new applications quickly
• Attention to detail required, must be methodical and thorough in problem solving
• “Team player”
• Strong customer service orientation
• Ability to maintain a calm, professional approach when dealing with difficult customers

Here are the educational requirements:

A degree or diploma in Computer Science or equivalent, and / or a minimum of 1-2 years experience in an Internet / customer support related environment (related environments are for example Bell call center, Level II support for a mid-sized ISP, etc.)

If this sounds like a job you'd like to take on, be sure to download the full job description [You can apply by emailing your resume and cover letter to hrdept@tucows.com; be sure to include Technical Support Analyst in the email's subject line.

One of the positions that we need to fill is Customer Service Representative. First, let me quote the official job description:

The Customer Service Representative will be responsible for managing all customer support activities for Tucows Retail customers. This will include pre-sales, billing, accounts and technical support. The candidate will be responsible for solving customer account issues in a fast paced environment ranging from billing and registration to technical support of purchased technology services. The right candidate will be able to act & respond as the end-customer’s advocate, not only in resolving issues, but also ensuring that the customer has the right product/service to meet their needs & requirements.

The official job description goes on to provide the expected bullet points, such as:

• [The customer service rep] determines the nature and likely causes of the problem, recommends corrective action and guides the customer through the necessary steps.
• [The customer service rep] provides pre-sales and customer account support to ensure that the customer has purchased the ideal product.
• On required experience: Minimum of 1-2 years experience in an Internet/customer support related environment, providing support to customers over the phone and via email (candidates with ISP / Web hosting experience will be given preference).
• [Customer services reps must be] Able to think outside the box and evaluate issues from a non-linear perspective

However, the best part of the job description is prefaced with “From the Horse's Mouth”, in which our Customer Support Manager Geoffrey Assing simply describes the person he's looking for to fill the position:

Tucows offers a complex set of products and services to our customers. We are looking for someone who can come in and hit the ground running, with a minimum of training and handholding. Our goal is to provide our customers with exceptional service; and we want them to be delighted, not only in the technical competence of our employees, but also with their knowledge and empathy for our customers’ situation.

The right candidate is able to talk in a way our customer can understand, is accurate and has an eye for detail. We’re looking for someone that wants to build a long-term relationship with the customer and is always looking out for their best interests, as well as the best interests of Tucows.

Once again, the full job description is here.

Does this sound like the job for you? You can apply by emailing your resume and cover letter to hrdept@tucows.com; be sure to include [Cus-2007-01-09-272] Customer Service Representative in the email's subject line.