Polytec
The Cambridge recruitment agency specialising in scientific and engineering roles
Started in 2003, the Polytec website was my first project as an independent developer, and remains a classic example of the kind of work I specialise in.
https://www.polytec.co.uk
Synchronisation and automation
The keystone of the Polytec website is a synchronisation process that connects to a remote MS SQL Server fetches jobs data then removes vacancies that have been filled and adds new ones, as well as posting them to 3rd-party job boards.
Mailing list / job alerts
Candidates can subscribe to receive notifications of new jobs by email, either as a daily list or within an hour of a new vacancy being posted. Email job matching can be refined using keywords and categories.
Longevity
www.polytec.co.uk has survived 4 major PHP version upgrades 9 Debian releases, a switch from Apache to Nginx and has lived on at least half a dozen servers in 4 or 5 different data centres, pretty much error free - apart from a couple of hosting hiccups in the early years. One was when I was trialling a new Zeus-based service - multiple disks failed in the main RAID during a back-up routine that took the shine off a family holiday. The other was when a safety test in a docklands data centre burnt out a fuse board and the building had to be evacuated for what felt like a very long time, before the fire service eventually allowed engineers to get things back up and running. Something like 1,500 ISPs across Europe had a bad day that day.
Generally though it's a sold workhorse of a site that just does its job, and is on track to reach its 20th birthday ticking along now as well as when it was first written.