I'm a bit puzzled by this. If Red gate is so desperate to get new workforce, why to they still insist on "valid UK work permit"?
I'm from Croatia and would kill to work at Red gate in UK, ipad or no ipad giveaway :)
I'd really like to hear other HN'ers thought on this one.
The average quality of their graduates is pretty high, and as Red Gate are already in Cambridge, they need just a little kick to get the best people to come talk to them, rather than one of the investment banks (at the moment, only about half of the CS grads actually go and work in IT). It's not intended to get people to travel the globe to work for them, nor do they really want that hassle.
No, it's not. It's really targeting the great software engineers and testers who are already working, maybe bored in their current job and need a new challenge, but who are reluctant to move in the current economic climate.
As for OP - you're correct, we require you already to have a work permit. The bureaucracy and costs are too high, which does mean we lose some great people, but there's not a lot we can do to change that situation.
Once you have one you can work for pretty much any employer in the UK (their is a minimum salary threshold I believe, but most software dev jobs should be comfortably above it).