[HN Gopher] It's great to be a consultant
___________________________________________________________________
It's great to be a consultant
Author : ingve
Score : 181 points
Date : 2022-01-18 12:08 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (zwischenzugs.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (zwischenzugs.com)
| chasd00 wrote:
| I work for a very very large firm. Consulting will always be a
| relationship business first and everything else second. All the
| really valuable things I've worked in all start with "well I know
| someone in DC that has done X and I know a guy out in Seattle
| that has a team that does Y, let's get a call together and talk
| about solving Z.
| misthop wrote:
| Number 1: You are outside the company hierarchy
|
| This talks about not getting stuck in the politics of the company
| and having the authority/right to instigate change. It can be
| equally validly read as:
|
| Number 1: If your company is hiring consultants that are outside
| the hierarchy you have a potentially toxic political business
| culture and should look for a new job
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| Aa an ex consultant I (re?)discovered a paradox
|
| If a company is competent they don't need consultants
|
| If a company is incompetent they can't use consultants
|
| Yet consultants exist ...
| Foobar8568 wrote:
| Or you will be fast out project if you ever side with the wrong
| "persons"(oh and don't forget the regular 6months reorg ).
|
| Overall it's a positive thing indeed, but as
| consultant/contractor, you will never be immune to politics and
| company hierarchy.
| dx034 wrote:
| Number 1 annoyed me most when I was in consulting and was one
| of the main reasons I quit. You can always give recommendations
| but have no leverage whatsoever if all advise is ignored and
| the work you did for months just lands in some archive. And
| even if that's clear from the start (and the work is just to
| tick some boxes), you might not be able to afford to lose that
| client by refusing the work. Working for months knowing that
| the output will be looked at once and discarded was too
| frustrating to me, no matter the perks and other advantages the
| job had.
|
| All of that can happen as an employee, but usually you have
| some leverage via management or your internal network to either
| get results into action or stop projects if it's clear they
| don't make sense (one of the reasons they're then given to
| consultants instead if management insists they're done).
| cableshaft wrote:
| Basically the same thing has happened to me at two different
| corporations as an employee, I worked on big projects for
| months that never saw the light of day, although I didn't
| know that would be the case ahead of time.
|
| In one case the lead developer quit and the manager suddenly
| decided to scrap the project and hire a consultant firm to do
| the rest. In another I worked for six months on a project
| that would be 'the future of the department' they were going
| to sell to major companies, got it to a UAT state, showed it
| to the client, and the client dragged their feet on signing
| contracts for it for months, then they decided they were
| going to replicate it in-house, an oh, could you share all
| your business logic with us so we don't have to recreate it
| from scratch (thankfully our company told them to get fucked
| on that request).
|
| It did seem nuts we were doing work without a signed
| contract, but apparently that's just how the healthcare
| industry works, if you waited until the contracts were signed
| you'd miss the open enrollment window for some of these, the
| most important time of the year for these things to be
| working, so the corporation I worked for (a large
| corporation) decided they needed to get a several month head
| start without a signed contract, and were overconfident it
| would eventually be signed.
|
| That same corporation also had a project for some grand
| overhaul of their systems (and intended to unify several
| departments that all had their own systems, since they were
| originally bought and merged companies). We were one of the
| departments that were supposed to merge with that new
| software, and I know it still wasn't ready six years later
| (might have been scrapped, but I'm not sure).
| Copenjin wrote:
| I'm happy for him but it was obvious even without reaching the
| end of the post that he's been a consultant only for two years or
| so. The consultant's life is not all sunshine and rainbows. Every
| one of his points, except 2, have huge downsides.
| ssiddharth wrote:
| Off topic but for those curious: the blog is named after a chess
| tactic: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwischenzug (Also called
| an intermezzo or an intermediate/in between move.)
|
| As a chess nerd, I perked up after reading the domain. I figured
| it was maybe something about being a super GM's second or
| something along those lines but nope.
| belter wrote:
| Don't become a Consultant before reading Weinberg:
| https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/174075.Gerald_M_Weinbe...
|
| For example the "Orange Juice Test" is a classic, I have used
| multiple times. Either as Consultant or a customer of services as
| many of us are daily.
| mettamage wrote:
| > When you're an internal employee, you're often encouraged to
| 'stay in your box' and not disturb the existing hierarchy. By
| contrast, as a consultant you don't need to worry as much about
| the internal politics or history when suggesting changes. Indeed,
| you're often encouraged to step outside your boundaries and make
| suggestions.
|
| What companies encourage this? I want to work for these
| companies. I have the feeling that companies like EY, Accenture,
| Deloitte and PWC don't encourage this. I also feel that McKinsey,
| BCG and Bain don't fully encourage this. So which companies are
| good to work for?
|
| I am not looking to become a consultant per se. I simply know
| that I step outside of boundaries by default [1]. I am clueless
| in this, I need a career coach. I don't know how to find a good
| career coach.
|
| What I have liked to do in the past (personal/professional):
| pentesting, Python, C++, JavaScript, data scraping, building web
| apps, data analysis, improving business processes, trading
| (signal trading), investing (value investing) and playing poker
| (standard math of hand ranges, pot odds, fold equity, etc.).
|
| [1] Example: at one company I was a programmer and I saw an
| approach to improve their business model. This has helped the
| company to generate 10% more revenue. As a result they get pissed
| because I am not programming enough.
| mcnichol wrote:
| You might have an approach that is unlikable.
|
| I say this because I am exactly that. I often cut straight to
| the point and can't really read the room. I think I'm helping
| and being brutally honest when in reality it comes off
| condescending or arrogant.
|
| I heard a quote that I really like, honesty without kindness is
| cruelty. That helped me rethink my approach towards how I
| communicate.
| mettamage wrote:
| Thanks, this helps.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| > I think I'm helping and being brutally honest when in
| reality it comes off condescending or arrogant.
|
| > honesty without kindness is cruelty
|
| That is so very spot on. I strongly identify with this, great
| quote.
| willcipriano wrote:
| The alternative is the Willy Wonka mindset. You tell them
| the right thing to do and half heartedly say "No... stop...
| don't"[0] as they go with the plan that is presented in a
| manner more conducive to their ego and feelings.
|
| If I wanted to go through the song and dance of buttering
| everyone up so they will do what I say, why bother coming
| up with a good idea as well? I'd just say the first thing
| that comes to mind. In fact, that might be why the ideas
| that get acted upon tend to be so bad. What's the point of
| the quality of the idea has no impact in it's odds for
| adoption?
|
| [0]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uVdDXeYM4ss
| eastbayjake wrote:
| I wouldn't characterize great consultants as "not worrying"
| about politics or history -- a large part of the job is change
| management, not just finding the "right" answer but helping
| ensure it is actually acted on and has impact.
|
| But McKinsey does include "maintain an independent perspective"
| as one of our core values, and entrepreneurship (i.e. not just
| "staying in your box") is a common expectation across all our
| people whether they do strategy work or help clients build
| software. If you're interested in learning more, we're hiring:
| https://www.mckinsey.com/careers/search-jobs/jobs/seniorsoft...
| mettamage wrote:
| Unfortunately, I am not a senior software engineer. I have 2
| years of experience in different stacks and a master CS. As
| far as I understand it, that makes me medior at best.
| eastbayjake wrote:
| There are lots of digital roles available in "Search Jobs":
| https://www.mckinsey.com/careers/search-
| jobs?interest=Digita...
|
| Software Engineer may be a better fit, you'll need to
| select your preferred region but here's a representative US
| role in client consulting:
| https://www.mckinsey.com/careers/search-
| jobs/jobs/softwareen...
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Counter argument for those who think consulting is "great"
| (because it's not - at least from a business owners perspective).
|
| TLDR: consulting has huge variable costs, you have to float A LOT
| of money, no reoccurring revenue, difficult to differentiate
| since people are your "product".
|
| - the business model of consulting is extremely grinding,
| difficult and exhausting for business owners
|
| - your "product" is your people, which causes all kinds of
| business problems
|
| - the only way to scale revenue is to hire more people
|
| - more people means you need more billable hours, which means you
| need more customers in an industry that DOES NOT HAVE REOCCURRING
| revenue. As such, if you try to sell your consultancy - you get
| extremely low multiples on revenue.
|
| - cash flow becomes a MASSIVE PROBLEM because there are hard
| costs to pre-sales actives to win business, and even after
| business is won, you have to float your staff salaries typically
| 45-90 days until billing kicks in. (think about that for a
| moment, if you have 10 employees who you pay $120k/year/each, if
| 90 days is the float time, that $300k in cash reserves you need
| just because of float (3 months * $10k/mo * 10 employees)
|
| - when you're not billable, that's literally costing you money in
| order to pay your staff. You can QUICKLY become unprofitable in a
| matter of just a few months.
|
| - You're margin is inverse rated to billable time. E.g. if you
| are marking up your staff's salaries by 30%, that means to
| breakeven - that staff needs to be billable 70% of the year. (And
| that is assuming $0 presales/marketing/etc costs)
|
| Again, consulting is a brutal business to be in.
| sails wrote:
| Great summary. Consulting not a great business to build to
| sell.
|
| Curious how these businesses possibly survive a slower market?
|
| Only thing I can imagine is the job market slows proportionally
| and your people/staff won't have better options.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| For tech consulting, there was a lot of layoff unless a
| services contract committed contractual spend. Keep in mind,
| staff augmentation / time & materials is a very common
| contractual model - which has no committed spend.
|
| Also, another point I didn't mention above is Marketing
| Agencies and Lawyers. These business are fundamentally
| "consulting". The massive difference is that (a) these
| industries found ways that allowed them to capture more
| revenue than just billing time, e.g. lawyers can get a % of a
| cash settlement case, or marketing agencies can get a % of ad
| spend from a company, and (b) they found ways to help with
| the cash flow float by creating "retainer" vehicles.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| 6. The sense of relief when your invoice is paid is amazing.
|
| 7. Having to go into projects that really don't make sense but
| pay your bills teaches diplomacy and patience.
|
| 8. Having long-term financial committments on the one hand
| (mortgage, school and medical bills etc.) and short-term
| uncertain revenue is an interesting mental exercise to engage in.
|
| The last one is the killer for me I think, having dabbled in this
| area. I wonder (genuinely, not sarcastically) how many proponents
| of consulting are in this boat.
|
| Probably varies a lot by locale btw, if you can rely on state
| schooling and have a strong social security net it's very
| different.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| the last one is the toughest, and really comes down to how
| strong your stomach is and how your business model is
| structured - e.g. it can't be hourly & net 60, more like flat-
| fee, 50% upfront.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| The solution is an old financial trick that has fallen a bit
| out of fashion: saving. Not spending everything you earn.
| It's easy given the very decent consulting rates in software.
| Sometimes I wonder if everyone is financially illiterate
| now...
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| For management consultants, charging more is a far better
| signal than austerity.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Saving smooths the earnings to some extent, but the
| fundamental issue remains. Mortgages and schools are
| financial committments for decades.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Given how much money you can charge as a consultant, is not
| terribly hard to live well within your limits and tolerate a
| temporary lack of jobs.
|
| That can be the chance to learn something or build some other
| passive income stream.
|
| I think the main problem is that most people, once they can
| charge 1000PS per day, they go and blow a lot of it on
| expensive holidays and an expensive lifestyle.
| arbitrary_name wrote:
| You could work for a consulting company, collect a regular and
| stable paycheck, and still get the same experience.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Do like I (and the author of the article seems to do) do:
|
| Work for a consulting company.
|
| Company have sales, accounting and a lawyer.
|
| I have all the benefits described in the article.
| sam_lowry_ wrote:
| Consulting companies take a cut and and working for one
| company closes more doors that it opens.
|
| Businesses usually have a handful of preferred suppliers they
| source consultant from, as well as black lists.
|
| One thing a consultant has to figure out is how the
| procurement works in places they want to join. Some things
| are surprisingly public, like many tendering websites. You do
| not have to answer to a tender directly, but you can always
| check who is winning and who is likely to need more people
| aboard and apply using that knowledge.
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| They do "take a cut", but signing up and managing
| relationships with big companies is extraordinarily
| difficult, time consuming and expensive.
|
| If you are working through one boutique consultancy you
| aren't actually doing too badly. Sometimes you'll be
| working through a system integrator, through a boutique
| consultancy, and through a staffing agency. And to some
| degree they are all delivering _some_ value, simply because
| working with big corporates is so painful and getting
| direct relationships is so difficult.
| haspok wrote:
| You are also paid peanuts (compared to real
| contractors/consultants), and you have close to zero say of
| what projects / clients you get to work on / with. And you
| are essentially just a cost cell in an excel spreadsheet for
| the HR of the consulting company (interestingly, clients may
| respect you more).
|
| At least that was my experience. So you can have the best of
| both worlds, or the worst...
| eitland wrote:
| Well, you can do as I do and work for a company that is
| owned by the employees. I have plenty to say about were I
| work as long as there is a good opportunity and if there
| are none that our sales team can find I wouldn't have found
| them on my own anyways I'm afraid ;-)
|
| But yes, I still only have a very good salary, not what HN
| would expect for "real contractors" but it is stable and
| worry free and I have good colleagues.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| In my experience and from what I hear, the rates are nothing
| like working for yourself - just the usual distribution of
| salaries for what you work on. If it's SAP consulting, yeah
| you might earn well (Germany - SAP stuff pays like 50%+
| more).
| varispeed wrote:
| 9. In many countries job is viewed as a tax dodge and people
| become hostile if you tell them you work as a consultant. Often
| this messaging is sponsored by big corporations providing
| consulting services - they hate independent consultants and
| spend a lot on lobbying to make it as difficult and costly as
| possible to work as independent.
| danjac wrote:
| Social security systems in European countries tend to be based
| around people earning a regular salary losing their jobs,
| rather than consultants having occasional dry spells between
| projects. This is a problem with the gig economy in general -
| our social security nets aren't very well designed for it
| (perhaps an argument in favour of UBI, or at least some
| different thinking into how social security should work for the
| growing precariat).
| brtkdotse wrote:
| The answer to this is "charge more". You should be pulling in
| _at least_ 2 hours worth of payroll costs (note: not 2 hours
| of pay) for each worked hour. This give you a buffer for
| lulls.
| potamic wrote:
| Could you elaborate? What's payroll costs?
| AitchEmArsey wrote:
| They mean the costs a company would bear for you if you
| were a full-time employee. This includes your theoretical
| employment salary plus extra costs an employer pays for
| having that employee on their books, for example in the
| UK there is employers national insurance (tax), as well
| as other overheads like a fractional contribution to
| office space and software licenses.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| You can't expect society to pay for you regularly if you
| choose to become a consultant. You need to charge more and
| keep a buffer.
| danjac wrote:
| If someone pays the same taxes and contributions into
| society as others, then surely they are entitled to
| something in return? I get there's no easy answer here but
| gig workers are also "consultants" who may not be earning
| enough to build a buffer.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| Exactly. Generally consultants can reduce their tax
| liability in various ways.
|
| Gig workers who not earning enough would be better off
| with a permie low paid job, if they were able to get one.
| Unfortunately, a lot of people are not useful enough to
| society to contribute and live in some places - I think
| the solution is to send them somewhere else where they
| can be useful and find a job.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| Well yes, they do get something in return for their
| taxes, don't they?
|
| As far as gig workers, they do get something in return
| for the instability, which is (in theory) higher hourly
| pay and more flexible achedules. If they aren't getting
| this, they aren't really gig workers and should be
| labelled as employees, but if they are, they get a
| benefit for the risk they take.
|
| Personally I think that many gig workers should be simply
| classified as normal employees.
|
| Another issue is that gig workers and consultants don't
| pay for unemployment insurance at all, so they're
| actually not paying the same contributions as others.
| [deleted]
| ciphol wrote:
| TLDR suffering builds character?
| stronglikedan wrote:
| yes, as long as you're the type that doesn't try to blame all
| your suffering on externalities, whatever doesn't kill you
| makes you stronger.
| WJW wrote:
| This is such a dumb saying. People who got into (say) a car
| crash and lost control of all their limbs surely did not
| get any stronger. Neither did the army veterans who spend
| the rest of their days traumatized after seeing their
| entire squad blown up.
|
| There is a vast array of options to get weaker even if you
| have the right mindset.
| stuckkeys wrote:
| I quit my job few months back. CEO was just starting to project
| so much negativity on my path that I had it. "I fuked his wife
| and I left" Totally kidding, I was thinking about the Step
| Brothers scene lol. Anyway humor aside, I been struggling in what
| to do, and what path to take. Been registering bunch of domains,
| thinking on creating some micro startups. But whenever I want to
| dive into my projects, I just lose interest. Maybe it is the
| midlife crisis, maybe the pandemic. I blame myself. I really like
| the consultation idea. I love to automate things. ReverseE
| software. Some of the comments here are pumping hype into my
| vision. What really motivates you?
| [deleted]
| yawnxyz wrote:
| Being a good consultant is so incredibly difficult. You have to
| do the work, but in the other hours you have to do the client
| management, marketing, accounting, etc. etc.
|
| It's thankless and it's tough. Unless of course you've built a
| network of well-to-do companies over the years that you could tap
| into and pay you for various services. Then you can just rely on
| your network.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Travel killed it for me. I worked on a niche product and that
| meant I had to go where the work was. My kids were young so I
| took a financial hit and switched to selling my own products.
| Dave3of5 wrote:
| This is purely an advert for the company. I don't count any of
| these to be "Great":
|
| * You are outside the company hierarchy - That means you actually
| have 0 power normally. Most consultants / contractors I've worked
| with have to do exactly what they are hired for no more or less.
| Permies generally have a bit of wiggle room and you should get
| more the further up the pole you go
|
| * You have to keep learning - That's right slow down for even a
| year and you can be left behind in consulting. At least as a
| permie I can catch up at my own pace
|
| * You get more exposure - For the types of companies that hire
| consultants this is a downside. The exposure you be getting is to
| toxic workplaces. They even admit this in the JD "the customers
| we work with will use legacy practices and technologies. "
|
| * You meet lots of people - I already have plenty people in my
| life this isn't a positive for most programmers it's a negative.
|
| You know who's the first to be fired when times are a bit more
| rough...
| jasonkester wrote:
| _You have to keep learning - That 's right slow down for even a
| year and you can be left behind in consulting._
|
| That's not what this means.
|
| You're not being brought in for your knowledge of new tech X.
| You're there because you've demonstrated that you're smart.
|
| They know that they can drop you in sideways to a broken
| project in an unfamiliar stack, with confidence that you'll be
| committing code the first day.
|
| That's where the "learning new things" comes is. Fast, and on
| the fly.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| I'm not convinced consultant style learning is THAT useful.
|
| I know my AWS, I can be tossed into learning whatever product
| a client needs. The problem is that AWS is such a varied
| product that has its individual quirks that might not
| actually mesh properly with other services.
|
| Sure I can probably deploy completely unfamiliar product
| fairly quicky, but without owning the product medium-longish
| term, you have no idea if it was actually properly deployed,
| meaning whatever you learned probably wasn't the best way to
| do a thing
| AitchEmArsey wrote:
| Throwing something together based on unfamiliar components
| is indeed a bad move and likely to get you a bad reputation
| as a consultant. On the flip side, a permanent employee who
| wallows in analysis paralysis isn't adding any value to the
| company.
|
| It all just depends on where the client culture fits on the
| "move fast and break things" spectrum.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I disagree being a consultant is that much different. You can
| have the same attitude as a permie.
|
| What are they going to do? Fire you? Cool story, worst case
| scenario you'll get a pay rise in another company with a similar
| setup.
|
| The real difference is that you can skip on paying social
| contributions, be more tax efficient, work more (you can ignore
| holidays if you feel like it) and charge more.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| Also: when the client makes sub-optimal decisions you can take
| solace in the fact that you won't be around to deal with the
| consequences. And if it causes you to bill more hours - it's a
| bonus!
| elb2020 wrote:
| A consultant should at least voice his opinion, I think, and
| not actively stay silent just to generate more billable hours.
| It might be slightly different for a contractor, but a
| consultant is, generally, hired for his knowledge.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| It is not like employees stick around that long either anyway.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| Employees usually stick around longer than 6-18 months (that
| was my typical engagement length range when I was
| consulting.)
| dx034 wrote:
| But do you want to work on projects that you already expect to
| fail? Money isn't everything, seeing your work in action and
| how it improved the organization or the life of others is much
| more rewarding imo.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > But do you want to work on projects that you already expect
| to fail? Money isn't everything, seeing your work in action
| and how it improved the organization or the life of others is
| much more rewarding imo.
|
| 100% this. Doing a career retrospective as a long time
| consultant was very sobering: lots of 404s.
| GiorgioG wrote:
| Once you've started an engagement, you probably shouldn't up
| and quit because you disagree with a decision. As a
| consultant there's only so much you can do.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I was a consultant for the first 13 years or so of my career,
| then switched to working on one product. I agree with everything
| he said, but there are downsides too.
|
| The downsides for me were:
|
| * You rarely (almost never) get to work on multiple iterations of
| a product. You parachute in to get something working before
| launch, or fix the work of some other contractor, or (in the most
| fun case) to take an idea from zero to launch. But, in all my
| time, I never got to do the version of that, where we learned
| what didn't work and then made changes to improve things after
| launch. That's a huge part of product development, but it's
| simply not part of the model of consulting. After completing your
| contract, you'd Fulton out of that company and drop in to a
| different contract. If you want to stand by your work in the long
| term, and have the feeling of shepherding something to success,
| you won't get it as a consultant.
|
| * The flip side of always learning is that you have to learn
| whatever stupid stack you've inherited from the client. Always
| different. Yes, you will always be learning, never in your
| comfort zone, and if you work with startups, you may even be on
| the cutting edge. But, that can also get real old after a few
| years.
|
| * The business side can swing wildly from feast to famine. When I
| was an IC, I would spend weeks not doing anything because there
| wasn't a contract for me. Can be fun to sit around, but the
| novelty wears off when you realize your job may be on the cutting
| block 4-5 times a year, just due to what lineup of clients are
| coming through the sales funnel at the time.
|
| * Related to the above, I think there is just a fundamental
| problem with the business model for consultancy shops that will
| tend to make them unstable in the long term: you have to staff up
| to get new contracts, then when those contracts run out, you
| either lose those employees (if they are not salaried) or spend a
| ton of money as they wait around for the next contract (if they
| are). You end up going for new contracts, but if those contracts
| don't exactly match your roster of available staff, you have to
| hire new people. As time goes on, you end up making bigger and
| bigger bets with staffing, and eventually you lose. I saw this
| happen so many times. The result is not that the company goes out
| of business, but that there are huge layoffs, with such a massive
| change in company culture, that it is effectively a different
| company afterward.
| lorenzfx wrote:
| This very much mirrors my experience.
|
| I would like to add, that for people with little professional
| experience, working in a consultancy can accelerate the rate at
| which work experience is gained (by working on different
| projects, perhaps at different clients and with different
| technologies). This also expects a lot of commitment and
| willingness to learn (as pointed out in the article).
|
| As an added benefit, one has the chance to look at the inner
| workings of a lot of different companies if one doesn't want to
| stay in consulting forever.
| cm2012 wrote:
| If you're good at it and have a good network, consulting is
| always better than FTE work. You make more money, grow your
| network faster, have more flexibility, etc. I was a consultant
| for 5 years and now run an agency, and I currently have ~50
| consultants I work with across various projects.
|
| That "if" is big though. If you're not good at it, you won't keep
| clients. If you don't have a good network, you'll be stuck with
| low end SMB clients that aren't lucrative.
| vasili111 wrote:
| How to grow network when you do not have it? Any advices to
| person who wants to get in to consultancy and do not knows
| where to start?
| dboreham wrote:
| If you are willing to invest your time, open source projects
| can be a low barrier to entry route. Show up, work on a
| project for free, now you have a network. Probably you don't
| actually have to work for free either because there are some
| open source projects with funding.
| DarylZero wrote:
| Networking through cash-starved open source projects
| doesn't seem like a great idea.
|
| > Probably you don't actually have to work for free either
| because there are some open source projects with funding.
|
| It's not so easy to get that funding. Even founders of
| projects can't get adequate funding. A one-off "drive-by"
| contributor will not typically be compensated at all.
| cm2012 wrote:
| Your first network is co-workers, so being hired at a big or
| venture backed company with well connected co-workers is a
| good start. If you get a job doing consulting at a consulting
| company, you'll meet new companies all the time in a risk
| free way.
|
| Your second network is physical events - meet-ups,
| conferences. Note, these should be technical for your field
| of expertise, not like a business networking meet-up, which
| suck.
|
| Third is your online presence - the open source communities
| you submit to, twitter connections you've replied
| intelligently to, etc.
| taubek wrote:
| I've never worked as a consultant, but I look at that profession
| as the one that should bring new knowledge to someone that needs
| it. If done properly this is great :)
| itsmemattchung wrote:
| While I agree with almost all his points -- especially you have
| to keep learning -- there are of course trade offs with
| consulting. In my opinion (as someone who's been running their
| own consulting company for only 5 months), the major challenges
| are non-technical. Yes -- consulting can be _very_ lucrative but
| there 's a whole other side to running a consulting company:
| sales & marketing. Without building a proper sales pipeline, you
| will experience the feast or famine, the constant up and downs.
| sails wrote:
| When you transition and you leave your old perm role, offer them
| your time via consulting to keep the lights on in whatever you
| were involved in (they will likely want this if you were any
| good...) but ensure you do two things:
|
| 1. plan for rate increases that very meaningfully increase as
| time goes on
|
| 2. keep an eye on when they transition from "glad not to have
| lost you" to "taking you for granted" and when this happens, it
| is time to move on and fire them as a client
|
| * both of these presume you are successful in finding, pleasing
| and retaining new clients
| wojciii wrote:
| I like being a consultant.
|
| Prior to becoming one I discovered that .. I get bored easily and
| shitty management makes me change jobs (unless I get fired first
| for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time).
|
| I work for a consulting company. They pay could be better but at
| least I get paid for the time that I spend instead of expected to
| put a "reasonable" amount of time per week no matter what the
| problem that I need to solve is.
|
| Now I ask for a new assignment after a year or two and avoid
| having to look for work.
|
| There seems to be a continuous need for people who can write
| embedded software..
| nunez wrote:
| 100%.
|
| Since you usually work across an org chart (not _in_ an org
| chart), and the company is paying more for your time than their
| FTEs, you can make great impact in relatively little time.
| Consulting is also great if you have trouble staying at a single
| place, as you usually don't spend more than a few months at any
| given assignment. (Usually. I know consultants who are on multi-
| year assignments with a single client. Those projects are usually
| very large.)
|
| The disadvantage of being a consultant to large companies is that
| you're usually not working at the cutting edge, though this
| depends on the context for your presence. You're more likely to
| go deep (i.e. tweaking kernels, re-compiling source for major OSS
| products, etc.) if you're with $CLOUD_PROVIDER working with a
| client spending millions/year with them than if you're with a
| boutique consulting shop doing high-level strategy for which
| technical implementation is a minor factor. This is usually
| patched by your consulting company's bench time policy.
|
| A consulting company is only as good as the consultants they
| employ. Good consulting companies hire opportunistically (i.e.
| ahead of their sales pipeline) and budget large bench times. In
| other words, their profit models plan for their consultants to
| spend, say, 30% of the year unassigned so that they can
| train/work on personal projects/breathe/etc.
|
| Not-so-good consulting companies (IMO) (or very sales-driven
| consulting companies) hire just-in-time and expect their
| consultants to be staffed more than 85% of the year, with any
| training done after-hours or during the weekend. These outfits
| typically operate closer to agencies or contingent labor shops
| where profit is directly proportional to the number of people
| they staff, but some newer consulting companies start off like
| this (because it's easier) but never aim for the former model
| (because it's more expensive).
| AitchEmArsey wrote:
| I moved from a boutique operating like your second model, to a
| >$1B consulting firm operating the other way. While I would
| recommend both employers, the quality of life improvement from
| making the switch has been dramatic. I do miss the highs of
| working with a small team of very smart people who get along
| well, but I now place more value on long term stability.
| firechickenbird wrote:
| 5. you always get paid for working overtime
|
| 6. You can have your own schedule instead of constant 9-5
| buzzwords wrote:
| Not quite the same thing, but I'll be joining a consultancy firm
| soon hoping I'll get more exposure to different techs.
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| o_m wrote:
| About point 2, when you factor in all the free time you have
| spend on learning new stuff, then the salary isn't really that
| great.
|
| The only way to be a consultant and not working for free is to be
| self employed and using some time between projects to learn.
| jstx1 wrote:
| It can be very shallow though. Steve Jobs on consulting -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-c4CNB80SRc
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| I 100% agree with this. At the moment, Consulting seems to be
| running around, getting the barest of understanding of a
| clients needs and throwing a solution at the wall until we get
| shifted to another engagement
| nightski wrote:
| Can be, doesn't have to be. I've had the same clients for over
| a decade. I've seen people come and go as employees and know
| more about the businesses than many employees themselves and
| help bring new executives/employees up to speed.
|
| I've owned many projects that have had large impacts. I guess
| it just depends on how you go about it. So yeah, my experience
| doesn't align with Mr. Jobs at all.
| henrik_w wrote:
| A potential downside with consulting is that it seems to me that
| your pay may be lower if you are a consultant vs working as a
| developer at a product company (and no stock options etc).
| etripe wrote:
| That's true in the US. For many in Europe, it's the other way
| around.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| excellent post
|
| worth noting that this OP seems like he is still an employee AT a
| consultancy, so in effect having the 'best of both worlds' - a
| secure income + wide exposure to client projects. Presumably,
| there will be internal politics within the consultancy,
| particularly if he wants to move up in status or responsibility.
|
| I would add that senior roles in consultancies of this type
| inevitably become sales roles - responsibility shifts from
| delivery (individual contributor does this) to customer
| acquisition (partner does this), which will come with this its
| own set of pro's and cons.
| franze wrote:
| The secret on how to become a great consultant:
|
| _Take all the blame, distribute all the praise._
|
| Here is the thing, being a consultant is a thankless job, and it
| needs to be. If a project does not go as planned, the success
| does not happen. Take the blame. You are an external, it does not
| matter. They got you into the company to improve the state of the
| client, to improve them. If it does not happen, you are to blame.
| And they need someone to blame, so just take it.
|
| If you succeed, spread the praise. You worked with them, it was
| the right decision that they hired you, so they did great. And
| you just humble helped them to unlock the potential they already
| had.
|
| Thing is, in scenario 1, if you deflect blame, they will not hire
| you again. And they will badmouth you if somebody asks. You you
| take the blame, they might not hire you again, but they will
| respect you when somebody asks about you.
|
| In scenario 2, if you take all the praise, they will not feel
| good about themselves, and will not WOM (word of mouth) you. If
| you spread the praise, they will feel good about themselves, talk
| about their success and will so WOM you.
|
| A thankless job. I love it.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| I thought the secret to being a consultant was to get a client
| to feed you a number, you do an analysis, and then feed that
| number back to them in a report :)
|
| Seriously though, what you wrote is a great operating
| principle.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Wow, you might have just convinced me to consider consulting.
| This is my natural personality/upbringing and I've always hated
| the internal rah-rah needed to do well for business units in an
| org, but at the same time am comfortable with self-promotion as
| needed.
| throw1234651234 wrote:
| Just keep in mind that a lot of the time even if you start
| off right, new management comes in, thinks that consultants
| are for "busy work", tries to relegate you to that, then has
| you putting out little fires they create. And if you are
| clearly doing better work compared to what the new CTO is
| capable of? Well, it goes two ways - you are valued and
| praised or you are pushed out because you are perceived as a
| threat to their authority. And guess which way it goes a lot
| of the time when a CTO asks you for a "deploy document,
| showing which file will be moved, by whom, to which machine,
| and who will send out a notification email" and you tell them
| it's all automated in a yaml file and you just push a button.
| [deleted]
| punnerud wrote:
| Can we say that public praise is often inverse proportional
| with money earned in the long run? You often can't have both.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| For the sake of numbers, how much do you earn?
| dsaadas wrote:
| 200-250 on average, bigger when working fulltime (average
| around 28-30h a week)
| Ostrogodsky wrote:
| Maybe in tech,but that is not the case in other businesses, I
| would argue that big consulting firms, like McKinsey, do
| exactly the opposite. It seems a winning strategy.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I agree and I think it's true because of the way how working
| communities(i.e. a team, a company etc) are structured.
|
| Just think about how a hiring decision is made in first place.
|
| Someone in a company needs something get done and they are
| going to do it with someone else's money. Their interests are
| structured in a way to produce KPI specific to their job and
| their risks are loss of reputation.
|
| It's extremely profitable(in a sense of career KPI) to get
| someone from outside get things done with the money of the
| company as long as the outsider transfers the success to you
| and assumes any blame for any failure. The only catch is, the
| consultant needs to have a track record that makes the
| successful outcome plausible at least on surface because the
| person who hired the consultant must be able to defend the
| hiring decision.
|
| You know the "Nobody ever gets fired for buying IBM"? It's the
| same idea. With a plausible hire, the success is owned by the
| person who managed the process and the failure is on the person
| or company that executed the task.
| stuckkeys wrote:
| Damn. This was very poetic. Great response. True diplomat.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| Is your experience that this is universal, though? I could
| easily envision organizations (based on my own experience,
| albeit not as a consultant in that sense) that would take your
| representation at face value - if things go south and you take
| the blame, they will blacklist and badmouth you, and vice versa
| they will love you if you can somehow hoard all the credit for
| a success. Perhaps it rarely plays out that way, but I'm
| skeptical that it never happens.
| jrumbut wrote:
| This is something like an added benefit. If an organization
| has a good culture they'll like what you're doing and keep
| you working for then, if not then they'll get rid of you and
| free up your time something better.
|
| As far as hoarding credit for a success, certainly a lot of
| people make that work for them but I'd like to think the
| other way is more sustainable. Maybe I'm fooling myself
| though?
| jonahbenton wrote:
| In my experience there is very little actual
| blacklisting/badmouthing in this way. Such behavior reflects
| poorly only on the badmouther.
|
| In consulting there are always functional and non-functional
| criteria for a relationship- on both sides. Sometimes/often
| invented after the fact, after parties have gotten to know
| one another. Engagements will be described to others against
| that criteria. The listener can glean and infer what they are
| able to.
|
| And sometimes for the careful listener, there will be some
| barely detectable tepidity in an endorsement.
| andi999 wrote:
| Exactly what I was thinking. Even worse, doesnt taking the
| blame mean they can ask/sue for damages?
|
| Not sure why this is controversial, but I saw agency funded
| projects if they fail the companies have to repay the
| funding. Employees are usually protected but if a consultant
| was on board who would take the responsibility for that
| failure, I would expect at least some of the companies with
| legal departments to try to get the money from that
| consultant.
| stingraycharles wrote:
| Would you say that this approach to management, blame-culture,
| is unavoidable as a consultant?
|
| I've had a previous engagement for about 1.5y with this type of
| culture, and it made me miserable.
| jrumbut wrote:
| It's not unavoidable, a lot of people don't do it. I would
| say they are making a mistake though.
|
| The thing is that people on the other side should either
| recognize what you're doing or appreciate you relieving the
| tension in their internal politics enough that your emotional
| labor is rewarded with a positive atmosphere.
|
| If that doesn't happen then you can only hope they're paying
| well. Doing this comes naturally to me though and I struggle
| in environments where you need to be a self-promoter so maybe
| it's a "horses for courses" situation.
| scrollaway wrote:
| It's not unavoidable no, but it certainly makes you a better
| consultant. I found this out only a few years ago and franze
| is right on the money.
|
| I'd say it goes beyond consulting, too, and that knowing how
| to "take the blame and distribute the praise" is a
| superpower. Especially that first part. Knowing to take
| responsibility for things, sometimes even things that are
| outside your control, puts you on a different level to many
| people who will simply try to dodge it as much as possible.
|
| As a consultants, clients aren't (generally) stupid and can
| smell the bullshit. What they'll see, if you do this right,
| is someone who is effective and professional. This inspires
| trust and gets you re-hired.
|
| If this sort of thing makes you miserable, IMO then yeah it's
| not for you. Personally, I'd advise introspection: Why does
| it make you miserable, exactly?
| adwn wrote:
| > _take responsibility for things, sometimes even things
| that are outside your control_
|
| Although this might sometimes be a good idea for diplomatic
| reasons, it feels just as wrong and "bullshitty" as
| accepting _praise_ for things that are outside your
| control. And it might lead to a loss of respect by people
| who see through this fake humility.
| scrollaway wrote:
| You're not wrong, but there's two situations that can
| call for it.
|
| 1. You are indeed sometimes (more often than not)
| responsible for things that happen under "your watch"
| even if they're none of your doing, because you're
| responsible for calculating things that can go wrong. For
| a recent news comparison, the JWST is a great example of
| this mindset: If something goes wrong, NASA was
| responsible for predicting the chances of it happening
| and ultimately, having a plan for it.
|
| 2. As a consultant, you're sometimes hired so bigger
| clients can externalize blame. It makes no difference to
| you, doesn't matter, it's not like they're hampering your
| career opportunities or something. They love that they
| have someone to blame for shit instead of blaming the
| actual people responsible. Yes, it's entirely bullshitty
| in this case. But it gets you re-hired :)
| adwn wrote:
| 1. I think we're assigning different meanings to _" out
| of one's control"_: If you can "have a plan for it", as
| you say, than I wouldn't call that "out of your control",
| even if it's not your fault. In your example, the
| unfolding of the sunshield wasn't out of NASA's control,
| even though a failure might not have been anyone's fault
| in particular, so NASA would have been the one to blame.
| In contrast, an untracked meteorite hitting the JWST
| after launch _would_ have been out of NASA 's control.
|
| 2. Yes, that's what I meant by "for diplomatic reasons"
| :-)
| leeter wrote:
| This 100%, I've literally been hired onto a client to basically
| tell management something their internal team had been saying
| for ages. The challenge wasn't telling management that; but
| rather getting them to (politically very carefully) open their
| eyes to the fact they had the solution (and the people to
| implement) right in front of them the entire time. That was a
| very tricky situation as the management didn't trust their team
| at all. So most of our time was spent untangling that and doing
| a little implementation.
| kelvin0 wrote:
| There's a saying: 'No one is a prophet in their
| village/town'.
|
| When the same info you communicate internally comes from an
| 'external' and 'credible' source, all of the sudden the
| message gets through.
|
| Pretty frustrating for the 'internal' people.
| cagataygurturk wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemo_propheta_in_patria
| faangiq wrote:
| Nice saying.
| squidlogic wrote:
| The original phrase comes from Jesus in Matthew 13:57
|
| And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "A
| prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in
| his own household."
|
| https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2013:5
| 6...
| kelvin0 wrote:
| Actually an old french saying: "Nul n'est prophete en son
| pays"
|
| Don't know if its derived from the verse you mention.
|
| They mean the same thing, of course.
| everdrive wrote:
| So a consultant's job is to ameliorate incompetent
| management?
| arbitrary_name wrote:
| No, it is to fix problems. Sometimes management is the
| problem. Sometimes it is not. You can put the pitchfork
| away
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I had a boss who said, "a manager is someone who tells you
| the time with your own watch."
|
| > That was a very tricky situation as the management didn't
| trust their team at all
|
| I think this is usually the root issue: management doesn't
| trust the team, and the team thinks management is out to get
| them.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Yeah, this is pretty universally the job of a management
| consultancy: interview the staff, and report what they're
| saying.
| mc32 wrote:
| The interview has to be scoped right. Sometimes they get
| scoped too broadly and people will offer opinions about
| processes of which they don't have a complete understanding
| and can lead them to saying things that are not germane and
| sidetrack other teams.
| bitwize wrote:
| "So... what would you say... _ya do here?_ "
| AitchEmArsey wrote:
| Interviewing staff ("stakeholders") at a customer is always
| fascinating. I've seen the full range from sincere
| gratitude at being listened to, through to open hostility
| and suspicion. The latter was much worse when I was younger
| and worried about impressions I was making on older-but-
| not-very-senior people. At some point you just stop giving
| a shit and let them hate you if they feel threatened.
| leeter wrote:
| This too, we're a technical consultancy (DevOps) so we
| get the gamut of reactions from "You're on my turf" to
| "Finally someone that my boss will listen to". Getting
| the former early on severely hurts your chances of
| success sadly.
|
| Edited for spelling
| toppy wrote:
| You've probably meant 'turf' instead of 'terf'. Thanks to
| that I've learnt something new today.
| brimble wrote:
| They're also the "legit" channel for corporate espionage
| (or, research sharing, if you prefer), especially for
| processes and such. They didn't make up that "best
| practice" they're teaching you now--they stole it from your
| competitor. They'll figure out if you're doing anything
| better than them and clue them in on their next engagement.
| And the wheel keeps on turning.
| PeterisP wrote:
| The essence of consulting business is that if you ask a
| consultant what the time is, they take your watch, look
| at it, tell you the time, and keep the watch.
|
| On the other hand, there is real value unlocked by simply
| getting information from team A to team B in a
| dysfunctional organization that is totally unable to do
| it themselves; and most large organizations are
| dysfunctional in this sense.
| sdoering wrote:
| Exactly that. I work for an agency that was bought by
| global consulting conglomerate. This gave me insight into
| the workings at global companies that hire consultancies.
|
| At first I really didn't understand why these global
| companies shelled out this much money for consultants
| until I understood that more often than not it is the
| lines of communication these consultants open up.
|
| They make it possible for information to flow from one
| stratified silo into another. For IT to talk to marketing
| and marketing to talk to product. And so on.
|
| Not that I really enjoy the political side and the
| PowerPoint side of the job, but at least I understood
| some things better.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I'm not sure I can agree with the word "stole." It's
| clearly in everyone's interest that that process goes on,
| or at least the interest of everyone who hires
| consultants; if a company was uniformly better than all
| of their competitors or thought they were, they wouldn't
| hire external consultants.
| brimble wrote:
| Yeah, I intended that a bit tongue in cheek. Of course
| everyone knows what's going on, though to some extent
| they pretend not to.
| whatshisface wrote:
| There's a (humorously) fine line between the apparent
| antipodes of pretending not to know something and
| thinking that it's such universal common knowledge that
| there's no need to discuss it. :-)
| tata71 wrote:
| Good for consumers, in some cases, I'd say.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| Haha, I checked this against my internal memories from
| 'Office Space'.
| belter wrote:
| Another classic Weinberg...
| [deleted]
| wink wrote:
| This is sound advice in general but it depends a little on your
| exact role. If you're the sole "important consultant" then this
| is true, but if you're sent there as part of a team doing a mix
| of consulting/bodyleasing/developing stuff for the customer it
| seems to happen quite often that someone at the customer will
| pretend (or not) to listen to your advice, do the exact
| opposite, and in the end blame you that the project didn't
| finish on time/on budget/whatever. And I think the problem is
| that you might be invested a little more as a temporary cog in
| the machine than when being strictly on your supposed high
| consultant horse.
| immutology wrote:
| Is this "consulting" or "contracting"?
|
| In my mind, "consulting" is knowledge work. Your role is to lend
| knowledge and expertise, help with strategy, architecture,
| tool/platform selection, etc.
|
| "Contracting" is high-skill grunt work. Your role is to code your
| fingers off, deliver-deliver-deliver, typically according to
| someone else's (possibly ill-conceived) plan.
|
| Have these things truly become synonymous?
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| You got the types of consulting right, but the terminology
| wrong. Yes, one type of consulting is lending your expertise,
| another type is lending a pair of hands. Either of these types
| of consulting work can occur under "contracting",
| "freelancing", or other types of business relationships. Often
| a "pair of hands" consult is hired "until further notice", so
| it's not always contracting.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > "Contracting" is high-skill grunt work. Your role is to code
| your fingers off, deliver-deliver-deliver, typically according
| to someone else's (possibly ill-conceived) plan.
|
| Not at all. Contracting, in itself, is just the business
| agreement but most of the time contractors are experts and have
| plenty of autonomy.
|
| The very opposite of grunt work.
| wrnr wrote:
| I understand what you are trying to say but it is also a form
| of master-slave dialectic, you don't like something and feel
| above it and try to organise your social life with strict rules
| to isolate you from it. It's not even always a bad thing to do,
| like I an a coder who tries to avoid working with people who
| think like you.
| immutology wrote:
| I find this intriguing. Care to elaborate on it?
| datavirtue wrote:
| I end up doing both.
| kerneloftruth wrote:
| No, you've got the distinction right. Many folks don't
| understand that difference. Many consultants crank out a lot of
| code, but they also do advising, planning, recommending,
| analyzing,...
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Is this "consulting" or "contracting"?
|
| The former is an activity and the latter is a business
| relationship, so they're orthogonal. Many consultants are
| contractors but not all are. Many contractors sell consultancy
| but not all do.
| jpitz wrote:
| They're not always synonymous. Much of the time it's a little
| of column A, little of column B.
|
| Even so, I try to ensure that my contracting engagements
| demonstrate my value as a consultant.
| adflux wrote:
| What I love the most about being in a consultance-esque role:
|
| -Networking. I talk to more people daily than my CS colleagues do
| in a week. -I still have time to program in the evening. A lot of
| work I do is kind of "shallow", talking about tech instead of
| making it. At 6PM my brain is still capable of a few hours of
| programming. When I get maybe get a good 4, 5 hours of coding out
| of my brain per day. I used to use these ours at my job, now I
| use these hours building my own thing with a few friends
| mrichman wrote:
| I looked at his employer's job openings. Lost me at "online
| personality assessment".
| crawl_soever wrote:
| I did a consulting stint in the CNCF and cloud native space for a
| while(5 yrs). My company was aquired and things really started to
| be about butts in seats and being billable all the time.
|
| I had a manager I could reach out to but I maybe talked with them
| once or twice a year. While being able to continue personal
| development sounds nice on paper, and believe me, the company
| touted training time and ability to disconnect from customers, I
| never found the chance to pursue those goals. It was all about
| being onsite with the customer to bring in those $$ as billable
| time.
|
| I loved my customers and consider many good friends to this day.
| However, the toil continued to burn in, not to mention the 100%
| travel; my personal life began to take a hit.
|
| I got out of consulting and work as an engineer now. It was a
| valuable experience, and I worked with some really cool
| customers. But my personal life comes first and I now expect a
| certain level of support from my workplace now.
|
| I do miss the network I made as a consultant, and a certain
| amount of travel is nice. Being able to drive innovation through
| digital transformation in a 60+ yr old organization leaves a good
| feeling of purpose. I wish there was some sort of happpy medium.
| noud wrote:
| I did not hear a single consultant telling me how great it is to
| be one, when a collective announcement by the director was made
| that due to financial problems not a single consultant contract
| would be extended this year. This would help the company to get
| into financial stability again, and would prevent to fire anyone
| in the company.
|
| I'm happy I'm not a consultant. I value job security, and
| therefore a financially secure life, over any of the benefits
| this consultant has.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I think your reasoning makes sense - unless you're a developer
| in high demand.
|
| That said, you can be axed as a FTE as well when things go
| south.
| agentwiggles wrote:
| I don't really understand this comment. I've been in consulting
| for my whole career, and my job security has never depended on
| a single contract. When a client doesn't extend, you move to a
| new client. Sometimes this can be disappointing or feel unfair,
| but it's never resulted in me losing my job. The whole point of
| having management in a consulting company is surely to make
| sure that the consultants always have a client.
| Silhouette wrote:
| Sadly not everyone has been as lucky as you. When the
| pandemic hit the flexible workforce and outsourced activities
| were the first things to go in a lot of industries, as
| businesses naturally looked to their own survival and the
| protection of their permanent staff. The first few months of
| COVID were brutal for a lot of smaller businesses whose
| revenue comes from offering services to larger clients.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| They cut the salary of all FTE employees in the company
| where I was contracting, in response to the lockdowns.
|
| They even asked me to do the same and I refused. They
| needed me so they complied but I started looking around
| anyway for peace of mind in case they axed me - and found a
| better job.
|
| It was pretty hard to deal with my sudden leave knowledge-
| wise so once the previous management got axed a few months
| later and replaced with new bots I went to offer my
| services at double my previous rate.
|
| Instead of worrying about the type of position you're in,
| you should worry about getting as much money as you can and
| being useful to the company you're working for.
| scrollaway wrote:
| Not the person you're replying to but also a consultant.
| While I realized this is an _extremely privileged_
| position, the above does not ring true for tech consultants
| in general.
|
| I know this is all anecdotal, but the pandemic has been a
| huge boom to tech consultants. Yes, some companies fired
| theirs, but also a massive influx of companies seeking help
| with completely new systems and procedures, especially by
| people who are familiar with remote work. 2020 and 2021
| were my two best years by far (like one order of
| magnitude).
| datavirtue wrote:
| Same here. Our firm set records during the pandemic as
| tech layoffs were coming by the thousands in our city.
| None of our people were without clients. Some of the
| lower quality clients pulled back but there are plenty of
| companies with enormous tech backlogs.
| ramblerman wrote:
| Counter anecdote, I've seen a company go belly up entirely and
|
| - Most of the consultants had new gigs within weeks.
|
| - It was the permanents with 6+ years at ACME corp on their
| resume that had a harsh time finding work even months later.
|
| So take it with a grain of salt, it highly depends on context,
| but true job security is mostly an illusion.
| kerneloftruth wrote:
| I've been one for over 20 years, and wouldn't trade for FTE,
| ever. What you describe does happen, but usually it's the
| reverse. In financially hard times, companies often downsize
| their biggest expense -- employees. They can control costs
| easier by instead hiring consultants, to whom they owe no
| benefits or long term financial commitments.
| dnndev wrote:
| Completely was the case with me. A large client cut my hours
| for about six months and now they are roaring to better than
| pre pandemic levels. Sadly they were acquired by another
| company during that time and a lot of people were let go due
| to the slow down and acquisition.
|
| If I were an employee I mostly likely would have been let go.
| desireco42 wrote:
| Which reminds me of the scene several years ago. They gather us
| in a big room, thanking us for our great contribution, everyone
| is getting fired.
|
| I can't remember what I said, but something really funny and my
| friends consultants can't hold the laugh in.
|
| Our Indian colleagues are screwed because their visas depended
| on them being employed.
|
| We just went to another client, great company, our rates got
| bumped up.
|
| Really sad situation.
|
| On the other hand, sometimes when they want to save money, they
| would fire me, usually because I am most expensive of all. But
| then again, more often then this, they would keep me last,
| because I can do most work.
| nickjj wrote:
| > I value job security, and therefore a financially secure
| life, over any of the benefits this consultant has.
|
| As someone who has done contract work for most of my working
| life I think it's kind of the opposite.
|
| When doing contract work you have the option of having multiple
| part time jobs. Not everything is based on full time yearly
| commitments.
|
| You might choose to do 15 hours a week for 2 different gigs, or
| maybe 4x 10 hour ones. Or maybe you have a few where you do 2
| hours a week (code review type of stuff) but you have 3 of
| them.
|
| Any of the above combos could be range from 1 off things to
| sticking around indefinitely. I've had so many multi-year
| contracts, those I like because it's quite stable and lets you
| maximize your hours on doing work instead of finding new
| clients, reading new contracts, etc..
|
| You're diversifying your income streams. If one goes away
| you're not left scrambling to find another one as soon as
| possible and you can continue paying bills with your income
| instead of dipping into your savings.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| You probably should have savings as well, if someone isn't
| good with their finances then it probably isn't an ideal
| career for them. Customers can smell the desperation for work
| a mile off.
| nickjj wrote:
| > You probably should have savings as well
|
| Absolutely. Personally I try to keep any savings and
| investments as a 1 way street. I treat it as an untouchable
| deposit-only fund unless something really bad happens or I
| make an explicit decision to do something big with it (like
| retire or temporarily go off the grid for a few years).
|
| To me security is being able to live without taking out
| those funds during my working years but knowing they exist
| if I really need them.
| dnndev wrote:
| I feel much more job security as a consultant than I ever did
| as an employee. The minute your not making money for a company
| your let go.
|
| As a consultant you can have two or three clients in different
| sectors and diversify.
|
| You will be sorely disappointed if you think getting paid w2 vs
| 1099 (in the us) gives you job security.
|
| Job security is your drive, skill, and luck living in an area
| that has work for you. (If you live in the us consider yourself
| lucky - in tech)
| trhoad wrote:
| Very true. It doesn't matter how interesting and varied the
| work could be if there isn't any work.
| draw_down wrote:
| datavirtue wrote:
| I have been laid off several times as an FTE. The boutique
| s-corp I am with now has never laid anyone off in 18 years. We
| turn down work every day and have a massive pipeline of new
| work and customers. If I get booted from a company I just shrug
| happily and choose my next client.
| raesene9 wrote:
| I've done both sides of the coin as well and Ian's points
| definitely resonate. There are downsides (IMO) though :-
|
| 1. Pressure to do things quickly, which you may not fully
| understand. Consultancy sales don't always sell entirely
| realistic things, and being asked to deliver what they sold can
| be .... stressful.
|
| 2. If you're a one-person band, you're not just a consultant,
| you're sales+marketing+accountancy+delivery.
|
| 3. You often don't get to see how things develop in the longer
| term. This was partly down to the industry I was in (pentesting)
| but holds true for a lot of consultancy
| itsmemattchung wrote:
| > 2. If you're a one-person band, you're not just a consultant,
| you're sales+marketing+accountancy+delivery.
|
| That's the boat I'm in! Multiple hats -- all of equal
| importance. No sales and marketing? Say bye to generating any
| revenue. No accounting? Say bye to collecting payment. And
| delivery -- at the end of the day, your delivery more or less
| dictates whether that customer returns.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| 5. Because you are external to the company you are not obligated
| to do all the various socializing things companies force on their
| employees.
| chadlavi wrote:
| On the other hand, you also have to constantly arrange your next
| gig, take care of your own insurance, do your complex taxes... in
| the US it seems very scary, like jumping from rooftop to rooftop.
| Great, as long as you make the jump every time.
| evancoop wrote:
| I might add two amendments here:
|
| The first is that "time and materials" is infinitely preferable
| to "fixed scope." In the former case, both client and consultant
| have an incentive to set priorities and make difficult, pragmatic
| choices. In the latter case, the potential for inadvertently
| over-promising is ever-present. Then comes either "fail and take
| the blame" or work through sunrise to deliver.
|
| The second is that over-communication with the client throughout
| the engagement is often the difference between joyous
| interactions and the various horror stories that become
| commonplace.
|
| Consulting can be spectacular IF the contracts are time and
| materials AND consultants over-communicate with clients.
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| Many good consultancies prefer fixed price for fixed scope
| because the margins are higher. You are of course owning the
| risk, but if you know how to write a contract and manage a
| customer, fixed price work is much more profitable and even
| easier to deliver.
| evancoop wrote:
| Certainly, the upside is larger - cannot argue. The
| challenge, in my mind, with respect to software is the
| unforeseen, not-entirely-in-your-control challenge of
| integration, bug-fixing, etc. I'd much rather have delivered
| 95% of the scoped work, tell the client essentially, "we can
| do X, but it could require some non-trivial expenditure on
| your part or, since we've done a great job setting priorities
| to date, maybe that feature is not mission critical." Time
| and materials gives both parties some agency.
|
| Of course, if your powers of predictions are infallible, then
| perhaps you're better off with fixed scope! (My powers of
| prediction are infallible too...until they aren't!)
| ejb999 wrote:
| While I don't think you are wrong, and that is a very common
| viewpoint - in my own experience I always preferred fixed price
| jobs - but you do need to be careful about the projects you
| choose.
|
| I love the freedom of just building what the client asked for,
| without tracking my hours and billing for them. Some projects I
| might spend more time on them - beyond what I had estimated -
| just because it was a fun project, was learning something knew
| - or knew it was something I would be able to leverage up with
| for the next project.
|
| On the other hand, sometimes projects would turn out easier
| than I thought, and be done in less time - and would end up
| making more money that I thought.
|
| It does help if you are good at estimating - I always thought
| it was one of my strongest skills; rarely was I off much - but
| my general rule of thumb was estimate how long it would take to
| do, and then add 25-50% as profit margin (or buffer if I was
| off). Can't remember it ever turning out bad for me in a
| financial sense, though not all clients are nice to work with.
|
| Always worked out OK for me, for small to medium size clients
| and projects - I wouldn't take on a 7 figure project on fixed
| price, but once you get into this sized projects - getting the
| project 'done' usually has many, many layers of different
| stakeholders who might choose to jerk you around and who are
| very removed from the actual delivery of the project - i.e.
| legal, marketing, some guy in purchasing that enjoys squeezing
| vendors for no reason etc; but smaller companies often you deal
| with 1-2 stakeholders that are easier to communicate and can
| make final decisions and who are happy to have the
| predictability of a set price.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| I've done a couple of fixed price jobs but they were very
| small (a couple of weeks work) and with a client I trusted.
|
| In general I won't and I've found the more the client demands
| it the more I should be worried.
| brandoncoburnss wrote:
| GaylordTuring wrote:
| Number four, you meet lots of people, sounds like a downside to
| me :) Each to his own I guess.
| [deleted]
| 2ion wrote:
| From my personal experience, the best time I had as a consultant
| was when the client paid their bill :>
| sriram_malhar wrote:
| A colleague of mine and I used to work loooong hours as software
| developers. I met him a few years after he'd left for greener
| pastures.He was looking fit and bouncing around in an Hawaiian
| shirt. I asked him the secret of his happiness.
|
| He said "I love consulting. Documents don't crash"!
|
| That phrase still rings in my head when I'm swearing at the next
| obscure bug!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-01-18 23:02 UTC)