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Comment by Demoneeri | Hacker News Reader

It's always funny to see Silly Valley people that think they are so cool while working on yet another app that show ads.

Meanwhile at Accenture, I just delivered again another successful project with a real impact. When a very large organization across different regions were struggling to produce schedules for thousand workers with different skill sets, different union rules, night and day shifts, they came to see us. Now, everything is automated and the client saves months of work.

I sleep better at night knowing that I helped those workers now get access to their scheduled weeks in advance through a portal instead of having surprise night shifts thrown at them. Maybe I should make another app that track people online?

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I can't really say if you're sarcastic or not, but the GP is spot on even if snarky.

I've worked for Accenture (for way too long) and they can be characterised by a single statement that they make to the client when all is said and done and the client complains about the steaming pile of shite that was delivered:

"But in this signed contract here, there is no requirement that says our software should work".

Come on, every serious software engineer knows they are full of it.

Like if an organization with >500 000 employees across the world is the same everywhere. You might have been working with incompetent people, but it's not my case. Successful projects are delivery every day.

My worst experiences always come from working with Americans and I don't come to the conclusion that all Americans are incompetent.

So you are not hiding behind contracts if something is obviously wrong? Because that is the statement that is being made here. Has nothing to do with ads or nationality.

All we know about accenture around here (which is not the USA) is that they are good at covering their ass and the actual users of the stuff they produce are never happy.

That's one of the problems with Accenture and consultancy companies as a whole; they will build it, but they will never own or run it. The team(s) assigned to a project will learn just about enough about the domain to be able to fulfill the contract, but they won't be around ten years later to see how it panned out (if they're around three years later that's already an achievement).

Source: I used to work for a consultancy company. Might do so again, the work is more diverse and the pay and perks are much better than 'regular' companies.

And the worst part is that you can have a massive project and have it measured as a success but the users are still having a bad day every time they have to use the result of the project.

It doesn't matter a whole lot if the contract was successful or the managers got their bonus for on-time delivery or the budget forecasts were correct, a crap product is a crap product.

It's such a ridiculously large organization that I think broad generalizations are going to necessarily fall short - I also have the general impression that Accenture is highly proficient at burning money but there've got to be a number of good departments and teams buried somewhere in there.

And I've worked on things that have far greater consequences then a scheduling app and have had to fix all the terrible problems caused by the over engineered over "solutioned" sales driven development done by Accenture and Booz and all the others. All while fighting off the ivory tower FUD their sales consultants are pushing at the executive level. There are some good people and engineers on an individual level at the consultant shops, but the corporate culture is nauseating.

How much $$$ could you have made developing this solution without the middleman (Accenture), how much did they bill the client, and how much of what they billed the client did they pay you for your work?

Why not go straight to the source and sell your services for the full amount they billed as a consultant?

This is HN after all, get that money you deserve or use that idea for a new start-up to solve client problems at scale

Do you mind elaborating on this? Are you assuming that the client has the know-how to be able to choose the right resource to execute on the project (if the project scope has actually been defined)?

No that the developer is now privy to what is being paid top dollar for in his industry can now go solve that problem via a start up and get acquired by legacy enterprise companies and make a modest exit instead of being exploited by a middleman consulting gig company.

I have seen or heard of lesser known multimillion dollar exits for small features you take for granted, but were learned from old enterprise companies that didn’t know what features would be valuable to develop e.g. fintech startup was just a developer at old banking company, invented ‘locking’ a credit card by knowing how their system is coded, got acquired by said banking company for the technology and never has to work again.

Make them pay for your talent if you can learn to sell and solve business problems for clients.

Are you guys hiring? Can I send you my resume?

Accenture is always hiring. Go to their careers page.

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