How IT bosses turned the tables on our cushy consultancy gigs
theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk
I was around in the first dot-com boom/bust, and do understand it could happen again, but I'm less pessimistic that things would crash again as hard and as fast. From an IT perspective, there's simply more technology powering more people's lives and businesses than there was 10-12 years ago. Mobile computing, cheap computers, widespread internet have all made "the web" far more entrenched and important to all collapse at the same time. The support/demand for all the IT jobs is too broad across too many sectors.
Doesn't mean demand won't fluctuate or slow down or reverse, but not likely all at once within just a few months.
Gentle plug: http://indieconf.com is an upcoming conference to help freelancers learn about and deal with these sorts of issues - self-employment, boom/bust cycles, pricing, legal, etc. :)
You're right that adaptation is key too. 15 years ago, I was writing desktop VB apps on the client-side and Perl scripts on the server-side. Now I'm writing HTML5 apps on the client-side and JavaScript nearly everywhere. 15 years from now, I wonder if I'll still be using JavaScript at all?
I find it surprising that the technology is gaining more traction for consultants (as opposed for the hot up-n-coming silicon valley startups).
Mind to share the type of clients that are looking for your services in this area?
I'm guessing that in the past, one can run a successful and profitable "web-design" business easily as there aren't too many software like Drupal, Wordpress, phpBB, and the customers aren't necessarily "educated" in the sense that they could google these software and learn or hire some high-school kids cheaply out there.
Ditto with custom software like PoS, accounting software, CRM, etc. These days people would go with Salesforce, NetSuite, MS Dynamics, and the like.
Consultants have to become more specialized and there is a lifespan for those niches as the companies behind those software would like to increase their profits as "agile" as possible. This is definitely tougher on the consultants.
On the flip side, Vancouver is a small market that most knowledge workers know almost everyone and the opportunity to work with his/her former colleagues are quite high.
On the consulting side, IT projects typically come from governments/municipals and there are plenty small IT shops that only do one or two of these projects to stay afloat.
It's a bit tough city overall even though some people would disagree with me.
OTOH, I am hearing echoes of what sounds like a textbook case of victim mentality. It's almost as if his fate wholly lies in the hands of these IT companies he's vying to work for. He mentions failing to hold his own during negotiations. He blames outsourcing. Complaint after complaint about why it's not all "roses, just roses"... like it used to be.
Folks: if you spend the time getting the right skills to pay the bills, this article does NOT apply to you. The crowd that I "run with" generally has NO problem finding lucrative engagements, or employment. Especially in this market. And even in a down market. There's always something brewing.
I hope I'm just gagging on some expensive link bait.
The other thing that rubbed me the wrong way is this guy was taking 6 month holidays and working when he felt like it. Then he gets all upset when there's a low in the market and he's desperate for cash. What ever happened to making hay when the sun shines?
Surely with "decades of experience," this guy should have saved plenty by that point in his life to have a happy early retirement; but by the sound of it he's taken the work and salary for granted and wasted it away.
While these thoughts pass through my head, I don't believe things are as dire as they were in 2001 - 2002. Hopefully working on side projects can give me enough of a resume in the worst case scenario. I guess time and experience will tell if this and similar situations will be difficult in the next few years.
It was almost eerie - nobody even cared if my projects were successful or how much money I made. They only wanted to know that I did have all the skills that I put on my resume, and (to a lesser degree) my motivation for doing what I did.
Working on your own stuff you learn ten times as fast as in a "regular" job. I highly recommend it.
For instance, I recently took a well-paying job as an "Integration Engineer" basically just setting up VMs and automatic builds. It's pretty easy and surprisingly pays better than I could make right now doing much else (I worked for the last 7 years as a software engineer). I worry I'll settle into complacency and let my skills rust (if at least on paper alone).
At the same time though I have other projects I want to pursue on my own and have some faith that I'm basically a pretty good software engineer who can land on his feet eventually given that our world is mostly automated now.
Also, the author goes out of his way to paint some sort of bleak picture. If you re-read it, basically, for the last 30 years he's raked in cash, taken multi-month leaves from work, and been unemployed for maybe 6 months total, along with a couple years of lower-than-expected payment around the dotcom burst? That's living the high life, man. We should all hope to be so lucky.
Although a lot of the knowledge is transferable, recruiters often don't just want a C# or java developer - they want a fixed income Java developer.
If you work on packaged systems, you could even add a third dimension. What is the hot package for Equity Trading? Or Commodities? Should you specialise in Rolfe and Nolan? Summit? OpenLink? etc etc.
After reading the article I checked the date, expecting it to be from the early or mid 2000s. He talks a lot about the past and only briefly mentions the future when he says what he'd say to potential employers if he were without a job now.
In programmers, you get what you pay for.
That 58 year old developer probably won't reach retirement age for many years. Even if they retire promptly at 65 (which fewer people are doing these days), that would potentially be seven years of employment with the company that hired them. How many young developers expect to stay at the same company for seven years? (Talking about employees here; obviously if you're a founder, it's different.)