Hacker News Reader

Comment by jsingleton | Hacker News Reader

The regular "laddering" process was a massive pain and a huge burden on staff that took away from doing real work. It also had the effect of forcing the most talented people out of the company as they tended to focus on actually building the things the clients wanted rather than playing the ranking game. Ranking was strongly correlated to time spent in the office rather than achievements or output.

I don't think this will change the mindset internally although it's a positive move. There is a big company culture of not trying to excel at anything for fear of making a mistake and looking bad. The firm is also full of jokers who haven't got a clue about software and don't even think it's a technology company. Lots of politics too.

View on HN

"""The firm is also full of jokers who haven't got a clue about software and don't even think it's a technology company."""

From (limited) experience this is true for many technology consultants. Unfortunately it's also somewhat common practice for business software projects that involve a small/medium sized software company and a gigantic client that the client requires the involvement of Accure et al. to feel more secure. Sadly it is not uncommon to have the consulting "software experts" do nonsensical tasks just so that they are not touching important stuff.

These days, I am very skeptical about getting involved in any software projects that involve big name consultants.

A lot of the big names are smaller competitors who were bought out. If I wanted to buy into a big name like that, I would make sure their founding headquarters were based nearby and that they are run by the same soft of people that started it.

I work for the competition and would say all consulting companies of similar size, suffer from the same diseases.

It sounds like you have experience of the firm. I'm interested in tech consulting and was planning on applying after graduation. Would you advise against this? Are there any firms in a similar line of work that you would recommend? (This question is open anyone on HN who wants to chip in).

Yes, forgot to cite my source. Been there, done that, got the suits.

It depends on what track you choose and what projects you get on, amongst many other things. There are plenty of talented people (at least to begin with) but they tend to get masked by people who would be better suited as contestants on the apprentice.

If you go into consulting and you're even vaguely technical (can write simple software) then you will be very frustrated and will probably end up teaching the start group courses. If you're happy to have your non-technical manager take credit for your work then go for it. Solutions is more technical but doesn't pay as well.

If you're the sort of person that reads HN (which you obviously are) then it is unlikely to be a good cultural fit for you.

Swombat also has experience but I don't know if he'll chip in.

Hey, I read Hacker News, and I work at a Bank. You used to work at that firm. Why wouldn't I want to read Hacker News just because I have an MBA and know how to tie a tie (and can squeeze the seven P's of Marketing and Porter's Five Forces into an interleaved bullet pointed presentation on just about anything?)

My first job out of school was in tech consulting, and I got a lot out of it. In the 5 years I was there I got to see probably 5-8 different companies of all types and sizes. It gave me a better understanding of the different kinds of problems and (sometimes) the positives at various types of companies. Plus, lots of variety in terms of the projects and technology I worked with. It would have been hard to get the same breadth of experience at a single job, and I don't think I've ever had it in me to change companies every 6-12 months.

Imagine you're running a consulting company. A client approaches you with a project.

Like all software projects, there are big error bars on all time estimates; it could take X hours or 0.5X hours or 2X hours, even without scope changes. With scope changes, all bets are off. The deal you strike with the client makes this clear - you estimate X hours, but you can bill them anything from 0.5X hours to 2X hours.

If you assign one competent engineer to the project, they'll bill X hours.

If you assign two competent engineers to the project, they'll each bill 0.55X hours for a total of 1.1X hours billed (the extra 0.1X is due to communications overhead)

But if you assign one competent engineer and one incompetent engineer, the competent engineer will bill 0.8X hours completing the project and the incompetent engineer will bill 0.8X hours - for a total of 1.6X hours billed.

In other words, if a project has one competent engineer, adding a competent engineer adds 0.1X to revenue but adding an incompetent engineer adds 0.6X to revenue.

How do you suppose these incentives work out in practice?

One other little tactic used my on-site folks is to make everyone else look crappy (employees and contractors from other companies) except the employees who directly affect the contract. That way the client gets rid of these undesirables and brings in more of your people thus increasing your revenue.

Accenture played this game quite well, made for some very unfun working environments for friends of mine. I was lucky enough to work at places that didn't have the big contracting companies when I was doing consulting.

Yea, billing by hours or even the time spent on the project is flawed. I wonder what would you suggest as an alternative.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com