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Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

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Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#161

Post by xnyan »

chrisseaton wrote: post #130
Grustaf wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have their routines for paying bills and services, it would be very inconvenient to pay ad hoc. And I’ve never even heard of next day payment, except maybe for manual labour.

> They have their routines for paying bills and services, it would be very inconvenient to pay ad hoc. But why? A bank transfer is fast and trivial to do. Where's the inconvenience? I presume the actual administration work of checking they had money in a budget to pay for the work happened when the work was contracted not at the end.

>But why?

Two reasons. The most important reason is if you keep the money for 30/60/90 days, it's like a interest-free loan for the company. The stronger your position is, the longer you can hold on to the money (see walmart). It's how virtually everyone does it.

Second reason, "A bank transfer is fast and trivial to do" - I'm guessing you've never done work for or been around a large enterprise or you would not be saying that. Usually it's something like "The spending committee has to approve, then Richard in accounts receivable is the only one who can sign off on the check and he's on vacation til June/"

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#162

Post by andyish »

It's difficult problem, but don't forget the day rate might sound high but it has got quite a few hidden costs bundled up in it: pension, holidays, down time, expenses and the various taxes.

To answer your question: different things appeal to different people. Other than the obvious of paying someone a boat load of money you could try promoting some of your companies 'soft perks', not the gimmicks like ping pongs tables and free drinks but things like: - real flexible working - extra vacation days - accommodating regarding personal vs work life

As others have said: - selling the work they'll be doing - the technologies you use - how many users your products has - what your products applications are

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#163

Post by dopidopHN »

Nursie wrote: post #91
dominotw wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus jumping on to a new project every few months keeps the work interesting But contractors are usually hired for their existing skilsets where they can jump in and start contributing immediately. So you end up doing similar projects. eg: If you are a backend programmer, no one will hire you to work on as a machine learning engineer on day rates. This is a big myth that contractors are working on something new and…

All I have to say to that is "You'd be surprised", particularly when you get a reputation for picking up new things quickly. > Companies invest in training Literally never happened for me in 12 years of perm work, for large and small companies. Discounting trivial/patronising things like security training. I've self trained or picked things up as I go along a few times as a contractor, just as I did when perm.

companies investing in training is real.

Be it pushing for certification, mooc, internal training credit.

All of that was part of my review for instance. It does work.

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#164

Post by bradstewart »

HumblyTossed wrote: post #87

I know this doesn't directly answer your question, but here is why the company I work for currently is able to keep me. 1. Interesting work [0]. My day to day is not a slog. I find it challenging and stimulating. 2. I get to the freedom to make decisions. My manager tells me, "I know you have this, so just do it." If I fail (we all do occasionally. Some things just don't work), they don't let the bus hit me. We figur…

> 5. Raises that matter. Not some 1 or 2 pct insult. There's no excuse for that. None.

Is a big one. I am very unsure why companies seem so reluctant to do this when the cost of hiring and training a replacement are non-negligible.

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#165

Post by mschuster91 »

Nursie wrote: post #81
jameshart wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it’s not surprising that people who are doing well in the contract market like the contract market. For my part, I literally left the UK in part because the industry there was so geared towards contract work or boutique contract houses as the only viable career path for senior developers. It’s just not for everyone. I like staying with a product team and building and owning stuff; I like companies that build…

I certainly agree that the UK market for senior tech people is very poor, you're right that past a certain point the only way to keep advancing in your career and keep raising your income is to strike out on your own this way. I think it's incredibly short-sighted, but a lot of British businesses treat their software staff as equivalent to generic office inhabitants, rather than highly skilled software practitioners.…

> I think it's incredibly short-sighted, but a lot of British businesses treat their software staff as equivalent to generic office inhabitants, rather than highly skilled software practitioners. They also seem to treat their tech staff like children.

This is not just true for British businesses... it's common worldwide across everything that's not a tech startup. The older the people in management are, the less likely they are to even understand what the younger staff is talking about.

German Mittelstand is infamous for this - they're roadblocked on one side by the government bending over backwards to impede proper buildout of real broadband across the country and not just in cities, and on the other side by 80+ aged patriarchs who still are dictating business communication in an audio recorder for their secretaries to type down. These pre-Boomer fossils are only focused on micromanagement and keeping control until the day they literally die, and the Boomer generation isn't much more modern either.

The result? Humble startups led by young people of a diverse background are eating their lunch left and right, and the Boomer+older generation are standing still, scratching their heads and wondering what's going on.

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#166

Post by gadders »

proales wrote: post #134

If you are not able to pay market rates (that match the big tech companies) this is the markets way of saying "you should be denied access to this talent because it can be better utilized elsewhere" Pay up or go away, stop trying to find the secret to underpaying devs. How much equity are you keeping? Probably a greedy amount. So many startups fail because they cant find devs while the founders are trying to keep a Z…

>>If you are not able to pay market rates (that match the big tech companies) this is the markets way of saying "you should be denied access to this talent because it can be better utilized elsewhere"

"I have a great idea to make chairs, but the chairs won't generate enough profit to use the special type of gold bar I need to make them. Where can I find cheap gold bars?"

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#167

Post by Nursie »

viraptor wrote: post #150
Nursie wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Relatively few engineers actually want to do contract work. The better contractors I've worked with all do, here in the UK. The day rates are high. The taxes are the same or lower, health insurance is optional. There's some company insurances you need and you have to get an accountant, but all-in that should be covered by less than a week of work each year. Gaps between contracts are desirable! Having a whole summe…

> Gaps between contracts are desirable! Having a whole summer off to live on your accumulated war chest and chill out, it's amazing. If you can do that, that's amazing. Unfortunately many contractors fall into the "if I don't work I'm losing money" mentality and never stop. Then they start converting everything to how many days it cost them to earn and try to never spend money. I've seen it so many times and it's so…

It's true, and you do get into "If I take the week off I'm losing £X!" headspace sometimes. But it's important to remember that if you don't take that week off, you're more likely to burn out.

And it's also important to remember why you got into it in the first place - being able to take significant amounts of time between contracts was a big part of it for me. I intend to take three months downtime a little later this year.

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#169

Post by Nursie »

dopidopHN wrote: post #163
Nursie wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All I have to say to that is "You'd be surprised", particularly when you get a reputation for picking up new things quickly. > Companies invest in training Literally never happened for me in 12 years of perm work, for large and small companies. Discounting trivial/patronising things like security training. I've self trained or picked things up as I go along a few times as a contractor, just as I did when perm.

companies investing in training is real. Be it pushing for certification, mooc, internal training credit. All of that was part of my review for instance. It does work.

Ugh, reviews, another part of employee life I haven't missed!

That stuff re: training was not something that was part of my life as a perm worker, in the UK or Australia. The companies certainly liked to pay lip-service to employee development, but I didn't see much evidence of it actually happening.

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#170

Post by dominotw »

sanitycheck wrote: post #156
dominotw wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> become good at something else - then you'll get a job doing that instead. I don't understand this. How can someone trust you that you picked up some new skill if you have no experience in it. Do you put it on your resume anyways? How can somone even pickup software sales ( for example) on their own free time. > I literally LOL'd at this... If you're great at what you're doing, they're keeping you where they are - a…

> I don't understand this. How can someone trust you that you picked up some new skill if you have no experience in it. Do you put it on your resume anyways? How can somone even pickup software sales ( for example) on their own free time. Well, for anything which produces tangible output you can show off (I'm obviously thinking of programming) it's fairly straightforward to prove you can do it. Software sales? Yeah,…

> it's fairly straightforward to prove you can do it.

How? What do you put on your resume ? I am genuinely curious. Forget about sales, how do you prove that you can now implement their machine learning projects.

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