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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?

#81

Post by Nursie »

jameshart wrote: post #71
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…

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. They also seem to treat their tech staff like children.

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

#82

Post by nsonha »

Nursie wrote: post #62
stewx wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking a contractor if they like doing contract work is a bit like asking someone at McDonald's if they like hamburgers. The answer is pretty likely to be "yes".

No argument here! I'm just taking (minor) issue with the assertion that relatively few engineers want to do contract work. If that were the case you'd expect some contractors to wish they were perm. I think the benefits I outlined are such that quite a few do want to. I've also run into quite a number of perm folk over the years who want to do it but don't quite have the confidence in their own skills to make that le…

you can start by working in consulting

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

#83

Post by ghaff »

mettamage wrote: post #7

What I don't get is why are the rates so different? Arguments like: uncertainty, getting clients is hard, certain overhead isn't paid, not always having work are all valid reasons. However, they don't seem to make sense for such a big difference. Based on those reasons, I'd suspect a 1.5x difference to be more reasonable, but in most cases it's like 2x to 4x.

To what others have said, billable hours are never 100%--and may be a lot less. When I was an IT industry analyst we billed something like $10K/day for a consulting engagement but we didn't bill for travel time and a lot of writing we did but didn't sell.

Any marketing/selling/administration/ongoing skills development (to say nothing of time you take off) is totally on you.

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

#84

Post by myfavoritedog »

I'm going to be a curmudgeonly contrarian in this thread. You can highlight the text of my comment to make it easier to read after the incoming downvotes. :)

I'm not desperately searching for work-life balance, using the latest fad of a technical stack, remoting, unlimited vacation, having the best free snacks in the break room, etc.

Sure, at a superficial level, all that stuff sounds great. I'll make use of the in-office climbing wall sometimes. But if you lead with that pitch, you give me no confidence that your company will even be around that long, much less provide me with room to grow professionally and financially.

I want a company to sell me on its vision for success in the market that I would be participating in. I want my co-workers to be motivated by the success of the endeavor in which we're all involved. I want an ESOP that will be valuable for my retirement.

Why do I want to work with a bunch of people who are mainly there for the freebies?

Look at what just happened to Basecamp. They cultivated a workforce that was more concerned with airing political grievances than they were with the success of the company. The second the politics were shut down, a third of their employees walked out. Imagine you're a developer at that company, trying to ship some product or feature to meet some bonus metric - and the people you're depending upon to do their part quit their jobs because they absolutely must argue politics during their work day.

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

#85

Post by dominotw »

Nursie wrote: post #55
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

Relatively few engineers actually want to do contract work. The day rates look high, but they have to pay self-employment taxes and health insurance, as well as charge more to cover inevitable gaps between contracts. It seems unlikely that the existence of contract work is preventing senior engineers from joining your company. To be blunt, it’s more likely that you’re simply not paying enough to be competitive or you…

> 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…

> 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 exciting every few months. Most of contracting work is short term grunt work.

> rather than stagnating at the same desk for years on end.

No its the opposite. Companies invest in training and take a chance on you doing something new inside in the company.

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

#86

Post by JoeAltmaier »

willcipriano wrote: post #32
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #17

Relatively few engineers actually want to do contract work. The day rates look high, but they have to pay self-employment taxes and health insurance, as well as charge more to cover inevitable gaps between contracts. It seems unlikely that the existence of contract work is preventing senior engineers from joining your company. To be blunt, it’s more likely that you’re simply not paying enough to be competitive or you…

Contract is a instant no for me. I've done the math and haven't found them to be competitive long term after what the above commenter mentioned (and that's before all the headaches of actually getting paid). Most of my peers feel the same way.

Been contracting for decades. Wouldn't do it any other way.

The critical thing is to get a pipeline of folks you know that send work your way. So rarely idle. That was done by working 15 years in the field in a variety of companies. I keep in contact with many old colleagues and remind them I've got bandwidth.

I never made more money than I do contracting now. I've never had to 'chase down money' - never had a bad check, never been stiffed. Had some late checks for sure. Probably due to the quality of my contacts.

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

#87

Post by HumblyTossed »

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 figure out a solution and then we present that together.

3. A good team. I highly respect every single member of my team. We all know each others strengths, weaknesses and areas of interest. I'm never embarrassed to ask any of them for help and I'm often asked for help/advice/opinion.

4. I have the freedom to learn about projects other teams are working on so I can understand how those projects might affect the project I work on. I can also go work on those teams for a while if I choose to. Those teams are made up of good people who don't mind sharing information.

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

Does the company have warts. Yup. But the above makes those warts tolerable.

[0] I'll take interesting work over tech stack any day. I don't give a rat's ass about language wars. Pick something suitable and let's get to making something great.

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

#88

Post by TimTheTinker »

Cederfjard wrote: post #64
junon wrote: post #33

I'm a senior eng out of work for a year (per my own choice) slowly looking to get back into the market. These points are my own: - My managers have always been a point of friction. If you hire an expert, stop telling them what they do and don't know. I'm afraid of full time work because of incompetent managers or tech leads. - I don't care if your company is a unicorn. I care that I'm going to be happy doing the work…

> Agile is a time stuck and time waster How do you prefer to organize larger software development efforts that have to be coordinated with other business processes?

Anything that treats software development as an iterative research and development process, lets engineers self-organize, respects their time, and respects that time estimate certainty is asymptotic with respect to the time horizon.

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

#89

Post by bavell »

cookguyruffles wrote: post #34
willcipriano wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contract is a instant no for me. I've done the math and haven't found them to be competitive long term after what the above commenter mentioned (and that's before all the headaches of actually getting paid). Most of my peers feel the same way.

You cannot put a price on career-long isolation from office politics

This is one of my favorite parts about contracting... you still have to deal with a little bit of office politics and drama but you're mostly shielded from it. I love dropping in once a week or so, greasing the relationship wheels, and getting the heck outta there.

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

#90

Post by [deleted] »

jameshart wrote: post #76
ericbarrett wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my personal experience across multiple jobs: For every company that tries to embody the old Agile Manifesto there are a dozen who've simply plugged The Latest Trendy Management Practice into that module slot and are continuing business as usual. No, thanks.

Right, and for every company who advertises ‘competitive compensation’ and means it there are a dozen whose idea of competitive comp is that they’ll match an offer to retain you later. You do need to filter through some BSers to find a good job but that doesn’t mean any company that claims anything good about themselves is lying.

[deleted]
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