Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#101

Post by bsenftner » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:23 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #48

humanrebar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...I notice more and more graveyards of abandoned projects and services running without anybody present who was involved in building or setting up. I've seen this happen a lot in full-time-only shops. It's possible it happens more often in shops that lean heavily on contract work, but it happens everywhere. It takes strong technical leadership to keep that sort of technical debt quantified and prioritized without k…

The IT department in my company is an example of the result of a totally outsourced organization. At the top you have a huge layer of well spoken, very personable people who "facilitate", "align" and call meetings. They have no technical knowledge. Then there are a few "architects" who sit in these meetings. The architects come up with a solution and then send the work to India. At the place the work is actually done…

I see this type of organization often. I wonder if there needs to be a deeper evaluation of the costs of delegation. Institutional knowledge becomes even more abstract when trained algorithms and their developers are in the mix.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#102

Post by IpV8 » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:24 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #96

Nursie wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. Rather that than fill in holiday forms, attend company meetings, have annual performance reviews etc etc.

Yeah, but you don't risk going to jail just because you're bad at bookkeeping.

You don't go to jail for bad bookkeeping as a contractor. You just have to pay back what you owe with interest.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#103

Post by sunyataishere » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

KGIII wrote: post #42

bitwize wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's fun to poke fun at the system we have in the US, but we're doing fairly well from a numbers standpoint. Our GDP is fantastic, our median income is quite good, and we still manufacture a bunch of stuff. NONE of that matters because those metrics measure the winners. The key measure is, does our system have a lot of big losers? If the answer is yes, then that system has failed.

No, those are your metrics. Your goals don't match those of the system. Ill defined terms like big losers don't really help. I don't think anyone would argue the system is perfect. I'd conclude that it's not nearly as bad as you seem to think it is. By being a part of the system, you're already better off than some 40% of the globe, by default.

taking your argument to its logical extreme, the goals of the system are met so long as the median and averages look favorable relative to other countries... an ultra wealthy 1% can offset the relative lack of wealth in the rest of the 99% and the median can still look good - I think this is the point you may have been missing above

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#104

Post by throwmenow_0140 » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:28 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #71

jcun4128 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: somewhat connected tangent life experience thought I'm still a noob myself but I landed a long term contract developing a web application and I like being able to bill (invoice) and just get paid. It's a surprising thing haha, I haven't been working through UpWork in a while but that's still my primary place to look. I work a more-than-part time job in a restaurant (pays my bills as a restaurant drone). I am tr…

I can empathize with your goals and your current situation, so please take this in that light: I don't come away from your post thinking that you really understand how the proper nouns in your post really fit together. My initial reaction was "this is pretty word salad-y." If you're going to write a longer thing about tech, it's probably worth investing a little bit of stylistic and structural effort into not dismiss…

> Working on learning Git [...]

He's working on those things. I didn't get the impression that he tried to pretend to be a senior developer.

I really dislike the attitude that he has to "talk the talk as well as walk the walk". I know exactly what you mean and it's very important especially while freelancing, but in this context it sounds condescending. To paraphrase your words: I wouldn't hire someone who judges other people who just talk about their experiences.

@jcun4128: No worries, you don't have to meet some type of stylistic standard to express your opinion on HN (except the standards outlined in the HN guidelines, of course - and your comment satisfies all rules). Your comment was absolutely appropriate and reasonable.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#105

Post by jpwagner » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:31 PM UTC

wvh wrote: post #11

I've done mostly contract work because I liked the freedom when I was younger. Now I notice a lot of people my age have moved on to management or jobs "higher on the ladder" while I stress about the uncertainty of income when contracts end. I assume the lifestyle might suit people who are extraordinarily good networkers, but I feel mostly tired these days. My younger self didn't know about the fatigue the responsibil…

"In a fixed career you have a chance to build something up, while in contracting you're often back to square one with each new contract."

When you are "contracting" (I assume you mean freelancing) you ARE working for a "company" - YOU. Your boss is you, your accountant is you, your assistant is you, your maid is you. If you don't give yourself a promotion, sure you won't "build something up".

What you describe is not inherent to "contracting" it's up to you. Some people thrive in that scenario.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#106

Post by richardknop » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:33 PM UTC

zimpenfish wrote: post #91

richardknop wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

600/700 is not unusual in London (several of my friends are on daily rates like that). Plus you can expense a ton of things as part of business costs.

If you're into the weird or obscure fintech stuff, you can easily double those.

Or some enterprise nonsense like Ab Initio, Siebel, SAP etc.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#107

Post by nulagrithom » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:40 PM UTC

bsenftner wrote: post #101

maxxxxx wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IT department in my company is an example of the result of a totally outsourced organization. At the top you have a huge layer of well spoken, very personable people who "facilitate", "align" and call meetings. They have no technical knowledge. Then there are a few "architects" who sit in these meetings. The architects come up with a solution and then send the work to India. At the place the work is actually done…

I see this type of organization often. I wonder if there needs to be a deeper evaluation of the costs of delegation. Institutional knowledge becomes even more abstract when trained algorithms and their developers are in the mix.

I was sitting in yet another meeting the other day and started thinking...

We have two of our managers on this call, one of their managers, three of their engineers, and me. But I'm only there for some vague technical guidance. I don't even know the system/language they're working in.

That's 3 managers for 4 technical people, 1 of which is simply babysitting. So really that's 4 people making sure 3 people do the work right.

Everything takes months.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#108

Post by throwmenow_0140 » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:43 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #87

Do all contract workers have their own companies, do their bookkeeping etc? Seems like a lot of hassle just to do gigs.

Here in Germany you normally have some form of liability protection e.g. IT liability insurance so you don't give unsatisfied clients your house. Another way is a UG (it's similar to Ltd.) where you get some type of limited capital liability protection.

Bookkeeping is not too cumbersome, you just have to account for such tasks and their overhead in your hourly rate. Factoring all costs is the only big hassle, but after this, it's no hassle at all.

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#109

Post by aantix » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:47 PM UTC

wvh wrote: post #11

I've done mostly contract work because I liked the freedom when I was younger. Now I notice a lot of people my age have moved on to management or jobs "higher on the ladder" while I stress about the uncertainty of income when contracts end. I assume the lifestyle might suit people who are extraordinarily good networkers, but I feel mostly tired these days. My younger self didn't know about the fatigue the responsibil…

I'm a contractor. Have been for six years. Why do you care about other people's titles? A title won't save you during a lay off.

A company can call me janitor as long as they pay my rate on time.

At the end of the day, the risk for you and your family is a lack of cash. A "permanent" job is anything but that (you think they'll keep you around if the company is headed South?)

Learn to negotiate better. Build a bigger savings. So that when you're in between jobs, burnt out, you can sit back for a bit and calculate your next move(s).

Re: Is the Rise of Contract Workers Killing Upward Mobility?

#110

Post by richardknop » Tue, Oct 03, 2017, 3:49 PM UTC

danmaz74 wrote: post #39

walshemj wrote: post #32

Its always struck me as odd that Contractors in IT in the USA don't get the premium you do in the UK. I would expect 3x my FTE rate as a self employed contractor and that's before the better tax treatment even after the reforms to tax on dividends.

From what I read, it looks to me like actually, in the UK, it's permanent workers which have pretty poor salary for the IT market.

Yes. Bus/tube drivers have similar salaries to what many companies are offering to software engineers. So it's a bit ridiculous situation. Often the same company which offers low perm salary will hire contractors with high daily rate (which roughly translate to 2-3x money after taxes) without blinking an eye.