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How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

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Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#451

Post by AFNobody »

maneesh wrote: post #326
AFNobody wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please provide literally any evidence you have that the average consultant can reliably and repeatedly generate 5-figures-a-week-individual consultancy. I can already tell you no such evidence exists but if you want to search for it, you are free to do so. > I used to have a similar scarcity mentality --- thinking that because other people were successful, it was like the lottery -- based purely on chance. > But I le…

5-figures a week is a high number, no doubt. But are you saying there is NO way to improve one's position in life and income? That, if a path can't be shown repeatedly and reliably in a double-blind clinical study, there is no value in attempting to improve oneself? Do you believe income is fixed, and that if you can't hit a five figure mark, well -- you might as well not try?

> But are you saying there is NO way to improve one's position in life and income?

I never stated that was the case.

> That, if a path can't be shown repeatedly and reliably in a double-blind clinical study, there is no value in attempting to improve oneself?

Money, beyond a basic level of ~$1k/week is mostly useless other than speeding up retirement.

> Do you believe income is fixed, and that if you can't hit a five figure mark, well -- you might as well not try?

You seem to think money = improving yourself = important.

I'm honestly more worried about you as a fellow human being and the misalignment of your goals than I am about whether I make $10k a week or $1k a week.

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#452

Post by AFNobody »

patio11 wrote: post #285
AFNobody wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A consultant making 5 figures a week, in practical terms, is a unicorn that is not reliably repeatable. Most people cannot maintain that level of marketing while maintaining an income (as a consultant) effectively. If they could, every programmer would try to transition into making 5 figures a week as a consultant instead of making $100-200k with a stable job. The $4k/week thing isn't since pretty much any decent con…

There are plenty of reasons to take a steady job over running a business, even a very lucrative business. I’ve done both; no stressing over Christmas on whether a check will arrive soon enough in January or February to pay for my tax assessment in March has non-zero value to it. Paternity leave was pretty nice. I get to devote a supermajority of my professional efforts to work rather than devoting 10% to business adm…

> Consultants with relatively high rates are not unicorns, any more than lawyers or doctors with high rates are. This is not just repeatable, this is a fairly reasonable career path, much like “work at AppAmaGooBookSoft” is a lucrative but well-trod career path. (Which, btw, have in-the-door offers for mid-career professionals which are reasonably competitive with running a full-time consultancy at $30k/week.)

You are seriously going to engage me with the argument that $600k+ (20 weeks of paid engagements @ $30k/week) a year in income + benefits is common?

I think you have a greatly inflated opinion of what the top 25% of software developers get paid let alone what is reasonable and repeatable.

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#453

Post by jghn »

twobyfour wrote: post #371
jghn wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The other piece I've seen is being able to handle "I want Foo by X". It's easy to take on the engineer mindset and say "Sorry, that's not possible. The whizbangs alone would take more than that time!", but what do you do when they simply repeat "I want Foo by X"?. Picture the various Star Trek series where the engineer would say it'd take 5 hours to fix something and the captain retorts "you have 2". It's re…

I agree - the why skill is crucial and difficult. I won't claim to be any good at it (it's actually one of the things my current manager excels at intuiting and I want to learn from him). One tactic I can suggest (if your manager isn't a totally unreasonable cartoon tyrant) is to simply be explicit about it and ask "can you explain more about why you need Foo?" and then "what's driving the deadline of X?" Understandi…

All true statements. I've been working at it, but then I watch my boss who is also excellent at it, and I realize I'm a novice still. In comparison I just get frustrated and wind up frustrating them as well.

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#454

Post by AFNobody »

mgkimsal wrote: post #147
AFNobody wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A consultant making 5 figures a week, in practical terms, is a unicorn that is not reliably repeatable. Most people cannot maintain that level of marketing while maintaining an income (as a consultant) effectively. If they could, every programmer would try to transition into making 5 figures a week as a consultant instead of making $100-200k with a stable job. The $4k/week thing isn't since pretty much any decent con…

That person making 5 figures per week often doesn't need or want to be working 'repeatably' or have a full schedule. A couple folks I know charge $15k-$20k/week, but they only care to take on a few of those per year, while pursuing other interests (other business ideas, etc). Even $30k/week is still selling time for money, and "isn't scalable" - maxing out at $1.5m/year even fully booked, which few are.

I'm talking about number of people able to do it rather than the specific individuals who have gotten into that position.

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#456

Post by vinceguidry »

md224 wrote: post #431
patio11 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is weird how I get persistently drummed out of engineering because when I write cron jobs, SQL queries, and React dashboards I make special effort to connect them to business outcomes. Businesses, to a first approximation, don’t care about their tech stack except to the extent that it drives business outcomes. Can you articulate those pros/cons in a way a business cares about? Can you impact your deliverables to r…

You really don't see why the example you gave above was marketing rather than engineering? All of the recommendations you gave were related to selling the product, not improving it. That's not a bad thing; it just means it was a marketing consultation.

Being a consultant is marketing, there is no way to be an engineering consultant. Engineers work for consultants, not as consultants.

If you want to make the big bucks, you have to do what businesses care about, not what you care about.

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#457

Post by milofeynman »

titanomachy wrote: post #445
milofeynman wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a guy like this. He ended up a VP at a big company like Salesforce a few years ago, got laid off spent a year and a half blowing money on drugs and women. Came back and fudged his LinkedIn / resume to make it look like he was a consultant those years (no months only years on his LinkedIn) some company is back to paying him 300-500k salary. It mostly seems to be about selling yourself hard and interviewing a lo…

VPs don't usually get "laid off"... they get fired, although it's almost always sold as a "mutual decision".

I can't imagine why such a standup guy would tell his acquaintances he was "laid off" haha

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#459

Post by calimac »

patio11 wrote: post #293
kleiba wrote: post #57

To this day, I'm still not quite clear about what a consultant actually does. I mean, beyond some vague idea ("goes to some company, talks with people, gives some recommendation"). I'd really love for someone to give some example or describe in a tangible way what the work of a consultant entails, what skills one typically needs and actually employs, what a typical gig looks like from beginning to end and so on. If a…

My modal engagement was with a SaaS company with $20 million a year sales, a few dozen employees, and 1~3 very strapped people wearing the marketing hat. “How much email do you send?” “We have a newsletter.” “What else?” “Welcome to free trial email. “What else?” “Nothing.” I write proposal. You should: 1) Have a pre-sales drip campaign positioned as a “free course about X delivered over email” w/ 8 emails arriving o…

Fuckin amen brother! That’s how it’s done.

Re: How I went from programming to consulting (2012)

#460

Post by projektir »

tptacek wrote: post #433
projektir wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some people, probably. I'd wager most people don't have someone like tptacek as an internet buddy or knowledge that would interest them, though. They literally mentioned HN karma rank titles... so much for fake internet points? Does this sound odd to anyone else or just me? There's likely some small percentage of people who can go on to do consulting and charge lots of money. That this applies to a greater amount…

I don't know what this even means. I think Patrick and I might have exchanged a total of one (1) super secret Internet friends secret messages before we met for coffee and me and Cory kidnapped him for the day. If you're in Chicago and you haven't made a hobby out of calling me an NSA shill (or if you can credibly claim that you've done so only out of irony), we're "internet friends" enough that I'll grab coffee if y…

I guess I had higher expectation for the term "internet buddy" than what is used here. I generally figured it's a term implying some familiarity, and that getting emails from randoms is unwelcome. But perhaps the other commenter makes a good point regarding cold-introing. I always read various people say "I get thousands of emails..." and assume there's no reason for them to read mine.

I don't think I ever called you an NSA shill, although I did commit the grave offense of suggesting that Firefox is a secure browser, which I imagine is even worse. :P

Sadly, I'm pretty far away from Chicago and likely will be in the foreseeable future.

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