To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#101

Post by tptacek » Tue, Oct 16, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #82

tptacek wrote: post #75

This notion of the distinction between contractors and consultants as a career status strikes me as similar to the distinction we make between developer and manager. And then, this is useful advice if what you want to do is manage, and code less. I've been consulting professionally since 2005, and I think I've gotten pretty good at it? And my take on this is, graduating from "IC" to "manager" in the eyes of your clie…

I think the biggest failures at the software consulting houses I've worked at have come from not building adequate tooling and not establishing a framework for knowledge/skills transfer. A close runner up would be failures related to trying to build actual products. The problem with consulting though is scalability. You can make a product and recoup your NRE with the first x units, and then most of what you sell beyo…

$165/hr is not particularly high (in addition to the fact: don't bill hourly). A $3200 day is not unusually high.

Product development is in some ways more gratifying than consulting. But consulting has its own rewards, too.

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#102

Post by semperdark » Tue, Oct 16, 2018, 6:42 PM UTC

chrisbennet wrote: post #66

acconrad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have asked what you believe is more . $75-100 is definitely in the "cheap" range, $100-150 I see for senior generalists, and $150-300 I see for the principal/architect/specialist rates. At some point the number isn't sustainable unless you're like a brand-name entity (e.g. John Carmack, Jeff Atwood, John Resig, and I'm just guessing here).

Good point. For context, I'm outside of Boston, not a web developer and I charge a very reasonable $150-$200 hour. This weeds out the clients that expect something to "take a couple of weeks" but have no idea what is involved and then don't appreciate/value the work once it's done. ("My kid cousin could have done this.") Many contract shops would be happy to tell you that "no one will pay that", pay you $65 hour and…

How do you market yourself? Personal network?

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#103

Post by toyg » Tue, Oct 16, 2018, 6:57 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #101

01100011 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the biggest failures at the software consulting houses I've worked at have come from not building adequate tooling and not establishing a framework for knowledge/skills transfer. A close runner up would be failures related to trying to build actual products. The problem with consulting though is scalability. You can make a product and recoup your NRE with the first x units, and then most of what you sell beyo…

$165/hr is not particularly high (in addition to the fact: don't bill hourly). A $3200 day is not unusually high. Product development is in some ways more gratifying than consulting. But consulting has its own rewards, too.

I’ve just started out in a niche that I thought richer than average, and I charge less than a third of that.

Where have you seen people charging that much?

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#104

Post by toyg » Tue, Oct 16, 2018, 7:04 PM UTC

acconrad wrote: post #57

acct1771 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't take the work, or subcontract it.

So the breakdown I saw this past year was: * 5% consulting (e.g. reports, audits, et al) * 10% subcontracting to other devs * 85% direct software development The highest margins were certainly on that 15%, but the volume was not nearly high enough to be able to make it work. Would a scenario be something like: Prospect wants work done. Instead of turning them down because my rate is too, subcontract that to someone w…

This is how body-shops make the big bucks: squeeze production prices down so you can carve more profit.

The alternative, I believe, is to find niches with higher margins or that scale better (white-label products, saas, and so on). Facebook makes $640k for each worker they employ, and they certainly don’t skimp on salaries.

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#105

Post by 121789 » Tue, Oct 16, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

vram22 wrote: post #90

tptacek wrote: post #75

This notion of the distinction between contractors and consultants as a career status strikes me as similar to the distinction we make between developer and manager. And then, this is useful advice if what you want to do is manage, and code less. I've been consulting professionally since 2005, and I think I've gotten pretty good at it? And my take on this is, graduating from "IC" to "manager" in the eyes of your clie…

>2. Specialize. Start looking for commonalities between the projects that you do. Build tooling for them. Maybe publish some open source stuff. Build a specialty practice around that. You can do this repeatedly, for different areas; eventually, you'll do it for business verticals. A former manager of mine, who had some consulting background, once told me that the big management consulting firms like McKinsey do somet…

Haha, I was a consultant and you paint a very idealistic picture of the situation. It usually went something like this in my experience:

1. Partner hears client is interested in a certain type of engagement

2. Partner promises that their firm has extensive expertise in the area

3. Partner commits to writing a proposal for the potential project

4. Lower level staff scramble to talk to other consultants in their firm (same industry) and dig through old case studies to figure out if #2 is actually true

5. Staff hurriedly compiles a proposal deck from a mish-mash of slides from other projects that are mildly relevant

6. Multiple iterative feedback loops where the partner gives vague suggestions on improvements and staff makes the changes

7. Send finalized proposal to design/production team

If you win the proposal, you use some lead time before the project to build an approach using past projects. In rare cases there would be a firm-sponsored template or framework (often when there is associated whitepapers or other marketing materials), but in general the situation was a more reactive "I do not have time to start this from scratch, so what can I gather from past projects?" and less of a proactive "let's build a template to reuse for new projects"

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#106

Post by chrisbennet » Tue, Oct 16, 2018, 7:38 PM UTC

semperdark wrote: post #102

chrisbennet wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. For context, I'm outside of Boston, not a web developer and I charge a very reasonable $150-$200 hour. This weeds out the clients that expect something to "take a couple of weeks" but have no idea what is involved and then don't appreciate/value the work once it's done. ("My kid cousin could have done this.") Many contract shops would be happy to tell you that "no one will pay that", pay you $65 hour and…

How do you market yourself? Personal network?

That the weird thing. I don't (market myself). I made website but I don't get leads from it. It's just a portfolio. I am very friendly and I do keep up with people I worked with decades ago but that is the extent of my "networking".

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#107

Post by gk1 » Tue, Oct 16, 2018, 7:45 PM UTC

gabriel34 wrote: post #51

gk1 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the VPs and CTOs know how to implement newnosql.js? The biggest challenges involve more that to get solved.

We are talking about consultants, but CTOs should have this knowledge if they if they are the ones making system architecture decisions. I have been at positions in which I had to explain to hierarchical superiors why a decision was bad or why some architecture was preferable. I was also overruled in some of these occasions, and in these cases we hit obstacles I predicted and had to change on the fly, ended up with d…

It's not realistic to expect CTOs to know the intricacies of all the latest widgets and libraries. I'm talking about CTOs of mature companies, not "CTOs" of a 10-person startup.

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#108

Post by gk1 » Tue, Oct 16, 2018, 7:47 PM UTC

beatgammit wrote: post #85

gk1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I fit into the “strategic consultant” category and my sales cycle from referral to signing is a few weeks, with zero downtime because I work on several projects at once. The great thing about being independent is you can design your engagements however you want. Not happy with amount of downtime? Find a way to do two (or more) projects at once. Not happy with sales cycle length? Simplify your offerings. A…

What does this mean exactly? Do you essentially build the specs and someone else does the work? Or do you see the project to completion (you design and implement the product)? I'm really confused because I really didn't see anything meaty in the article other than "talk about problems, not implementation". I thought the article was going to be about "licensing" vs "copyright transfer", but instead got a lecture about…

> Do you essentially build the specs and someone else does the work?

Yes, something like that. See: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...

That post goes into much more details and reasoning for this argument.

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#109

Post by vxNsr » Tue, Oct 16, 2018, 7:50 PM UTC

121789 wrote: post #105

vram22 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>2. Specialize. Start looking for commonalities between the projects that you do. Build tooling for them. Maybe publish some open source stuff. Build a specialty practice around that. You can do this repeatedly, for different areas; eventually, you'll do it for business verticals. A former manager of mine, who had some consulting background, once told me that the big management consulting firms like McKinsey do somet…

Haha, I was a consultant and you paint a very idealistic picture of the situation. It usually went something like this in my experience: 1. Partner hears client is interested in a certain type of engagement 2. Partner promises that their firm has extensive expertise in the area 3. Partner commits to writing a proposal for the potential project 4. Lower level staff scramble to talk to other consultants in their firm (…

I think it comes to the same thing, as I start to try and get ventures off the ground I'm finding that there's nothing like experience to improve your chances of success. Put another way: 90% of success is being successful.

Re: To become a software consultant, avoid letting clients pay you for code (2017)

#110

Post by lj3 » Tue, Oct 16, 2018, 7:57 PM UTC

icedchai wrote: post #100

andy_adams wrote: post #56

For any devs worried they're missing out because they're not in the "strategic" role described here: There's still a boatload of money to be made just doing the coding. Yes, strategic work can be the way to big buck$, but there's also a shortage of reliable implementers of moderately-technical projects who don't disappear and communicate reasonably well. Sure, you might not get to a $20k/week bill rate, but for many…

I've worked with some "strategic" consultants. Believe me, these guys did some pretty diagrams and wrote a couple of nice word docs, but they didn't do any real, useful work. It was almost laughable.

And yet, they get paid more and treated better than contractors and "consultants" who write code. Is the joke on them? Or us?