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Ask HN: Moving from a product org to a consulting org: What should I know?

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Re: Ask HN: Moving from a product org to a consulting org: What should I know?

#61

Post by winrid »

Buttons840 wrote: post #56

I get frustrated trying to improve things both big and small. As a small example, our endpoints return a list of JSON objects, as well as the length of that list, as though we're passing C pointers or something. I was under the impression that Javascript could determine the length of a list without help, but apparently that's the way it's done and it's not really worth a confrontation with the client to change such a…

Returning the length can be helpful for partial JSON parsing - determining the response size without parsing the whole thing.

More commonly it's used for pagination, in which case it's a total count.

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a product org to a consulting org: What should I know?

#62

Post by juancn »

Raed667 wrote: post #5

I started as a consultant and moved the other way, here are some key differences I see: - "long-term" architecture of projects is non-existent on short contracts (anything less than ~2 years) - The ownership feeling is very different if you're working directly with a client, or if you work with your own team - Even if the project sucks, it's nice to know that you won't be on it forever - Networking as a consultant is…

I also started consulting and moved to product and I agree with what you say, but one difference is that in product you can usually negotiate a higher salary (although you'll feel more uncertain about it) since you're not capped by any consulting rate.

Essentially your salary is investment for the company, not cost.

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a product org to a consulting org: What should I know?

#64

Post by camjohnson26 »

xondono wrote: post #35

My take from experience and from what I've seen with friends: - Consulting is great for people with good people skills, but it can turn into hell if you haven't them. - It's very easy for experienced workers in some shops to take advantage of the "new meat", and basically shove you their work. Be on the look for that situation. If it happens run as fast as you can. - Find out who are the top performers, get as close…

Totally agree about the perfectionism. I started out in consulting and it was a great way to work across a bunch of industries and technologies and to get exposure to different ways of doing things. The reason I left was I felt like my skills around support, testing, and architecture were atrophying because those just aren’t priorities on short, hourly engagements.

Since starting at a product company I’ve been able to build deep expertise, but I still rely on those consulting skills when talking with product people, QA, or if we need somebody to quickly ramp up on 3rd party libraries or understand something outside the scope of the team.

This all only applies to small, short term engagements though. Multiyear engagements are their own beast and I always stayed far away. Consulting politics is another layer of hell that most people will want to stay away from.

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a product org to a consulting org: What should I know?

#65

Post by camjohnson26 »

szopa wrote: post #42
jokethrowaway wrote: post #26

Having been in a product org, a consulting org and having done consulting alone, I think: - The type of work you do is largely the same across all orgs - unless you're a specialist in some advanced field nobody else can do or you can convince someone in power that you know how to do the occasional cool project - Both can have long useless meetings. Product orgs' meetings will be crap about how the company is awesome…

I was the CTO of an R&D consulting company in Poland, and parent is mostly spot on. I disagree, however, about the way they describe in-house management vs giving engineers to the customer. The only thing of real value in a software agency is the team. If your programmers get pissed off and move to another company, you are going to have to spend money to hire and onboard someone, and leave money on the table (you nee…

While this makes sense in theory in my experience these companies end up relying on new grads for a lot of the work until they get wise and leave or burn out. For some reason they treat attrition as a cost of doing business, even though a lot of knowledge leaves when people do.

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a product org to a consulting org: What should I know?

#66

Post by codegeek »

notaslave wrote: post #58

My advice: stay away from consulting. My user name itself is a result of my experience working in one of those body shops. Client doesn't care, my employer doesn't care. I see people here talking about 1-1s and promotions and so on. I never had a single one in 5+ years. Clients treat us as outsiders. I am not sure if they even see us as humans. Just keep on dumping work, and then suddenly you are kicked out one fine…

Sorry but your issue is not "consulting" vs "product". You work for a shitty company/team/boss and you need to get out. Don't blame consulting in general.

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a product org to a consulting org: What should I know?

#68

Post by hiimdurex »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #64
xondono wrote: post #35

My take from experience and from what I've seen with friends: - Consulting is great for people with good people skills, but it can turn into hell if you haven't them. - It's very easy for experienced workers in some shops to take advantage of the "new meat", and basically shove you their work. Be on the look for that situation. If it happens run as fast as you can. - Find out who are the top performers, get as close…

Totally agree about the perfectionism. I started out in consulting and it was a great way to work across a bunch of industries and technologies and to get exposure to different ways of doing things. The reason I left was I felt like my skills around support, testing, and architecture were atrophying because those just aren’t priorities on short, hourly engagements. Since starting at a product company I’ve been able t…

ok

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a product org to a consulting org: What should I know?

#69

Post by apohn »

xondono wrote: post #35

My take from experience and from what I've seen with friends: - Consulting is great for people with good people skills, but it can turn into hell if you haven't them. - It's very easy for experienced workers in some shops to take advantage of the "new meat", and basically shove you their work. Be on the look for that situation. If it happens run as fast as you can. - Find out who are the top performers, get as close…

>All the big failures I've seen in consulting come from having middleman between the guy building and the guy talking to the client.

I've worked in different sized consulting organizations. The bigger the consulting project, the more middlemen on both sides. Large consultancies focus on large projects at large customers. Large customers have a bunch of middlemen talking to the middlemen at the consultancy. What is sold, what is required, what is actually done...it's like a big maze...

If all you care about is a paycheck and checking some "delivered" boxes, these large consultancies are fine. If you are the type of person who gets upset because you feel like what you are asked to do can't possibly be right, try to find a smaller consulting org where customer success actually means something.

>If you are the kind of person that has trouble living with that (i.e. perfectionist), you'll be way happier in product orgs.

100% Agree. Note that smaller consulting orgs can be more focused on not delivering crap, but a change in profitability or strategy can change that quickly.

Re: Ask HN: Moving from a product org to a consulting org: What should I know?

#70

Post by arwhatever »

My 1 year at a consultancy out of 13 total as a dev gave me the the impression:

1. You get to walk on 10x the eggshells for the same pay

2. Shorter project ownership time horizon might have been fine with me, except this particular group was so intent on presenting the appearance of utmost competence to the clients that they couldn’t do the necessary course corrections that become apparent maybe 1/3 of the way into any project, once you’ve gained the initial bit of experience particular to that project.

The result was a quality of work that I was not willing to be a part of, so I bailed.

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