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The Prosperous Software Consultant (2018)

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Re: The Prosperous Software Consultant (2018)

#61

Post by ehnto »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #56

I know these are just examples, but the article keeps mentioning specialising in progressive web apps. As a user I want to use PWAs. As a developer I prefer to program PWAs. But as a contractor, nobody wants them. Everyone is happy to use react native and spend hours/days debugging their build each time they do a minor upgrade to XCode. I could advertise myself as a PWA specialist. But I've yet to see evidence that a…

There is an element of sales involved, you need to have a strong value proposition and sell that to your clients. If your approach is so much better than React Native, tell them what it gains them. How much money do they save, how much more performant is it, let them know how important their site speed scores are and then show them how a PWA fairs against a typical React Native site and so on.

Re: The Prosperous Software Consultant (2018)

#62

Post by Clewza313 »

b20000 wrote: post #45

i’m always amused that the answer is always “work harder” and “do more shit”. meanwhile, in other consulting professions, people say “no”. why is this so difficult? the only remaining solid piece of advice here is to specialize. i can confirm this works.

Were we reading the same story? There was a long section about how higher rates are much more important than hours worked, and how you want to move away from getting paid for hours billed (butt in seat) to value added (irrespective of time taken).

Re: The Prosperous Software Consultant (2018)

#63

Post by carlmr »

tptacek wrote: post #39

This is a pretty good post. I've also done pretty well consulting. Some quick notes. First: $210k/yr is not necessarily really good money for a US software consultant. When consulting full time, please try to keep two things in mind: (1) Your cost basis is higher than it was when you were a W2 FTE. If you're making $100k/yr in salary, your employer is paying substantially more than $100k/yr to keep you on staff; you…

>if you blow the estimate because your customer didn't get you access to the systems you needed to work on until 3 weeks after the kickoff, they eat the overage.

This right here, I once waited 3 months for a company to get their stuff together for me to work on it. I had other projects going on, but you should be paid for waiting time as well, because you won't be taking on as much other work if you expect to get a huge project any time now.

Re: The Prosperous Software Consultant (2018)

#65

Post by fsloth »

bruce343434 wrote: post #12
fsloth wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything does not need to be made part of culture wars. Why would using she be any different than he? It's like Alice and Bob of oh so many quantum thought experiments but without Bob. If there is only one protagonist you have to go 50/50.

Off topic question for you: I'm an ESL speaker and I notice a trend where some people phrase it like "Everything does not need" But in my head it sounds better as "Not everything needs" Is the latter not acceptable English? Or is it something regional? In my language, it is customary to negate individual nouns, but some English speakers seem to only ever negate the verb.

The discussion below is great. I think "Not everything needs" would have been better as well.

One reason I'm participating in HN is to hone my written english so I appreciate it very much you pointed this out :)

My native tongue (Finnish) is not in the Indo-European language group so I'm occasionally blind to these sort of patterns that are maybe more obvious to speakers of other Indo-European tongues.

Re: The Prosperous Software Consultant (2018)

#66

Post by kubanczyk »

kazinator wrote: post #38
kubanczyk wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox? Use the C-Alt-R, Luke. (Reader mode.)

Ctrl-Alt-R restarts the browser. Reader view is toggled by F9.

Uh, my bad. It looks either version- or OS-specific. https://superuser.com/a/1147441/21439

Re: The Prosperous Software Consultant (2018)

#67

Post by zerr »

rukuu001 wrote: post #59
zerr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> day rate Didn't the clients expect holy 8 hours in this case? Another class of freelancers/consultants which are missed out from this discussion (hourly rate vs other): long-term/indefinite flex-time workers. No estimations or promises, just pay-as-you-go for several years or more. With the hourly rate, in this setup, one can work 5 hours one week, 0 hours second week, 35 another week... So a kind of very flexible…

>Didn't the clients expect holy 8 hours in this case? It's your day, not theirs. Accounting for number of hours spent in a day on client work is just getting back to hourly charging.

That is when agreeing on some fixed nbr of days, i.e. fixed price. In case it is indefinite contract without upfront estimations, day would be expected to be a full day, i.e. back to hourly.

Re: The Prosperous Software Consultant (2018)

#68

Post by HelloNurse »

tptacek wrote: post #50
kasey_junk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I’ve always been curious about is why law firms so aggressively meter. Wouldn’t most arguments you’d apply to software consultants apply to them as well?

It's a good question, and I really believe the answer is just that they've been given social permission to gouge (at least, if you're not big or savvy enough to work out a fixed-fee arrangement) that other professions don't really have. Everyone expects a law firm to nickel-and-dime. And, of course, you're really wary of that when you take calls with your lawyer.

> Everyone expects a law firm to nickel-and-dime.

It's something they are expected to do for their clients, so within reasonable limits doing it to their clients is expected and shows a serious professional attitude.

Re: The Prosperous Software Consultant (2018)

#69

Post by b20000 »

Clewza313 wrote: post #62
b20000 wrote: post #45

i’m always amused that the answer is always “work harder” and “do more shit”. meanwhile, in other consulting professions, people say “no”. why is this so difficult? the only remaining solid piece of advice here is to specialize. i can confirm this works.

Were we reading the same story? There was a long section about how higher rates are much more important than hours worked, and how you want to move away from getting paid for hours billed (butt in seat) to value added (irrespective of time taken).

the article mentions a lot of extra work and projects which will take half if not more of your time, to make a name for yourself. that is what my comment is about.

Re: The Prosperous Software Consultant (2018)

#70

Post by b20000 »

Clewza313 wrote: post #62
b20000 wrote: post #45

i’m always amused that the answer is always “work harder” and “do more shit”. meanwhile, in other consulting professions, people say “no”. why is this so difficult? the only remaining solid piece of advice here is to specialize. i can confirm this works.

Were we reading the same story? There was a long section about how higher rates are much more important than hours worked, and how you want to move away from getting paid for hours billed (butt in seat) to value added (irrespective of time taken).

also, charging by project rather than by hour will only work if you know really well how much time something takes which can be very dangerous IMHO.
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