11–20 of 41 posts
I am the author of this article, and I'm happy to answer any questions about tech consulting right here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it cost-prohibitive to ship test devices to each of your engineers? I have worked on an embedded systems team where some of the employees were remote. The biggest challenges were with sharing details for reproducing specific issues, but emailing videos and lots of conference calls made it a functional environment.
No, for most of our projects, the test systems are small enough so that it's not cost-prohibitive to ship. I just know that every time we bring up a new system or board, there can be days of debugging stupid problems, and that's with everyone and all our electronics gear in the same building. You say the environment was "functional". For you, did the advantages of having the larger applicant market outweigh the disad…
So, if you're based somewhere crawling with tech talent and the nature of your product already attracts it, then it very well might be a net-negative to operate your team remotely.
Otherwise, I think you'll find it's worth navigating some of these setup issues to be able to hire the best from wherever you're based.
I don't want to get too caught up in quibbling over definitions, but I do feel like there's a point worth making here: There is a difference between a "consultant" and a "contractor", and I think it's worth being aware of. It may or may not matter to any given individual, but to some it will. And to be fair, some of this is subjective, but here's the way I've observed it over the years... First of all, what do I mean…
I get that the difference between the level of services you're describing for a "consultant" vs. a "contractor," but I think that has more to do with the capacity of the individual contractor/consultant than the label itself.
I am the author of this article, and I'm happy to answer any questions about tech consulting right here.
For options #2 and #3, how do you go about getting your very first client? I can imagine the dialogue when you've done a few projects and you've got a portfolio and perhaps references, but how do you get the very first person when you're just "some bloke who thinks he knows how to write software." ?
- Work as a fulltime employee doing the same type of work you want to be paid to do as a consultant. It's a legitimate way to get the kind of experience you want to sell.
- Be your own first client. Build something that interests you, and sell that experience.
Both are more about "management consulting" (aka, McKinsey, Deloitte, etc.) than what most of us probably have in mind, but they are both entertaining reads in their own respective right.
House of Lies is a sort of retrospective "tell all" from a former management consultant, and inspired a TV program of the same name. At times it's hard to tell how serious he is, and the TV show is clearly not meant to be a completely accurate documentary (although it may be more truthful than you'd think) but it's a fun read.
The Firm is basically the history of McKinsey, and while that might sound pretty dry and boring, it turns out to be fairly fascinating. Lots of interesting characters involved, and some fun drama and what-not. And it's interesting to see how McKinsey grew from basically nothing, to being the behemoth it is today.
[1]: http://www.amazon.com/House-Lies-Management-Consultants-Stea...
[2]: http://www.amazon.com/Firm-McKinsey-Influence-American-Busin...
Could anyone point to some good resources for drafting contracts (templates, apps, ect.)?
I'm a technical project manager now (used to be a web stack developer). Does this advice apply to PMs as well?
Could anyone point to some good resources for drafting contracts (templates, apps, ect.)?