161–170 of 174 posts
What this does not touch on is be prepared to be a grease monkey, roll your sleeves up and get your hands dirty and most importantly learn how to make recommendations but not take it personally if they’re ignored for seemingly irrational reasons. Organisational dysfunction is the norm, not the exception. Broadly speaking I’ve seen most of my work fall into these categories: a) Help we need someone competent to aid us…
What this does not touch on is be prepared to be a grease monkey, roll your sleeves up and get your hands dirty and most importantly learn how to make recommendations but not take it personally if they’re ignored for seemingly irrational reasons. Organisational dysfunction is the norm, not the exception. Broadly speaking I’ve seen most of my work fall into these categories: a) Help we need someone competent to aid us…
You have to be an expert in the required area. Example: you have to be a Java Developer. If you are a software engineer that uses Java as one of your tools, it's not gonna fly, because god forbid you won't know by heart some java specific library/method/quirk/etc during your interview - this will be immediately filed under as a "NO" under "can hit the ground running" section, no matter how good you are at software engineering as a whole. In the end you will work with handful of "proven" (read "old, outdated") tools and become an expert of handling all kinds of legacy mess.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Had my own Ltd, took home about 65% of my day rate. No funny business What do you define as "no funny business"? Just curious what you mean by that. I operate a Ltd, take a low salary and the rest dividends (as recommended by my accountant), claim the odd lunch and transport as expenses and that is about it, which I think is fine (both legally and morally) as at the end of the day, I am operating as a company rathe…
My approach was exactly the same as yours and proportionally I paid roughly (within 2-3%) as much tax as I would if I had earned the same amount as a full time employee. About the only thing you are 'dodging' with a low salary as a Director of a Ltd. company and dividends is NIC contributions, which would likely be in the order of £2-3000/year. The main advantages as I saw them to contacting were: - day rate roughly…
And I absolutely agree about the advantages. I like the fact that I can work for smaller companies on interesting projects who wouldn't be able to pay the kind of permanent salary I would be looking for, and I like the flexibility and potential for variety. I've always found leaving permanent jobs, even for good reasons, a horrible experience - almost as if you are breaking up with them! - so while I'm in a period of my life where I would like as much varied experience as possible, I think contracting makes sense, as long as you are willing to put in the work a) to deliver good results for clients and b) to keep yourself up to speed with technologies.
One thing I haven't seen many people mention on here is that as a contractor, you're much more responsible for your own personal development. If you aren't a motivated self-learner (chances are, if you are reading HN then you at least somewhat match that description though) then you could easily get stuck doing one set of technology and not learning much new (which suits some people well, of course), as companies are a lot less likely to "take a punt" on a contractor who doesn't know their tech stack - they don't want to invest money in getting someone up to speed who is only there for a short time period.
By the same token, I wouldn't expect any significant training to be provided to you as a contractor, so if that kind of thing is important to someone, maybe contracting is not for them. I've been quite lucky so far and been able to move into new areas/technology based on evidence that I can pick new things up, but some places definitely aren't interested in you unless you are already well versed in their tech stack.
What this does not touch on is be prepared to be a grease monkey, roll your sleeves up and get your hands dirty and most importantly learn how to make recommendations but not take it personally if they’re ignored for seemingly irrational reasons. Organisational dysfunction is the norm, not the exception. Broadly speaking I’ve seen most of my work fall into these categories: a) Help we need someone competent to aid us…
I agree with you. This is why I will probably never go contracting. These my observations: You have to be an expert in the required area. Example: you have to be a Java Developer. If you are a software engineer that uses Java as one of your tools, it's not gonna fly, because god forbid you won't know by heart some java specific library/method/quirk/etc during your interview - this will be immediately filed under as a…
Nah. I'm by no means an expert in anything - you just have to be good enough to justify the daily rate (mine is low* for this reason.)
* but still a lot more than I'd get being permanent, obv.
Looks like I am gonna have to scrap my lavish summer holiday plans to put money aside...
What this does not touch on is be prepared to be a grease monkey, roll your sleeves up and get your hands dirty and most importantly learn how to make recommendations but not take it personally if they’re ignored for seemingly irrational reasons. Organisational dysfunction is the norm, not the exception. Broadly speaking I’ve seen most of my work fall into these categories: a) Help we need someone competent to aid us…
I agree with you. This is why I will probably never go contracting. These my observations: You have to be an expert in the required area. Example: you have to be a Java Developer. If you are a software engineer that uses Java as one of your tools, it's not gonna fly, because god forbid you won't know by heart some java specific library/method/quirk/etc during your interview - this will be immediately filed under as a…
What I offer is a lot of knowledge for the core items I currently use (Dynamics CRM, C#, Javascript, SQL) and a very broad set of knowledge based on 20 years of been there done that seen what happens if you do it that way...
The requirement of any contractor (or consultant) is to convey a sense of competency / trustworthiness that allows the interviewer to believe you either fit the exact requirements or provide enough additional value (in my case 20 odd years of battle wounds and stories of utter disasters) that you are the person who will add the most value....
What this does not touch on is be prepared to be a grease monkey, roll your sleeves up and get your hands dirty and most importantly learn how to make recommendations but not take it personally if they’re ignored for seemingly irrational reasons. Organisational dysfunction is the norm, not the exception. Broadly speaking I’ve seen most of my work fall into these categories: a) Help we need someone competent to aid us…
I agree with you. This is why I will probably never go contracting. These my observations: You have to be an expert in the required area. Example: you have to be a Java Developer. If you are a software engineer that uses Java as one of your tools, it's not gonna fly, because god forbid you won't know by heart some java specific library/method/quirk/etc during your interview - this will be immediately filed under as a…
Good advice, especially the bit about crunch. First time I contracted I let my accountant talk me into using their horrible spreadsheet. I couldn't make my self use it it was that bad and my accounts were a mess. Now my accountant (nimble jack) bundles freeagent (which when I looked into it was better than crunch and has an API) and keeping on top of things is much easier. One additional thing: If you're married make…
Personally I prefer the 'human' accountant. I've been using an experienced accountant for many years, and continued on when I created the LTD. He also does my personal taxes, the PAYE etc. For the company, we 'share' a google spreadsheet that is very simple, I add my invoicing, expenses, and he uses that to do the VAT bits and PAYE. Very low overhead, and he's very cheap too -- he's also 1 mile away, so I go and sit…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you be more specific about the useful skills? Like a list, out of which you need 2 or 3. Would be good to know what specifically companies want you to be confident about :)
Are you a passable Java programmer? Can you speak english to a business level? Can you wear a suit? Congratulations, you're qualified to work as a contract programmer at a bank in the City of London.