flat fees fail for dev. as soon as you encounter an unexpected problem, your margin suffers. since unexpected problems can radically alter dev time, your margin can be obliterated.
Make bigger margins
> Make bigger margins
if you can maximize margin on all fixed price work while not pricing yourself out of the market you will dominate software dev and also make millions selling books. hint: it's not that easy.
handling fixed price software dev is like handling dynamite.
Or a combination. I'm in a pretty small company (about 80 people total, 15 devs) and worked on all three of those last year.
I'm a bit confused. You worked as a consultant selling hours, one a software product sold for a price and also on an internal enablement tool for the same company?
Yes. About 40 of us are water managent consultants, I write tools for them to use in their projects (based on our products). Also sometimes we do projects where we write custom (water management related) software for customers, as consultants. And we have a few products of our own, mulyi tenant web apps, that similar customers buy licenses for, that I also work on.
What if you are one of the only few who know how to maintain a Cobol system for a bank? Aren't you very valuable?
> What if you are one of the only few who know how to maintain a Cobol system for a bank? Aren't you very valuable?
The bank would see the situation (only one person knows the Cobol system) an extreme risk and do whatever it takes to mitigate that risk. The short term answer is to keep you hired but the long term answer is to either find a steady supply of Cobol programmers or move away from Cobol to something where expertise is more available.
In addition to knowing which bucket your salary comes from, I think it is also useful to know how your organization values building software. Because this affects your career just as much. * Is your company selling software development hours (consulting)? I'm this car you'll be valued for client relations skills and the ability to bang out acceptable software. * Is your company selling a software product (product com…
My experiences: 1) programmer in IT department of major newspaper: disregarded as IT geek. very small salary. the worst office spaces. 2) senior engineer in software startup: rockstar treatment, stock options, all the things you would expect as office culture 3) senior consultant at IT consulting company: must basically be a sales guy who writes good PowerPoints. Maximize billable hours. What ever you do dont complet…
> Maximize billable hours. What ever you do dont complete a project quickly or with minimum amount of code.
There's a real continuum of engagement budget here - at the other end of the scale you have the opposite problem where the fees are barely adequate, and your success is based on systemitizing shortcuts to crash out cookie cutter minimum viable products, and being able to get clients to actually cough up.
> Is your company selling something else that has a software component or that software enables (pretty much every other company)? I'm not sure this is true? If my company sells food or clothing or shoes, they don't have a software component. I'm not sure what the breakdown is, but my gut feeling is "pretty much every other company" is wrong. I work for a company that makes clothing and shoes. We have an enormous tec…
Pepsi's hiring Elixir developers for their backend and logistics systems. Pretty much every company of significant scale realizes they can either save money or gain some advantage from using custom software.
Very much this.
What ever is being manufactured, the real product is data for process improvements, improve product quality.
In addition to knowing which bucket your salary comes from, I think it is also useful to know how your organization values building software. Because this affects your career just as much. * Is your company selling software development hours (consulting)? I'm this car you'll be valued for client relations skills and the ability to bang out acceptable software. * Is your company selling a software product (product com…
Many companies has the last two intermixed, some devision create support software for the business and some create value generating software. Think about a bank, creating the system for the back office is not the same as creating the HFT system. Sometimes consulting and in house product is also intermixed. In short, the distinctions are correct but it is not about the organisation, more about the division in this organisation.
In addition to knowing which bucket your salary comes from, I think it is also useful to know how your organization values building software. Because this affects your career just as much. * Is your company selling software development hours (consulting)? I'm this car you'll be valued for client relations skills and the ability to bang out acceptable software. * Is your company selling a software product (product com…
> Is your company selling something else that has a software component or that software enables (pretty much every other company)? I'm not sure this is true? If my company sells food or clothing or shoes, they don't have a software component. I'm not sure what the breakdown is, but my gut feeling is "pretty much every other company" is wrong. I work for a company that makes clothing and shoes. We have an enormous tec…
Not every company hires software developers of course. But every type of business will when they get big enough. They may not call them developers but I bet you have some people doing business process automation that are basically developers.
In addition to knowing which bucket your salary comes from, I think it is also useful to know how your organization values building software. Because this affects your career just as much. * Is your company selling software development hours (consulting)? I'm this car you'll be valued for client relations skills and the ability to bang out acceptable software. * Is your company selling a software product (product com…
#2 is the best because if you can do your job quickly and efficiently you can minimize the amount of actual time you spend working as long as you are delivering the software.
Well I agree with you, there are definitely developers out there who are completely happy with a 9 to 5 punch card type job.
In addition to knowing which bucket your salary comes from, I think it is also useful to know how your organization values building software. Because this affects your career just as much. * Is your company selling software development hours (consulting)? I'm this car you'll be valued for client relations skills and the ability to bang out acceptable software. * Is your company selling a software product (product com…
To simplify, you always always always want to be working in bullet point 2, if at all possible. In the other two, you are a cost to be minimized or eliminated. Only if you are working on one of the companies core products are you an asset bringing revenue into the company.
Nah there's still tons a variability. Some companies are great some are poor, and different people like working in different environments. #2 might be YOUR ideal workplace but it's not everyones.
As an aside, it seems that the $500K/year jobs have dried up - at least I don't see much of that on the "Who's hiring". Salary ranges seem to be more in the $100K - $200K range.
These compensation packages served the very specific purpose of enticing US-based talent to relocate to the Bay Area. As we increasingly accept remote work for senior talent and look abroad (or not at all) for junior talent, this is not as much of a need anymore. The inflow to the Bay Area always had a built-in expiration given there are only finitely many neighborhoods to gentrify and still no appetite for significa…
It's also self-inflicted pain: if you keep inflating wages you keep inflating home prices, which makes it even harder to attract people in. Google is doing everything it can to cut costs, closing daycares, tracking who eats, but they have literally acres of empty, brand-new real estate. I suspect another round of layoffs may be coming. And I doubt they'll do the "random selection" again. The smart ones at the fringes started bolting for the doors in December.