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My life in Accenture before startups

swombat.com

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Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#41

Post by arethuza »

fbnt wrote: post #36

I left Accenture (Italy) this january, after 3 years, and just like you I was hired right after graduation thanks to my 'mad' java skills, after about 1 year I wasn't writing much code anymore and SQL, Word & Excel became my only daily companions. Negatives/things I didn't like during my experience in Accenture : - Working 10-14 hours a day (^). If you were to leave at 6pm your supervisor would joke about it ("hey, d…

"What matter isn't the quality of your work, it's the amount of time you spend on it."

So what is the motivation for employing good developers then? If you make more money by taking longer then the sensible thing to do would be to hire less skilled people who talked a good game but were poor at actually doing stuff.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#42

Post by quicksilver03 »

mbesto wrote: post #25
swombat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any company with 100k+ people is going to have its share of idiots. I worked there for 4 years and, in my experience, this type of person was definitely a very small minority. I'd blame the person rather than the company for this kind of terribly flawed character.

Agreed that any company is going to have it's share of idiots, but isn't it the principle job of a company like Accenture to hire competent people? Their business model is to lease out intellectual talent so their principle job is to create talent. I, like most people commenting here, have worked with a lot of bad Accenture people and am shocked when I do actually meet a good one. Yes, they do exist, but most good pe…

No, theyre only interested in hiring billable people. They're not interested in creating talent or nurturing competencies, they provide numbers (or better, warm bodies to fill the client's chairs) and often subcontract to smaller consultancies when truly competent people are needed on some project.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#43

Post by fbnt »

arethuza wrote: post #41
fbnt wrote: post #36

I left Accenture (Italy) this january, after 3 years, and just like you I was hired right after graduation thanks to my 'mad' java skills, after about 1 year I wasn't writing much code anymore and SQL, Word & Excel became my only daily companions. Negatives/things I didn't like during my experience in Accenture : - Working 10-14 hours a day (^). If you were to leave at 6pm your supervisor would joke about it ("hey, d…

"What matter isn't the quality of your work, it's the amount of time you spend on it." So what is the motivation for employing good developers then? If you make more money by taking longer then the sensible thing to do would be to hire less skilled people who talked a good game but were poor at actually doing stuff.

That's actually what they do, but a consistent number of consultants on a specific project is necessary to justify their high prices. And they can do it because once they've taken control of most of the client's backoffice, so that he can't stay in business without them, they can ask higher fees.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#44

Post by mbesto »

swombat wrote: post #16
gaius wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual people I judge on their merits, same as anyone, but Accenture's involvement with the UK govt has been a disaster for everyone but them. What did they charge the NHS, and what did they deliver? Ripping off a healthcare provider is pretty low.

Accenture's involvement with the NHS was a major disaster for Accenture too. I can see why they went for it - it was the kind of huge contract that a company like Accenture can't resist - but unlike the other providers, they pulled out when they realised the whole thing was doomed (and took a very hefty financial penalty to do so). FYI, they cancelled one of the twice-yearly promotion points because of the NHS debacl…

> Accenture's involvement with the NHS was a major disaster for Accenture too.

It still amazes me how many major disasters these large firms can absorb. A 450mil write-off would cripple most businesses. Not picking at Accenture specifically but I've seen Cap, IBM, etc all get doused by law suits and/or write-offs that are absolutely massive.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#45

Post by gaius »

mbesto wrote: post #44
swombat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accenture's involvement with the NHS was a major disaster for Accenture too. I can see why they went for it - it was the kind of huge contract that a company like Accenture can't resist - but unlike the other providers, they pulled out when they realised the whole thing was doomed (and took a very hefty financial penalty to do so). FYI, they cancelled one of the twice-yearly promotion points because of the NHS debacl…

> Accenture's involvement with the NHS was a major disaster for Accenture too. It still amazes me how many major disasters these large firms can absorb. A 450mil write-off would cripple most businesses. Not picking at Accenture specifically but I've seen Cap, IBM, etc all get doused by law suits and/or write-offs that are absolutely massive.

I would very much like to see a windfall tax on all those companies, to claw back what the last government wasted on them.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#46

Post by swombat »

fbnt wrote: post #36

I left Accenture (Italy) this january, after 3 years, and just like you I was hired right after graduation thanks to my 'mad' java skills, after about 1 year I wasn't writing much code anymore and SQL, Word & Excel became my only daily companions. Negatives/things I didn't like during my experience in Accenture : - Working 10-14 hours a day (^). If you were to leave at 6pm your supervisor would joke about it ("hey, d…

I think I got lucky as far as working hours went. I was in an account and with a client that didn't seem to care so much. Even at that client, some Accenture teams worked long hours, but the teams where I spent a lot of time were never the 12-hours-a-day workaholic types. I'd say that for 98+% of my time at Accenture, I arrived at work around 9am and left work around 6pm, with a decent lunch break in the middle (30-60 minutes).

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#47

Post by drtse4 »

arethuza wrote: post #41
fbnt wrote: post #36

I left Accenture (Italy) this january, after 3 years, and just like you I was hired right after graduation thanks to my 'mad' java skills, after about 1 year I wasn't writing much code anymore and SQL, Word & Excel became my only daily companions. Negatives/things I didn't like during my experience in Accenture : - Working 10-14 hours a day (^). If you were to leave at 6pm your supervisor would joke about it ("hey, d…

"What matter isn't the quality of your work, it's the amount of time you spend on it." So what is the motivation for employing good developers then? If you make more money by taking longer then the sensible thing to do would be to hire less skilled people who talked a good game but were poor at actually doing stuff.

The problem here is that considering how these consulting companies are structured, how they work and their size, the capability to hire good developers imho is not even there.

Also, are companies like Accenture chosen by their clients for the incredible quality of their work? I'm also from Italy, so i could have observed something peculiar to this market, but the clients of those big consulting corps (usually from the financial sector or similar) just pick one of the biggest players as a "safe" bet, technical considerations are not part of the decision.

Which big player do they choose and why? I remember a discussion here on HN about "golf course software", that could be the methodology.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#48

Post by gamble »

drtse4 wrote: post #38
wallflower wrote: post #28

I know a few friends who worked for Accenture (back when it was called Andersen Consulting). I always thought the most fascinating thing (aside from the instant credibility of having the company on your resume) was their training program which was designed to take mostly liberal arts majors and teach them C programming (with unknown long-term success but at least enough to not totally drown at a first client engageme…

That was one of the reasons why i politely declined when i was asked if i was interested in a interview for the consulting branch. A place where people with zero experience are hired, trained in a few weeks and them sent to some client as a "consultant"? No, thanks...

This is what I love about consulting companies. They get the contract by talking up their experience with the client's business, but once the deal is signed they just scoop a bunch of warm bodies off the street to do the actual work.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#49

Post by doki_pen »

oscardelben wrote: post #32
edw519 wrote: post #27

My typical day working for a Big 5 firm: 7:00 - drive to client in Redlands 8:00 - arrive in Redlands 8:42 - client arrives for 8:00 meeting 8:51 - client leaves for emergency 8:52 - review project with programmer - still 18 months behind 9:15 - daily email to 6 bosses about dire status 9:38 - take call from boss #4 - debate "strategic direction" 10:20 - coffee, snack, & bitch session with lead programmer 10:45 - dri…

Interesting. Can you elaborate on review & print code ?

"All the code is now on the new platform." (points to code print outs sitting on top of the new computer).

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#50

Post by dartland »

Great post! I came from consulting into start-up world also (although I'm non-technical) and while you definitely have to re-learn many things to adjust to building a company, there are many many valuable lessons from working in that environment that entrepreneurs are all too quick to dismiss.

But the bottom line of your post is definitely the right summary: Do what feels right when it feels right, and you'll be fine. You can't lose when you're choosing between multiple interesting options. And as soon as your current path becomes uninteresting, look elsewhere.

Thanks for posting.

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