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My Guide to Software Engineering Contracting in UK

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Re: My Guide to Software Engineering Contracting in UK

#61

Post by codedokode »

sirsinsalot wrote: post #12
sirsinsalot wrote: post #8

This is good entry level stuff. As a contractor in the UK exclusively for the past 20 years tho, it doesn't paint a very full picture. The most inaccurate bit is day rates. They're underestimated by quite some way in my experience. What I would say is contracting in the UK is a game with different layers. This is the basic "coder for hire" layer. There's levels above that, with contracts spanning 10 years+ and higher…

Also your number one skill is communication. If you're not liked, your services are less valuable. Number two skill is negotiating. The technical stuff starts much further down the list.

Does it mean that UK companies are in need for likeable people who are good at negotiating rather than have good technical skills?

Re: My Guide to Software Engineering Contracting in UK

#62

Post by verbify »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #46
madeofpalk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe only not-so-strong developers actually believe this, after actual experience with this tech. That's just like saying that "Stackoverflow is like having a Principal Engineer around 24/7" which could be true to a degree, but it still doesn't make up for not knowing stuff.

This tells me that you haven't used GPT-4 (Thats not the free ChatGPT), or have not learned how to prompt properly. You can't ask Stack Overflow follow up questions. If the code from stack overflow does not work in the way you expect it to or the answer is not 100% accurate, you can't ask Stack Overflow to correct it. Also, its better in the hands of Senior Engineers who can evaluate answers for correctness, because…

My experience with GPT-4 is that it's been amazing for python and mediocre at DAX. It frequently hallucinates functions, gives code that can't run, or does not fit the prompt.

It is still helpful, but there's a big gap between how helpful it is, depending on the tech.

Re: My Guide to Software Engineering Contracting in UK

#63

Post by mp05 »

toyg wrote: post #53
UK-Al05 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self employed Plumbers can earn about the same as developers in the UK.

And likely don't need to master a new type of plumbing every other year.

Yeah the useSolder method is pretty straightforward and hasn't changed in quite some time.

Re: My Guide to Software Engineering Contracting in UK

#64

Post by junto »

Spent many years contracting within the UK market but living abroad.

After emigrating from the UK, I moved around in the EU (GMT+1/+2). It was the best of both worlds since IR35 cannot apply to non UK domiciled tax residents.

Rates around £450-500 per day for that I was doing. Finally settled in an EU country and then moved to a permanent role after twenty plus years of being a remote contracting bum.

If you have questions then ask away.

Re: My Guide to Software Engineering Contracting in UK

#65

Post by vinibrito »

junto wrote: post #64

Spent many years contracting within the UK market but living abroad. After emigrating from the UK, I moved around in the EU (GMT+1/+2). It was the best of both worlds since IR35 cannot apply to non UK domiciled tax residents. Rates around £450-500 per day for that I was doing. Finally settled in an EU country and then moved to a permanent role after twenty plus years of being a remote contracting bum. If you have que…

Well, doing what, for whom and through which years approximately. Also anything in your marketing apart of the basics, which is portfolio, referrals etc?

Re: My Guide to Software Engineering Contracting in UK

#67

Post by vidarh »

karaterobot wrote: post #50

I was a software contractor in Seattle for 13+ years, pretty much all of this holds true for that area as well, and I assume most of the U.S. at least. > If you turn up and are rubbish, your contract will be terminated really quick. And if there are layoffs, contractors would (sometimes) already be well gone already. This is one piece of advice I haven't found to be the case. I have told the following lies as a contr…

25 years ago or so, I got a contract doing Word Basic to update a bunch of code to maintain an ISO 9001 handbook using MS Help files. I had.no experience with any of those things. But as you say, you get the tasks nobody internally want, so I learned all of them, and still finished the work faster than the client expected and was hired back for another project later.

I also had a brief contract to teach Excel where I stayed a chapter ahead of my students in class, and similarly got great feedback...

So much contract work has a really low bar.

But then on the other side of the difficulty, I also delivered a library to provide a reliable data transfer layer on top of GSM data for use between two ships in motion (just adding some retries and automated redial etc. the only hard-ish part was minimizing the time to catch up after a redial where you might be suddenly lagging 40+ seconds behind), one of which was tracking an unmanned submersible. That certainly involved taking in their stress - they were demoing the system for US Navy brass, and my part was what'd relay the demo data from the tracking ship to the workstation they'd show it on, and it was clear a large part of the pay was so there was someone to shift blame to if needed (thankfully everything went smoothly).

But that variety was fun. I much preferred the short contracts like that - didn't appreciate the stress of finding new ones which came with the short projects though.

Re: My Guide to Software Engineering Contracting in UK

#68

Post by vidarh »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #51
simmerup wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that house prices in this country are so damn high, I personally have to think more about maximising money income than about doing a job I’d enjoy

>The problem is that house prices in this country are so damn high, Tell me a developed western country where that's not the same.

I can literally buy a castle in France for what my 3 bedroom house in London costs. Not a huge one, sure, but an actual, real castle. OK, so France has ridiculous numbers of them, but anyway.

Sure, it's expensive everywhere, and there are plenty of places in France too where the prices are UK level (I'd like to retire to the South of France, and e.g. Nice is near or even above London levels for some areas, and buying a house there also costs castle money if you want something central) and same for elsewhere in Europe, but UK house price growth has been something else.

Re: My Guide to Software Engineering Contracting in UK

#69

Post by vidarh »

Dayshine wrote: post #4
codedeep wrote: post #2

My experience and tips for being a software developer contractor, in the UK

You mention you get to learn new skills and technologies; but if they only want to hire people who can immediately do what they need, how does that happen? Does it involve a bit of stretching your experience?

Clients often just ask if you can do X in Y time and Y is often more than large enough to learn X because often the estimates are set by full timers who really want to make sure they are not burdened by it.

I have said yes to being able to deliver projects in languages I'd never even seen before, because the timeline was long enough that I was (rightfully) confident I could figure it out within the estimated time.

Often they just want to outsource uncertainty. Of course you then do need to take on the risk and make sure you deliver, or you won't get hired back and if it's a referral it can get ugly, but in the years I did contracting that was never an issue.

Knowing your limits is important, of course.

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