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Agree for time spent learning new frameworks and technologies (i.e. generalist self-improvement that will be applicable to many clients and is part of your adve
by nopassrecover 10y ago
Agree for time spent learning new frameworks and technologies (i.e. generalist self-improvement that will be applicable to many clients and is part of your advertised skill-sets), but I would disagree on the example you've given (encountering an obscure bug during development).
Isn't this kind of learning really a discovery process inherent to analysis and development?
To take an old anecdote of the engineer who charges $1 for making a chalk mark and $9999 for knowing where to make the mark - if you're going "off the clock" while you work out where to make the mark (i.e. debugging a library), are you then charging higher rates when you "know where to make the mark"?
- cstejerean 10y agoYes, I used to charge much higher rates precisely because I either know how to solve the problem or I'll figure it out on my own time. This protects the client from the technical risk of the solutions I recommend, and that makes sense, because they are not technology experts. By me taking on that risk it forces me to be more careful about what technology choices I make. So I use tools that are battle tested, things that I've use do in production before and I know where the pitfalls are. I don't pick the new shiny thing just because I read 3 blog posts and played with it on the weekends. When I hire a photographer to take pictures I don't expect to pay the photographer when their camera malfunctions and they are trying to format their SD card. Or if they just bought a new camera and haven't figured out how to adjust the white balance, etc. I don't see why hiring someone to solve problems with technology should be all that different.
- bigmanwalter 10y agoI like the way you worded that! I have the same philosophy and I find it brings a rare form of sanity to my consulting projects.