3 ms·

One of my most enjoyable periods while working for someone else was at CapGemini when I was between teams and lent out to do short term fixes for teams where th

One of my most enjoyable periods while working for someone else was at CapGemini when I was between teams and lent out to do short term fixes for teams where they didn't have enough developer resources/the right resources. Typically just a week or two to go in figure out what was going wrong and patch their systems then get swapped. I don't know if it was the change of pace or the fact that you kind of got to feel like an office superhero that I liked more but I was really young so probably equal parts both.

OpenDrapery 9y ago
Are you still doing consulting? I find that the upside of consulting is that there is a well defined finish line before you are deployed. When you land in a role that has no finish line, it kind of removes the benefit of being a consultant.
- sanswork 9y ago
  Not really. I moved more into product work but I have one existing contract still going for a few hours a week. No finish line but it's a steady income stream and minimal hours so I've not minded it. It helps that the client is fantastic.
Tenhundfeld 9y ago
I had a similar stint helping teams with system performance issues. I think I found it so enjoyable for two reasons: 1) Solving the problems involved the focused exercising of all of my software dev knowledge – often around database access, sometimes around garbage collection and memory allocation of the specific platform. 2) The impact was highly visible and appreciated (by the team, management, and system users), and the result was usually objectively measurable, e.g., the global search now completes in 1/50th of the previous time. That said, when I reflect on the 10 or so projects I helped in this time, they were all problems the senior dev(s) on the team could have figured out. So, it wasn't really that I was some rockstar who had special knowledge. It was more that I was given time to focus on the issues, while the regular devs on the team had bugs to fix, features to work on, etc. Like you, I now work for myself, but if I were offered a job doing small-medium performance optimization projects (without travel), that would be tempting.
- ethbro 9y ago
  If there were one key benefit of consulting / being an internal developer at large it would be the ability to leave after finishing a project. Sometimes that's sad. (When the client / team is awesome) But usually it means not having to deal with any of the worst parts of office politics. (E.g. de facto stack ranking, non-merit-based favoritism jockying, office management politics, dysfunctional management priorities, waiting for someone to die / retire for a promotion, etc)

OpenDrapery 9y ago

Are you still doing consulting? I find that the upside of consulting is that there is a well defined finish line before you are deployed. When you land in a role that has no finish line, it kind of removes the benefit of being a consultant.

sanswork 9y ago
Not really. I moved more into product work but I have one existing contract still going for a few hours a week. No finish line but it's a steady income stream and minimal hours so I've not minded it. It helps that the client is fantastic.

Tenhundfeld 9y ago

I had a similar stint helping teams with system performance issues. I think I found it so enjoyable for two reasons: 1) Solving the problems involved the focused exercising of all of my software dev knowledge – often around database access, sometimes around garbage collection and memory allocation of the specific platform. 2) The impact was highly visible and appreciated (by the team, management, and system users), and the result was usually objectively measurable, e.g., the global search now completes in 1/50th of the previous time. That said, when I reflect on the 10 or so projects I helped in this time, they were all problems the senior dev(s) on the team could have figured out. So, it wasn't really that I was some rockstar who had special knowledge. It was more that I was given time to focus on the issues, while the regular devs on the team had bugs to fix, features to work on, etc. Like you, I now work for myself, but if I were offered a job doing small-medium performance optimization projects (without travel), that would be tempting.

ethbro 9y ago
If there were one key benefit of consulting / being an internal developer at large it would be the ability to leave after finishing a project. Sometimes that's sad. (When the client / team is awesome) But usually it means not having to deal with any of the worst parts of office politics. (E.g. de facto stack ranking, non-merit-based favoritism jockying, office management politics, dysfunctional management priorities, waiting for someone to die / retire for a promotion, etc)