13 ms·

Yeah, such projects happen and it always surprises me - why can't such shops find in-house devs (with regular salaries) for such projects?

by zerr 7y ago

rightbyte 7y ago
They are probably swamped with processes, fires and Scrum meetings so the developers have no agent to just concentrate and do something.
PopeDotNinja 7y ago
I know a lot about Erlang & Elixir, but almost none of my daily work now would lead me to learn what I know. Some things are probably 3 days of work if you know it, and 3 months of work if you don't.
FpUser 7y ago
Sometimes average corporate developer just does not cut it. Like you've got a bunch who know how to take data from a database and feed it to web form. Ask them to do anything else and they would expect you to send them to a training courses. I've met quite a few shops like that. Meanwhile. This project required some imagination and multi-disciplinary knowledge. Sure the company have some geniuses but the company is huge multinational and for one department of their branch it was probably way simpler and cheaper to get someone from outside then shop their other brunch. Big companies are very bureaucratic
- allenskd 7y ago
  I've done freelancing and I'm currently developer on a corporation. I've seen a lot of talent go in and out. Usually it goes out like this: - PM is seeking resources internally, you could be reached out and be told on what they are trying to do. - The project can be complex or easy. Honestly it doesn't matter within the context of working for a company. As far freelancer, you can go on a nitty-gritty with the client on what it takes to do and justify your rates to them... for a already-hired developer: - There's absolutely no guarantee they will incentivize you after all the efforts (working as a developer for a company). So it really doesn't matter if the project is super complex or not. Management is pretty stupid most of the time and they can't see the level of effort in things even if you break them out to them. Or they can simply be ignorant about it. - I've said no. Usually I'm very driven with new challenges but I've learned the hard way that it doesn't matter at all. These days I just say "I don't know, sorry." and "yea I just never worked on that". I've seen people gone the road of talking about training courses so they could stall management a lot if they don't have many options. Why? Because there's really no end goal. You are already hired within the company. Employers take for granted that that's reason enough for you to do it. Honestly it could go many ways. Not all companies will be as awful as mine. If you are lucky enough to land with a company that recognizes your efforts and incentivizes you for it good for you. I don't think many people are that lucky. I'd say, believe me there are quite a lot of geniuses, but I've yet to meet a fool that takes the bait of taking more complex work in without proper incentive. (excluding fresh graduates and those still in their starting years)
  - FpUser 7y ago
    "I'd say, believe me there are quite a lot of geniuses" I did not say they were not. Some products said company did develop do require a genius. But from my experience those tend to compartmentalize in appropriate departments and the rest is just average. Of course there are always exceptions.
- zerr 7y ago
  > Sometimes average corporate developer just does not cut it. The thing is, it's not just some Kentucky Postal Service inc. but it is quite common in such BigCo's as Microsoft, Google, etc...
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    In my experience the bigger the company the worse it gets. It's hard to underestimate just how bad most corporate software is.
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
I've had a couple of those projects come along. I remember one in particular for a UK pharmaceuticals company. I went to see them and the first thing they said was "We are so glad you are here, we have been looking for a solution for months without any success. At the moment it's costing us a million pounds a day." It turned out they couldn't produce their compliance documentation and that was delaying the release of a new drug. The solution wasn't that complex but it did involve the intersection of several different skills. They had in-house devs but none of them wanted to touch it, to them it looked like a problem, to me it looked like an opportunity.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  > To them it looked like a > problem, to me it looked > like an opportunity. This is probably the biggest lesson here- finding a reason why to do something versus not doing it is important! I currently work as a lube tech for a local dealership. (Saving up for the future, and they have better hours and pay than $LocalFastFood.) My coworkers dislike A) vacuuming vehicles and B) doing tire rotations- because both of them take time and effort. I like doing both of those- they take time- which means I get paid (job security!) and also helps the customer want to come back (arguably more important than any time savings from skipping a rotate or not vacuuming underneath floor mats.)
- robaato 7y ago
  So what did you charge them?!
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  > They had in-house devs but none of them wanted to touch it, to them it looked like a problem, to me it looked like an opportunity. It wasn't an opportunity for them. The Risk/Reward was probably insanely bad. If they fixed it, they are just "doing their job" and get a pat on the back. If it was that big of a deal though, if they screwed it up its possible they would get fired.
Spooky23 7y ago
Turf. Big orgs aren’t good at sharing developers or other staff, people “belong” to their feudal lord. I had a friend billing $300 to zone luns on a SAN (ie he had nothing to do and spent his days studying) while the team 50 feet away was working 16 hour days on something he could do. The difference was that they worked for different big shots.
- ghaff 7y ago
  A more charitable way to put it is that people have "day jobs" that are being paid for out of someone's budget. I'll help people in other teams out--I have a pretty flexible job description anyway. But if someone wants a week of my time you can be sure they'll need to get my manager's approval. Which seems pretty reasonable. Most organizations wouldn't work very well if everyone just worked on whatever caught their fancy on a given week.

Yeah, such projects happen and it always surprises me - why can't such shops find in-house devs (with regular salaries) for such projects?

by zerr 7y ago

Yeah, such projects happen and it always surprises me - why can't such shops find in-house devs (with regular salaries) for such projects?

rightbyte 7y ago

They are probably swamped with processes, fires and Scrum meetings so the developers have no agent to just concentrate and do something.

PopeDotNinja 7y ago

I know a lot about Erlang & Elixir, but almost none of my daily work now would lead me to learn what I know. Some things are probably 3 days of work if you know it, and 3 months of work if you don't.

FpUser 7y ago

Sometimes average corporate developer just does not cut it. Like you've got a bunch who know how to take data from a database and feed it to web form. Ask them to do anything else and they would expect you to send them to a training courses. I've met quite a few shops like that. Meanwhile. This project required some imagination and multi-disciplinary knowledge. Sure the company have some geniuses but the company is huge multinational and for one department of their branch it was probably way simpler and cheaper to get someone from outside then shop their other brunch. Big companies are very bureaucratic

allenskd 7y ago
I've done freelancing and I'm currently developer on a corporation. I've seen a lot of talent go in and out. Usually it goes out like this: - PM is seeking resources internally, you could be reached out and be told on what they are trying to do. - The project can be complex or easy. Honestly it doesn't matter within the context of working for a company. As far freelancer, you can go on a nitty-gritty with the client on what it takes to do and justify your rates to them... for a already-hired developer: - There's absolutely no guarantee they will incentivize you after all the efforts (working as a developer for a company). So it really doesn't matter if the project is super complex or not. Management is pretty stupid most of the time and they can't see the level of effort in things even if you break them out to them. Or they can simply be ignorant about it. - I've said no. Usually I'm very driven with new challenges but I've learned the hard way that it doesn't matter at all. These days I just say "I don't know, sorry." and "yea I just never worked on that". I've seen people gone the road of talking about training courses so they could stall management a lot if they don't have many options. Why? Because there's really no end goal. You are already hired within the company. Employers take for granted that that's reason enough for you to do it. Honestly it could go many ways. Not all companies will be as awful as mine. If you are lucky enough to land with a company that recognizes your efforts and incentivizes you for it good for you. I don't think many people are that lucky. I'd say, believe me there are quite a lot of geniuses, but I've yet to meet a fool that takes the bait of taking more complex work in without proper incentive. (excluding fresh graduates and those still in their starting years)
- FpUser 7y ago
  "I'd say, believe me there are quite a lot of geniuses" I did not say they were not. Some products said company did develop do require a genius. But from my experience those tend to compartmentalize in appropriate departments and the rest is just average. Of course there are always exceptions.
zerr 7y ago
> Sometimes average corporate developer just does not cut it. The thing is, it's not just some Kentucky Postal Service inc. but it is quite common in such BigCo's as Microsoft, Google, etc...
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  In my experience the bigger the company the worse it gets. It's hard to underestimate just how bad most corporate software is.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago

I've had a couple of those projects come along. I remember one in particular for a UK pharmaceuticals company. I went to see them and the first thing they said was "We are so glad you are here, we have been looking for a solution for months without any success. At the moment it's costing us a million pounds a day." It turned out they couldn't produce their compliance documentation and that was delaying the release of a new drug. The solution wasn't that complex but it did involve the intersection of several different skills. They had in-house devs but none of them wanted to touch it, to them it looked like a problem, to me it looked like an opportunity.

HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
> To them it looked like a > problem, to me it looked > like an opportunity. This is probably the biggest lesson here- finding a reason why to do something versus not doing it is important! I currently work as a lube tech for a local dealership. (Saving up for the future, and they have better hours and pay than $LocalFastFood.) My coworkers dislike A) vacuuming vehicles and B) doing tire rotations- because both of them take time and effort. I like doing both of those- they take time- which means I get paid (job security!) and also helps the customer want to come back (arguably more important than any time savings from skipping a rotate or not vacuuming underneath floor mats.)
robaato 7y ago
So what did you charge them?!
bcrosby95 7y ago
> They had in-house devs but none of them wanted to touch it, to them it looked like a problem, to me it looked like an opportunity. It wasn't an opportunity for them. The Risk/Reward was probably insanely bad. If they fixed it, they are just "doing their job" and get a pat on the back. If it was that big of a deal though, if they screwed it up its possible they would get fired.

Spooky23 7y ago

Turf. Big orgs aren’t good at sharing developers or other staff, people “belong” to their feudal lord. I had a friend billing $300 to zone luns on a SAN (ie he had nothing to do and spent his days studying) while the team 50 feet away was working 16 hour days on something he could do. The difference was that they worked for different big shots.

ghaff 7y ago
A more charitable way to put it is that people have "day jobs" that are being paid for out of someone's budget. I'll help people in other teams out--I have a pretty flexible job description anyway. But if someone wants a week of my time you can be sure they'll need to get my manager's approval. Which seems pretty reasonable. Most organizations wouldn't work very well if everyone just worked on whatever caught their fancy on a given week.