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I agree, as a consultant I have grown into a generalist over time, and consulting rewards those that do. As a concrete example, I'm at Red Hat Consulting. We h

I agree, as a consultant I have grown into a generalist over time, and consulting rewards those that do. As a concrete example, I'm at Red Hat Consulting. We have products that range from RHEL, to Kubernetes/OpenShift, to language runtimes/tools/middleware, and finally to more process focussed transformation. You can specialize, but the more of these you are competent in the more useful you become. I am in more of a leadership role now, and in any one project I am likely involved in all of the above. The key skills you haven't mentioned are the "Soft" skills: mentoring, client facing leadership, presentation skills, etc. If these are a strength for you, then consulting would be perfect. Shameless plug at the end, Red Hat is hiring: https://careers-redhat.icims.com/jobs/search?ss=1&searchCategory=17508 https://careers-redhat.icims.com/jobs/search?ss=1&searchCate...

eropple 7y ago
Has the IBM acquisition started to affect you guys yet?
- cpitman 7y ago
  Not really. From our perspective, IBM is a partner (we have lots of those) that we just happen to have alignment on both sides to work more with. That means that on the sales side we spend more time trying to find ways to collaborate. Usually there is this long awkward dance with a partner, where you're not sure who is committed and how committed they are. The IBM acquisition cuts a lot of that out, we know that we're tied together so we have to figure out how to partner together, even if we are two separate companies. On the actual consulting side, 95%+ of consultants have seen no impact. Those that are being impacted are working on projects that have more IBM products involved. For example, some of my team is starting to work with OpenShift on Z.
duder_3569 7y ago
Couldn't agree more! I love working as a Consultant at Red Hat. I do second the "soft" skills mentioned. If you're not a people person, I would say, consulting might not be for you. But it definitely rewards the generalist, jack of all trades, A.D.D. types (speaking for myself).

eropple 7y ago

Has the IBM acquisition started to affect you guys yet?

cpitman 7y ago
Not really. From our perspective, IBM is a partner (we have lots of those) that we just happen to have alignment on both sides to work more with. That means that on the sales side we spend more time trying to find ways to collaborate. Usually there is this long awkward dance with a partner, where you're not sure who is committed and how committed they are. The IBM acquisition cuts a lot of that out, we know that we're tied together so we have to figure out how to partner together, even if we are two separate companies. On the actual consulting side, 95%+ of consultants have seen no impact. Those that are being impacted are working on projects that have more IBM products involved. For example, some of my team is starting to work with OpenShift on Z.

duder_3569 7y ago

Couldn't agree more! I love working as a Consultant at Red Hat. I do second the "soft" skills mentioned. If you're not a people person, I would say, consulting might not be for you. But it definitely rewards the generalist, jack of all trades, A.D.D. types (speaking for myself).