6 ms·

Yes, I have direct first-hand experience with the "presenting one thing in initial talks pre-signature, and getting something completely different later" with t

Yes, I have direct first-hand experience with the "presenting one thing in initial talks pre-signature, and getting something completely different later" with the "big consulting firms". We spoke with actual senior engineers with highly relevant experience up front, and the dev team they sent to us to actually do work (completely with entire suite of product, ux, qa, etc etc etc...packing as many as possible) were people of a...lesser experience level. I'm being polite here. I have a friend working in the business side of one of the large consulting firms, and the insight I got there is that sales is ahead of engineering staffing by _a lot_. In other words, the supply is being outstripped by the demand. Not wanting to leave money on the table these firms (or at least the very large "name brand" one my friend works for) will sign for projects which they do not have bench staff to fill. They then hit the streets and hire whoever can walk and chew gum at the same time. Now we have to work alongside these people, who themselves are not so much to blame in many cases. They are pawns in the often-fraudulent game called Software Consulting, Inc. It's great fun. I feel for you.

htrp 4y ago
Name and shame the firm at least?
- badpun 4y ago
  Did anyone ever had a genuinely positive experience with one of the software consulting giants - IBM, Accenture, Tata etc?
  - tazjin 4y ago
    No, of course not, but there's plenty of apologists that will show up and tell you that these companies are actually very important because replicating their enormous "domain knowledge" or whatever is impossible. Nevermind the fact that even if such domain knowledge existed in them, they probably wouldn't have a process for transferring it to the juniors they throw in the fire pit to actually "execute" a project. Best you can get with these companies is avoiding a complete crash landing and "only" striking the tail.
  - sumedh 4y ago
    TCS's revenue has been growing for the last 10-20 years so they must be doing something right.
    - nopenopenopeno 4y ago
      paying low wages and taking more profit
    - badpun 4y ago
      They've found a way to dupe corporations into hiring them and also are riding the ubiquitous "outsourcing for lower cost cutting" trend of late, so no one really questions if it makes sense to hire them. I've seen managers hire them a couple times - usually, it's often when the manager's department is very understaffed, incompetent and frankly a bit clueless (even as to what the strategic direction should be) [1]. Then, in comes the TCS salespeople, who convince the department head to effectively outsource the department to them, and they'll just execute all its functions, and provide strategic direction as well. They promise to implement "top industry standards", and, if you're say a head of department in a bank, it sort of makes sense to believe that these people have been to dozens of banks, and have collected a body of knowledge on what the best practices are. Also, I think it's extremely tempting for the department head, since he'll just have to deal with TCS managers from now on, and not run his department. Not to mention the cost savings. All in all, on paper, their offer is very enticing (also for the manager who makes the decision, as it looks like TCS will make his job much easier), and, given the outsourcing trend in the industry, it's not controversial, so managers very often go for it. Afterwards, the execution is always a disaster and huge disappointment (and manager's career is very likely seriously damaged) - but TCS makes its money in the process. Oh, and on top of that, there's of course also just regular graft, if the manager is willing to take the bribes. Basically, the likes of TCS are a parasite, exploiting systemic weaknesses of corporate management. [1] The other common scenario is when the CEO/CFO demand x% cost cuts from the department and is basically suggesting outsourcing himself.
  - _kbh_ 4y ago
    I have the strangest feeling people hire Accenture because they have a “no one ever got fired for hiring Accenture” vibe about them for some unknown reason.
- genmud 4y ago
  All of them do this, having been on both sides of the equation. I can't tell you how much it hurts your soul to work at a consulting firm or implementation shop. I took a job once where they said I could hire a team of great engineers for a very complicated/technical contract, we talked before about how much salary/benefits/timeframe it would be to get the right folks onboard to meet some project deliverables. Once I was onboard, it was like "oh, well you said you needed $X, but we only have budget for $Y, so you will need to make due with these jr resources". They suggested I work with the sales team to get more business for the things we wanted to do. I suggested they find a replacement and bounced from that clusterfuck.
  - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
    This is the nth time I see "have you experienced hiring fraud" ask-hn's in the last couple of months. The frequency at which they show up on the front page makes me think someone's trying to build a narrative. This is particularly concerning given that this website is also one of the tech sector's most respected hiring sites. My main question isn't /whether/, as I have enough to go on that this is somehow deliberate. What I'm asking myself is what the ultimate goal of this is.
    - whythre 4y ago
      Any reason why you would suspect it is deliberate astroturfing rather than a frustratingly common problem?
      - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
        Even with "frustratingly common" problems, recent-duplicate discussions are knocked off the front page with extreme prejudice. Plus you'd assume people who come to HN to ask questions also come to... read the front page, so they'd know that the exact same discussion has happened literally a few weeks ago. Imagine if every week you got "ask hn: what's the best git tutorial?" or something equally trivial and open-ended on the front page. This simply does not seem like a natural occurrence.
    - 4y ago
- j0hnyl 4y ago
  All of them.
- ACow_Adonis 4y ago
  isn't that like, the entire big consulting business model?
- rippercushions 4y ago
  They all do, but here's an actual example from Tata (TCS). The company I used to work for hired them to support a complicated product requiring an unusual skillset, and the usual story ensued: they wooed the decision makers with the A team and then actually gave them the B team. They got even greedier, though: I stumbled on their hiring ads in the market in question (with the rare skillset requirements), and it was obvious they actively lowered the salary they were offering as the engagement went on, in order to boost their own margins. One year in even the B team was all gone and we were left with D to F- players.
  - SanjayMehta 4y ago
    All these "mass recruiters" do this. The first symptom will be a few fresh faces in training sessions who aren't billed to your project. Then systematically the experienced engineers will be pulled off your project (and dangled in front of a new client), while being replaced with the new chaps. Who are now billed, of course, at the full rate. Within a few weeks they'll replace every guy with new hires. But try explaining this to the bean counters. I can't believe they're still getting away with these stunts. I first saw it in 1999.
- mushbino 4y ago
  All of them. I used to work for one. Every government/private sector contract is like this. A giant waste of money. This is where we spend so much money on the military and government projects with poor results.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
I always worked with individual contract engineers. I mentioned it here, a couple of weeks ago[0]. The type of work we did was waaaaayyyy too dicey to chance on "just anyone." In the Days of Yore, they had "Contractor Agents," that acted like talent agents. We would deal with them, to get introduced to the ICs that they represented. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32838336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32838336
laserbeam 4y ago
> They then hit the streets and hire whoever can walk and chew gum at the same time. You made my day kind sir. You deserve a cookie for that phrasing. Thank you!

htrp 4y ago

Name and shame the firm at least?

badpun 4y ago
Did anyone ever had a genuinely positive experience with one of the software consulting giants - IBM, Accenture, Tata etc?
- tazjin 4y ago
  No, of course not, but there's plenty of apologists that will show up and tell you that these companies are actually very important because replicating their enormous "domain knowledge" or whatever is impossible. Nevermind the fact that even if such domain knowledge existed in them, they probably wouldn't have a process for transferring it to the juniors they throw in the fire pit to actually "execute" a project. Best you can get with these companies is avoiding a complete crash landing and "only" striking the tail.
- sumedh 4y ago
  TCS's revenue has been growing for the last 10-20 years so they must be doing something right.
  - nopenopenopeno 4y ago
    paying low wages and taking more profit
  - badpun 4y ago
    They've found a way to dupe corporations into hiring them and also are riding the ubiquitous "outsourcing for lower cost cutting" trend of late, so no one really questions if it makes sense to hire them. I've seen managers hire them a couple times - usually, it's often when the manager's department is very understaffed, incompetent and frankly a bit clueless (even as to what the strategic direction should be) [1]. Then, in comes the TCS salespeople, who convince the department head to effectively outsource the department to them, and they'll just execute all its functions, and provide strategic direction as well. They promise to implement "top industry standards", and, if you're say a head of department in a bank, it sort of makes sense to believe that these people have been to dozens of banks, and have collected a body of knowledge on what the best practices are. Also, I think it's extremely tempting for the department head, since he'll just have to deal with TCS managers from now on, and not run his department. Not to mention the cost savings. All in all, on paper, their offer is very enticing (also for the manager who makes the decision, as it looks like TCS will make his job much easier), and, given the outsourcing trend in the industry, it's not controversial, so managers very often go for it. Afterwards, the execution is always a disaster and huge disappointment (and manager's career is very likely seriously damaged) - but TCS makes its money in the process. Oh, and on top of that, there's of course also just regular graft, if the manager is willing to take the bribes. Basically, the likes of TCS are a parasite, exploiting systemic weaknesses of corporate management. [1] The other common scenario is when the CEO/CFO demand x% cost cuts from the department and is basically suggesting outsourcing himself.
- _kbh_ 4y ago
  I have the strangest feeling people hire Accenture because they have a “no one ever got fired for hiring Accenture” vibe about them for some unknown reason.
genmud 4y ago
All of them do this, having been on both sides of the equation. I can't tell you how much it hurts your soul to work at a consulting firm or implementation shop. I took a job once where they said I could hire a team of great engineers for a very complicated/technical contract, we talked before about how much salary/benefits/timeframe it would be to get the right folks onboard to meet some project deliverables. Once I was onboard, it was like "oh, well you said you needed $X, but we only have budget for $Y, so you will need to make due with these jr resources". They suggested I work with the sales team to get more business for the things we wanted to do. I suggested they find a replacement and bounced from that clusterfuck.
- boltzmann-brain 4y ago
  This is the nth time I see "have you experienced hiring fraud" ask-hn's in the last couple of months. The frequency at which they show up on the front page makes me think someone's trying to build a narrative. This is particularly concerning given that this website is also one of the tech sector's most respected hiring sites. My main question isn't /whether/, as I have enough to go on that this is somehow deliberate. What I'm asking myself is what the ultimate goal of this is.
  - whythre 4y ago
    Any reason why you would suspect it is deliberate astroturfing rather than a frustratingly common problem?
    - boltzmann-brain 4y ago
      Even with "frustratingly common" problems, recent-duplicate discussions are knocked off the front page with extreme prejudice. Plus you'd assume people who come to HN to ask questions also come to... read the front page, so they'd know that the exact same discussion has happened literally a few weeks ago. Imagine if every week you got "ask hn: what's the best git tutorial?" or something equally trivial and open-ended on the front page. This simply does not seem like a natural occurrence.
  - 4y ago
j0hnyl 4y ago
All of them.
ACow_Adonis 4y ago
isn't that like, the entire big consulting business model?
rippercushions 4y ago
They all do, but here's an actual example from Tata (TCS). The company I used to work for hired them to support a complicated product requiring an unusual skillset, and the usual story ensued: they wooed the decision makers with the A team and then actually gave them the B team. They got even greedier, though: I stumbled on their hiring ads in the market in question (with the rare skillset requirements), and it was obvious they actively lowered the salary they were offering as the engagement went on, in order to boost their own margins. One year in even the B team was all gone and we were left with D to F- players.
- SanjayMehta 4y ago
  All these "mass recruiters" do this. The first symptom will be a few fresh faces in training sessions who aren't billed to your project. Then systematically the experienced engineers will be pulled off your project (and dangled in front of a new client), while being replaced with the new chaps. Who are now billed, of course, at the full rate. Within a few weeks they'll replace every guy with new hires. But try explaining this to the bean counters. I can't believe they're still getting away with these stunts. I first saw it in 1999.
mushbino 4y ago
All of them. I used to work for one. Every government/private sector contract is like this. A giant waste of money. This is where we spend so much money on the military and government projects with poor results.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

I always worked with individual contract engineers. I mentioned it here, a couple of weeks ago[0]. The type of work we did was waaaaayyyy too dicey to chance on "just anyone." In the Days of Yore, they had "Contractor Agents," that acted like talent agents. We would deal with them, to get introduced to the ICs that they represented. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32838336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32838336

laserbeam 4y ago

> They then hit the streets and hire whoever can walk and chew gum at the same time. You made my day kind sir. You deserve a cookie for that phrasing. Thank you!