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After watching several of my friends become managers, directors, and VPs, I got FOMO and finally said yes to the management track about 25 years of software dev

After watching several of my friends become managers, directors, and VPs, I got FOMO and finally said yes to the management track about 25 years of software development. After about 3 years of engineering management, I was absolutely miserable, almost not programming at all, and spending 6 or more hours per day making sure I was camera-ready for the next Zoom meeting. Fortunately I had an S-Corporation that lived in a binder on a shelf (and so can you for about $125 and a few mouse clicks), and it came to the rescue. I branded myself as an independent consultant, got super lucky and landed a few retainers, and here I am, making more money and largely sticking to programming at the Tech Lead level. Yeah there's a bit of extra effort that goes into invoicing, running payroll, and paying taxes, but it's nowhere near as bad as management.

tomhallett 4y ago
What percentage of your time is spent on the sales/marketing side of pitching your consultancy services? RFPs/proposals/pitches/inbound/outbound? Where have you found the sweet spot with respect to the length of an engagement? The reason I ask - most of what you hear out there are stories of people being "freelancers" where the work is somewhat of a commodity (wordpress, webapps, etc) and they have to differentiate themselves by quality of work/communication. But it sounds like you are more on the specialized/niche side, with retainers and being a "consultant". So far I've been tackling the "builder vs manager" problem with: joining small startups or starting my own. The good news is that the last 2 startups I've joined have hit rapid growth, but the (bad) news it that I keep getting pulled into management. I know that I can/should hold a stronger line and say "No, I want to be an IC", but it's hard when my boss pushes back that it'd be better for the company if I manage. None of this is complaining/whining per-se, but your solution is potentially a win-win where I can avoid the mis-aligned incentives (ie: holding the line on IC vs management).
- justanother 4y ago
  My wife spends some time keeping my Linkedin account active, and I spend about 15 minutes a day maintaining a 'pipeline' spreadsheet and replying to inquiries about opportunities. If something gets to the introductory-call stage, I'll try and space them out so that there's no more than one per day. Generally I find that it takes about 30 days from introduction to closing a deal (sometimes longer). At the moment, I have multiple retainers and my plate is full, so I only do the minimum effort necessary to ensure that there's 4-6 opportunities somewhere in the pipeline, regardless of whether they close or not. Obviously if I weren't eating quite as well, I'd probably put at least double the effort into it. As far as engagement length, my longest engagement is currently 6 months. Generally I don't have an issue with getting promoted into management as an independent contractor, as my loyalty is ultimately understood to be to my own company, and I make it very clear that I do not wish to become a manager. If those terms aren't acceptable, hey, I'm a contractor, everyone's welcome to terminate the relationship with zero hard feelings whatsoever, which is both an advantage in the current economic environment as well as the reason I need to maintain a pipeline of opportunities no matter how well things are going.
  - granshaw 4y ago
    Do you do mostly staff augmentation or do you have a true speciality/niche which you get brought in to do?
    - justanother 4y ago
      I'm something of a generalist, but I prefer to do Typescript stuff with node.js and AWS Lambda, as well as React frontend stuff. I can do lots of other things and will even deliver C-Sharp and PHP components, but the thing about contracting is that you can usually end up doing only stuff that you want to do.
7hr0w2w2y9988 4y ago
It's hilarious how you phrased "Fortunately I had an S-Corporation that lived in a binder on a shelf (and so can you for about $125 and a few mouse clicks)". It's the weirdest thing to me this is how it can be but it's so real.

tomhallett 4y ago

What percentage of your time is spent on the sales/marketing side of pitching your consultancy services? RFPs/proposals/pitches/inbound/outbound? Where have you found the sweet spot with respect to the length of an engagement? The reason I ask - most of what you hear out there are stories of people being "freelancers" where the work is somewhat of a commodity (wordpress, webapps, etc) and they have to differentiate themselves by quality of work/communication. But it sounds like you are more on the specialized/niche side, with retainers and being a "consultant". So far I've been tackling the "builder vs manager" problem with: joining small startups or starting my own. The good news is that the last 2 startups I've joined have hit rapid growth, but the (bad) news it that I keep getting pulled into management. I know that I can/should hold a stronger line and say "No, I want to be an IC", but it's hard when my boss pushes back that it'd be better for the company if I manage. None of this is complaining/whining per-se, but your solution is potentially a win-win where I can avoid the mis-aligned incentives (ie: holding the line on IC vs management).

justanother 4y ago
My wife spends some time keeping my Linkedin account active, and I spend about 15 minutes a day maintaining a 'pipeline' spreadsheet and replying to inquiries about opportunities. If something gets to the introductory-call stage, I'll try and space them out so that there's no more than one per day. Generally I find that it takes about 30 days from introduction to closing a deal (sometimes longer). At the moment, I have multiple retainers and my plate is full, so I only do the minimum effort necessary to ensure that there's 4-6 opportunities somewhere in the pipeline, regardless of whether they close or not. Obviously if I weren't eating quite as well, I'd probably put at least double the effort into it. As far as engagement length, my longest engagement is currently 6 months. Generally I don't have an issue with getting promoted into management as an independent contractor, as my loyalty is ultimately understood to be to my own company, and I make it very clear that I do not wish to become a manager. If those terms aren't acceptable, hey, I'm a contractor, everyone's welcome to terminate the relationship with zero hard feelings whatsoever, which is both an advantage in the current economic environment as well as the reason I need to maintain a pipeline of opportunities no matter how well things are going.
- granshaw 4y ago
  Do you do mostly staff augmentation or do you have a true speciality/niche which you get brought in to do?
  - justanother 4y ago
    I'm something of a generalist, but I prefer to do Typescript stuff with node.js and AWS Lambda, as well as React frontend stuff. I can do lots of other things and will even deliver C-Sharp and PHP components, but the thing about contracting is that you can usually end up doing only stuff that you want to do.

7hr0w2w2y9988 4y ago

It's hilarious how you phrased "Fortunately I had an S-Corporation that lived in a binder on a shelf (and so can you for about $125 and a few mouse clicks)". It's the weirdest thing to me this is how it can be but it's so real.