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To charge a lot, you need to either have very specific skills, or you need to be engaging at the right level. A lot of the time you'll find yourself at the ext
by iamflimflam1 4y ago
To charge a lot, you need to either have very specific skills, or you need to be engaging at the right level.
A lot of the time you'll find yourself at the extremes - either incredibly technical, no one else knows how to do this.
Or, extremely strategic/high level - fractional CTO/Engineering Director type work.
The danger with the latter type of work is that you are often involved because the exec team does not like what their tech people are telling them. e.g. The CTO is saying one thing and the board/CEO want to hear something different.
- celdon25 4y agoIs it equally challenging to acquire the skills to acquire leads and deals? I have some experience with dealmaking but literally no idea what the playbook even looks like for a technical consultant at this level. Where does one learn how to do this? And are there any online communities dedicated to supporting this profession and those seeking to enter it? There are books on how to pass a Google interview but I haven’t stumbled across much in this department yet. I’ve considered a website but a compass would be even better for starters.
- user_named 4y agoNo, it's harder
- iamflimflam1 4y agoThere are quite a few communities of fractional CTOs now that can be very useful. A good source of prospects and probably quite a good training ground will be whatever local incubator/coworking space is near you. Networking with the founders there and finding out what challenges/problems they are having. Get well known amongst them as someone who can actually help and word of mouth will get you more work. It’s a lot of work and it’s not easy. It helps if you’ve already held senior roles and been through the journey that a lot of these businesses are on. It’s will be hard to pívot to it from just being a senior engineer or even staff engineer. Sadly you really need the job title before you will be allowed to do the job. There are however a lot of non technical founders who need technical guidance. Being their tech sounding board can be very valuable.
- iamflimflam1 4y agoEnd of the day, to make it work you will need to be an amazing networker and you will need to be very credible. You want to be at the point where people at the board level know and respect you. When they see problems in their companies you want them to be recommending bringing you in to help.