6 ms·

Your problem is that you're thinking in terms of 'what do I have to type'. Most programmers can just type out the software to do something if somebody else tell

by roel_v 12y ago

Your problem is that you're thinking in terms of 'what do I have to type'. Most programmers can just type out the software to do something if somebody else tells them what that 'something' should be. That's not hard, and the path to learning it is straight-forward and well-defined. The value in a consultant is not in 'programming'. It's in translating whatever problem somebody has into a solution. Nobody cares about a 'Twitter bootstrap Rails Stripe EC2' whatever. If you find yourself even saying those words to the person who'll be signing your cheques (as opposed to the tech staff you might be working with, but those you'll only talk to when you got the job), it's game over - you're now a $50/hour commodity. "How exactly does the developer do that, without extensive consultation time with the client?" Well yes you answer your question yourself - top 10% rates are for those who can make the customer happy with the result without having to drag exact specifications, kicking and screaming, from somebody who doesn't want to deal with all those details. (also, here is the first hint: somebody who thinks about '200$/hour' has the wrong mentality. I do projects where my rate is that, but I never ever (ever) put it that way. Sell services based on benefits or value for the customer, not on how many hours you're going to spend. Nobody cares whether you've spend 6 weeks working 100 hours a week, or if you send 5 emails with the right words to a few people and wrote 100 lines of software on a lazy sunday afternoon. Effort: irrelevant, make customer happy: only thing that matters.)

FLUX-YOU 12y ago
Why are we trying to turn programmers into product managers? At my job, it is exactly the job of product managers to distill what management wants and turn it into little implementable chunks for development. "This box thing appears here. It should have X Y Z info from the object" which was born from "Let our customers know about the new object". Aren't you going to see a lot of the same requirements from projects as a consultant? If so, then you're just implementing something you've already done before, +/- some unique features. So if you're something like a 10x consultant or a $200/hr consultant, are you doing that because you're dealing with new problems constantly? I'm a little less impressed if someone can command that rate and has done 20-30-50+ projects in the past that are mostly the same thing. That's just paying for experience.
- dreamfactory2 12y ago
  Experience is highly valuable in itself as well as being relatively scarce
  - FLUX-YOU 12y ago
    More to the point of the post, it sounds like 10x is a marketing rebrand for experienced developers (genuine experience, not 1 year repeated 10 times). Especially if 10x is more about the soft skills. I have no idea what level of technical talent a 10x dev might need.
    - walshemj 12y ago
      lots of experience and the ability to learn a new language and be productive in 2-3 days and have skills in hot tech I have seen data science gigs at 1000$/day and that's in the uk where rates seem to be lower
      - roel_v 12y ago
        1000$ ~= 640 pound ~= 800 euro - that's what a 'regular' consulting firm (i.e. not big four who will charge double that, but medium sized regional players) charged for a fresh out of school grad, in the UK. It's only slightly more than what a secretary in a law firm costs (although to be fair, they don't get billed out by the day). It's roughly what the most simple engineering studies are billed at ('calculate required dimensions for this steel beam with uniform load' - i.e. the sort of work they let (supervised) interns do, structural engineering 101). Really, everybody reading this (yes also those in the UK!), if you are an experienced or senior software engineer and you're billing yourself out at these rates ($1000 a day), you're leaving money on the table. If the mentioned work is what I consider 'data science' (i.e., advanced applied statistics requiring fair amounts of high-end, performant software engineering), then $1000/day is really low if it's for anything more than what somebody can do as a weekend gig next to their day job.
        dreamfactory2 12y ago

by roel_v 12y ago

FLUX-YOU 12y ago

Why are we trying to turn programmers into product managers? At my job, it is exactly the job of product managers to distill what management wants and turn it into little implementable chunks for development. "This box thing appears here. It should have X Y Z info from the object" which was born from "Let our customers know about the new object". Aren't you going to see a lot of the same requirements from projects as a consultant? If so, then you're just implementing something you've already done before, +/- some unique features. So if you're something like a 10x consultant or a $200/hr consultant, are you doing that because you're dealing with new problems constantly? I'm a little less impressed if someone can command that rate and has done 20-30-50+ projects in the past that are mostly the same thing. That's just paying for experience.

dreamfactory2 12y ago
Experience is highly valuable in itself as well as being relatively scarce
- FLUX-YOU 12y ago
  More to the point of the post, it sounds like 10x is a marketing rebrand for experienced developers (genuine experience, not 1 year repeated 10 times). Especially if 10x is more about the soft skills. I have no idea what level of technical talent a 10x dev might need.
  - walshemj 12y ago
    lots of experience and the ability to learn a new language and be productive in 2-3 days and have skills in hot tech I have seen data science gigs at 1000$/day and that's in the uk where rates seem to be lower
    - roel_v 12y ago
      1000$ ~= 640 pound ~= 800 euro - that's what a 'regular' consulting firm (i.e. not big four who will charge double that, but medium sized regional players) charged for a fresh out of school grad, in the UK. It's only slightly more than what a secretary in a law firm costs (although to be fair, they don't get billed out by the day). It's roughly what the most simple engineering studies are billed at ('calculate required dimensions for this steel beam with uniform load' - i.e. the sort of work they let (supervised) interns do, structural engineering 101). Really, everybody reading this (yes also those in the UK!), if you are an experienced or senior software engineer and you're billing yourself out at these rates ($1000 a day), you're leaving money on the table. If the mentioned work is what I consider 'data science' (i.e., advanced applied statistics requiring fair amounts of high-end, performant software engineering), then $1000/day is really low if it's for anything more than what somebody can do as a weekend gig next to their day job.
      - dreamfactory2 12y ago