Last time I worked at a company was November 2020. I love programming, but I really do not enjoy programming at a company. Things were bad in 2020, but I feel like they’re worse now.
They're much worse now, but that also creates more opportunity than ever before. Chaos truly can be a ladder if you take advantage of it and endure the unhappy parts. Having a bit of savings to work with can make all the difference. You can focus on emerging opportunities without melting down over your next paycheck.
The concept of W-2 employment is completely dead to me now. Especially for this kind of technology work. I charge per outcome now (1099). I am no longer interested in being provided what amounts to hazard pay for the job of interacting with an adult day care center every day. Walking in as a hired gun with no political agenda and a clear mission feels great compared to where I was before. When I do participate in the clients' meetings, I generally get away with murder because I am laser focused on the outcome itself (my compensation) rather than belaboring whatever technical details behind it. If I'm on a call these days, there's an explicit reason for it. The business can sense that I am aligned with their goals, so the proverbial seas tend to be parted whenever I unmute my microphone.
The clients' salaried developers loathe me to the extent that it's creating even more opportunities. The amount of unqualified ego tripping in tech has become astounding and can serve as a powerful ally for humble wizards.
Somebody else said most of it, but I'll add a little more. Said developers loathe you because you decimate the thing they care about for your own benefit by being a hired gun of management and doing the killing for them.
I think you're wrong to say "you decimated the thing they care about". The way I see it is those loathing people have a job to care about a thing. The people who gave those loathing people their job also gave another job to another person who's just doing their job too.
Everyone has a job with a remit and responsibilities. The role of business leadership and management is to make sure the people and remits operate harmoniously to efficiently reach a common goal.
If some people doing their job well decimates another persons job in the same company, that is 100% the fault of the people managing the jobs, not the people doing the jobs.
Management can be wrong about many things, but this doesn't mean that the "hired gun" as the OP says has to come out swinging.
A job is not an object, a human is not a machine.
You can be another Nero. Come, burn everything down, and leave, or you can be a compassionate with people, talk with everyone, win minds and hearts and accomplish the same thing.
I worked with both kinds of people, clashed with the first even if we were trying to accomplish the same thing, and cooperated with the latter, even if what they wanted is complete opposite of my views.
I behaved that way, because the former one wanted to do the job, get the praise, and get me fired in the process, but the latter one showed me an outside perspective I failed to see, so I agreed and did whatever I can to fix what's broken from outside perspective.
If the first person didn't see me as a threat to themselves, I'd have pushed them to the place they wanted to be, because I'm no ladder climber, but they don't work with us anymore.
Of course there will be stubborn people to do whatever they can to protect themselves, their position or whatnot, but they are rare and generally have other motivations, from my experience.
it's completely ridiculous that some comments are demonizing OP (who actually cares about the outcome that management told them) when anybody who ever sat in a lame corporate meeting knows exactly what bullshit OP does not want to put up with.
there are so many people just phoning it in, or even worse being (both) socially and technically incompetent.
by what OP said we don't know their usual M.O., and just because they said they can and do cut through bullshit in meetings, does not mean that they are not compassionate with the people who are aligned with the outcome that management wants.
simply because OP does not achieve world peace we shouldn't assume they go around sloshing kerosene everywhere and giving out free hand-held sparklers.
...
and probably the reality is much more mundane and boring. usually technical people have absolutely reasonable concerns , yet most of the time they misjudge the cost-benefit ratios.
If that's the case, maybe they shouldn't describe themselves as a hired gun who comes in, does what their boss for that day says, grabs a bag of money and leaves?
I believe that how someone presents themselves tell a lot about them.
and probably the reality is much more mundane and boring. usually technical people have absolutely reasonable concerns , yet most of the time they misjudge the cost-benefit ratios.
Are there "technical people" who will volunteer to refactor an Excel monstersheet instead of suggesting a complete rewrite in whatever framework with an ORM?
Of course they do. You waltz in, do exactly management's bidding (finally someone who doesn't talk back!), and leave them to deal with the consequences. The onus of proving that it's because of "unqualified ego tripping" is on you.
I generally get away with murder [...] The business can sense that I am aligned with their goals, so the proverbial seas tend to be parted whenever I unmute my microphone.
The amount of unqualified ego tripping in tech has become astounding and can serve as a powerful ally for humble wizards.
It is not ego tripping. They probably loathe you because you turn the power structures even more in capital's favour by undercutting or overriding them.
I’m smiling a bit reading this thread because I went essentially the opposite way: started contracting in 2010 when my grad school stipend ran out, in Feb 2020 (kind of lucky timing…) one of my clients convinced me to come on as FTE #2 at their startup (I’d done a 6-month prototyping gig for them in 2019 that was responsible for them unlocking their first tranche of funding). Have stuck around since then because the work is compelling and to some degree I’ve shaped the engineering org into what I want it to be, even though we’ve hired people above me (it’s kind of neat and weird hiring your own manager so that you no longer report direct to the CEO)
Anyway, as far as I can tell, the engineering teams that I was paid to help, I believe, generally loved me. The work I’d do generally fell into one of three buckets:
- early-stage prototyping work, where there was no engineering team yet and I was laying the foundation for v1 of a product
- modernization work, where a company has a product line that’s sitting generating revenue but there’s no engineering capacity to actually make v2. This was often more on the embedded side but occasionally stuff like pre-ARC Objective C -> Swift. Everyone’s too busy working on some other thing and the good-but-crusty product is starting to die due to lack of attention
- rescue work, where the engineering organization (management + ICs) have gotten themselves into a situation they’ve realized they can’t get themselves out of on their own. Often performance, scaling, or velocity-related, almost always with an element of pathological engineering culture.
The first two cases aren’t as relevant, but the third type was always a hearts & minds campaign. The outcome was two-fold: fix the software, fix the team.
First step: take the team out for lunch without their manager. To the loathing comment above, not everyone would take me up on the offer, but I could usually get enough of a critical mass together. Two objectives: convince them that I do not, under any circumstances, want to work with them long-term; convince them that I was on their side. Get them talking about what’s wrong, ostensibly about the product, but this would frequently pivot to the structural organizational problems that led to the product being how it was.
From there, put together two plans. Plan 1 was for how to tackle the software problem. Plan 2 was how to fix the engineering org. Typical situation was they had some ideas on the first part and LOTS to say about the second part. The connection between the two was they often had a good high-level idea about how to fix the software but didn’t have the specific skill to do the fix and didn’t have time to learn.
Then I’d start working both problems in parallel: knock out a quick win on the software side, do a lunch & learn with the team and their manager to explain what I’ve done, what tools I used if I used anything exotic, discuss next steps, and discuss whether someone else on the team wants to work together on the next thing. Meanwhile, I’m watching the team (incl. management) and the complaints that I got from them over lunch and while working with them. Looking to see which of those complaints I can see in the day-to-day work environment and who to… blame isn’t the right word, but figuring out who I need to nudge in which direction to make the problems that led to my involvement go away.
This usually went through a few iteration loops but I was always clear to everyone involved that my goal was for the team to not need me anymore. That was the outcome: problem solved, team can solve the same kinds of problems on their own without me. I’m available if you ever need to hire me again, I’m here if you get stuck on something tactical and can help out for a few days here and there.
If my goal was to get fired, how do I know that I did good? Direct feedback from ICs was one way. I smoked a fair bit back then and the number of times I had people come up to me outside during a coffee/smoke break and just say “hey man, I really appreciate what you’re doing here, I’ve learned a lot about ____”. The other one: referrals. Maybe 20% of the work was inbound LinkedIn cold calls, while the other 80% was referrals from existing clients (or callbacks) with about a 50-50 mix of that being management or IC referrals. Work with a team for 3 months, a couple months later get an email “hey so I was out for beer with XXX and I think you might be able to help me…”
Comments
They're much worse now, but that also creates more opportunity than ever before. Chaos truly can be a ladder if you take advantage of it and endure the unhappy parts. Having a bit of savings to work with can make all the difference. You can focus on emerging opportunities without melting down over your next paycheck.
The concept of W-2 employment is completely dead to me now. Especially for this kind of technology work. I charge per outcome now (1099). I am no longer interested in being provided what amounts to hazard pay for the job of interacting with an adult day care center every day. Walking in as a hired gun with no political agenda and a clear mission feels great compared to where I was before. When I do participate in the clients' meetings, I generally get away with murder because I am laser focused on the outcome itself (my compensation) rather than belaboring whatever technical details behind it. If I'm on a call these days, there's an explicit reason for it. The business can sense that I am aligned with their goals, so the proverbial seas tend to be parted whenever I unmute my microphone.
The clients' salaried developers loathe me to the extent that it's creating even more opportunities. The amount of unqualified ego tripping in tech has become astounding and can serve as a powerful ally for humble wizards.
Somebody else said most of it, but I'll add a little more. Said developers loathe you because you decimate the thing they care about for your own benefit by being a hired gun of management and doing the killing for them.
I think you're wrong to say "you decimated the thing they care about". The way I see it is those loathing people have a job to care about a thing. The people who gave those loathing people their job also gave another job to another person who's just doing their job too.
Everyone has a job with a remit and responsibilities. The role of business leadership and management is to make sure the people and remits operate harmoniously to efficiently reach a common goal.
If some people doing their job well decimates another persons job in the same company, that is 100% the fault of the people managing the jobs, not the people doing the jobs.
Management can be wrong about many things, but this doesn't mean that the "hired gun" as the OP says has to come out swinging.
A job is not an object, a human is not a machine.
You can be another Nero. Come, burn everything down, and leave, or you can be a compassionate with people, talk with everyone, win minds and hearts and accomplish the same thing.
I worked with both kinds of people, clashed with the first even if we were trying to accomplish the same thing, and cooperated with the latter, even if what they wanted is complete opposite of my views.
I behaved that way, because the former one wanted to do the job, get the praise, and get me fired in the process, but the latter one showed me an outside perspective I failed to see, so I agreed and did whatever I can to fix what's broken from outside perspective.
If the first person didn't see me as a threat to themselves, I'd have pushed them to the place they wanted to be, because I'm no ladder climber, but they don't work with us anymore.
Of course there will be stubborn people to do whatever they can to protect themselves, their position or whatnot, but they are rare and generally have other motivations, from my experience.
it's completely ridiculous that some comments are demonizing OP (who actually cares about the outcome that management told them) when anybody who ever sat in a lame corporate meeting knows exactly what bullshit OP does not want to put up with.
there are so many people just phoning it in, or even worse being (both) socially and technically incompetent.
by what OP said we don't know their usual M.O., and just because they said they can and do cut through bullshit in meetings, does not mean that they are not compassionate with the people who are aligned with the outcome that management wants.
simply because OP does not achieve world peace we shouldn't assume they go around sloshing kerosene everywhere and giving out free hand-held sparklers.
...
and probably the reality is much more mundane and boring. usually technical people have absolutely reasonable concerns , yet most of the time they misjudge the cost-benefit ratios.
If that's the case, maybe they shouldn't describe themselves as a hired gun who comes in, does what their boss for that day says, grabs a bag of money and leaves?
I believe that how someone presents themselves tell a lot about them.
and probably the reality is much more mundane and boring. usually technical people have absolutely reasonable concerns , yet most of the time they misjudge the cost-benefit ratios.
Are there "technical people" who will volunteer to refactor an Excel monstersheet instead of suggesting a complete rewrite in whatever framework with an ORM?
Of course they do. You waltz in, do exactly management's bidding (finally someone who doesn't talk back!), and leave them to deal with the consequences. The onus of proving that it's because of "unqualified ego tripping" is on you.
beautiful, funniest thing i've read all week
> I charge per outcome now
Are you perchance paid by number of distinct metaphors used?
It is not ego tripping. They probably loathe you because you turn the power structures even more in capital's favour by undercutting or overriding them.
Or leaving shitty code for others to fix later, like a lot of contractors do.
I’m smiling a bit reading this thread because I went essentially the opposite way: started contracting in 2010 when my grad school stipend ran out, in Feb 2020 (kind of lucky timing…) one of my clients convinced me to come on as FTE #2 at their startup (I’d done a 6-month prototyping gig for them in 2019 that was responsible for them unlocking their first tranche of funding). Have stuck around since then because the work is compelling and to some degree I’ve shaped the engineering org into what I want it to be, even though we’ve hired people above me (it’s kind of neat and weird hiring your own manager so that you no longer report direct to the CEO)
Anyway, as far as I can tell, the engineering teams that I was paid to help, I believe, generally loved me. The work I’d do generally fell into one of three buckets:
- early-stage prototyping work, where there was no engineering team yet and I was laying the foundation for v1 of a product
- modernization work, where a company has a product line that’s sitting generating revenue but there’s no engineering capacity to actually make v2. This was often more on the embedded side but occasionally stuff like pre-ARC Objective C -> Swift. Everyone’s too busy working on some other thing and the good-but-crusty product is starting to die due to lack of attention
- rescue work, where the engineering organization (management + ICs) have gotten themselves into a situation they’ve realized they can’t get themselves out of on their own. Often performance, scaling, or velocity-related, almost always with an element of pathological engineering culture.
The first two cases aren’t as relevant, but the third type was always a hearts & minds campaign. The outcome was two-fold: fix the software, fix the team.
First step: take the team out for lunch without their manager. To the loathing comment above, not everyone would take me up on the offer, but I could usually get enough of a critical mass together. Two objectives: convince them that I do not, under any circumstances, want to work with them long-term; convince them that I was on their side. Get them talking about what’s wrong, ostensibly about the product, but this would frequently pivot to the structural organizational problems that led to the product being how it was.
From there, put together two plans. Plan 1 was for how to tackle the software problem. Plan 2 was how to fix the engineering org. Typical situation was they had some ideas on the first part and LOTS to say about the second part. The connection between the two was they often had a good high-level idea about how to fix the software but didn’t have the specific skill to do the fix and didn’t have time to learn.
Then I’d start working both problems in parallel: knock out a quick win on the software side, do a lunch & learn with the team and their manager to explain what I’ve done, what tools I used if I used anything exotic, discuss next steps, and discuss whether someone else on the team wants to work together on the next thing. Meanwhile, I’m watching the team (incl. management) and the complaints that I got from them over lunch and while working with them. Looking to see which of those complaints I can see in the day-to-day work environment and who to… blame isn’t the right word, but figuring out who I need to nudge in which direction to make the problems that led to my involvement go away.
This usually went through a few iteration loops but I was always clear to everyone involved that my goal was for the team to not need me anymore. That was the outcome: problem solved, team can solve the same kinds of problems on their own without me. I’m available if you ever need to hire me again, I’m here if you get stuck on something tactical and can help out for a few days here and there.
If my goal was to get fired, how do I know that I did good? Direct feedback from ICs was one way. I smoked a fair bit back then and the number of times I had people come up to me outside during a coffee/smoke break and just say “hey man, I really appreciate what you’re doing here, I’ve learned a lot about ____”. The other one: referrals. Maybe 20% of the work was inbound LinkedIn cold calls, while the other 80% was referrals from existing clients (or callbacks) with about a 50-50 mix of that being management or IC referrals. Work with a team for 3 months, a couple months later get an email “hey so I was out for beer with XXX and I think you might be able to help me…”
Sub-humble-wizard here, how do I sign up?