State of the Market

[simes]

Exactly.

[BlueSharp]

Exactly.

.net and azure market is showing signs of life.

[ShandyDrinker]

Too many contractors and too few contracts. Jobserve has gone from several hundred jobs a day to probably about 50 passing my initial filter.

Problem is with learning a skill off your own back is clients like to see experience of it and at the moment can hold out for someone who has done it.

Networking contacts is the only game in town and even they have been decimated in the lat year.

I don't necessarily agree with this. From what I'm seeing the big problem is that recruiters aren't wasting money posting on the usual boards and relying on their existing candidate lists. If you're not on them, you never hear about any of the contracts. My last couple of contracts have never appeared on jobserve/jobsite/cwjobs etc.

[founder]

Hookers, Booze and Dancers

Joke aside...

People like to lie to themselves that they have success because they want to and also because they always compare themselves with the people around them.
I guess that is one of the wrong paths to take in life, looking for happiness when they actually should aim to be content.

back to our subject, 100k per year which would make a lot of peacocks very proud it's only 5.5k per month.
After you pay student loans, 3k in rent because you have to stay in zone 1-2 the job will ask you to do 12h per day. Child care. clothes, holidays. you'd be pretty much left with nothing.

You would be lucky to have a wife/girlfriend to earn at least 60k but if anything happens and you get her pregnant... you'd learn pretty quick how borderline poor you are.

That is how chaps doing doing 300-400k jump of buildings, because when the gravy train stops they realise there is no way they can manage to stay afloat more than 2 months.

People have fallen in the trap of HR where you are paid just enough to not complain but not enough to afford not woking 6 months after ending a role. Anyone saying market forces is delusional, it's an oligopoly and unions that set the salaries. You will have no word.

I think people here should learn from their brothers across Atlantic, Americans tend to be more stand-up people although in all fairness they have been shafted on everything else themselves also.

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[BlueSharp]

I don't necessarily agree with this. From what I'm seeing the big problem is that recruiters are wasting money posting on the usual boards and relying on their existing candidate lists. If you're not on them, you never hear about any of the contracts. My last couple of contracts have never appeared on jobserve/jobsite/cwjobs etc.

That's a good point, my last two contracts came from personal recomendations or being on a mailing list for a consultancy who farmed my CV from a job's board a couple of years ago.

[BigDataPro]

Data Engineering and Cloud skills (Azure in particular) have decent number of roles. But client expectations have become unrealistic. They want you to be a Developer, Data Modeller, BA, Cloud Architect, Security specialist, QA, occasionally a Scrum Master and also a Data Scientist .

Last week, Client wanted discuss post April regulatory changes. Verbally accepted that I will be outside if situation changes. But indicated that the amended contract will be issued with clear deliverables, time line and a % of invoice amount will be retained until delivery is fulfilled.

This makes me wonder whether retained sum will have to be written-off if dependancies are not completed on time, thus making me to miss deliverables.

[jamesbrown]

This makes me wonder whether retained sum will have to be written-off if dependancies are not completed on time, thus making me to miss deliverables.

I’ve had quite a few contracts like this with fixed price on delivery and a retained sum (typically 10%) until all is delivered and, pretty much without exception, additional hurdles have appeared when invoicing the retained sum. I’ve always received it in the end, but you can expect a fight unless the contract is absolutely nailed on regarding the acceptance criteria for the retained sum. In all cases, these were clients where things were wrapped up on good terms and often involved repeat work.

[BigDataPro]

I’ve had quite a few contracts like this with fixed price on delivery and a retained sum (typically 10%) until all is delivered and, pretty much without exception, additional hurdles have appeared when invoicing the retained sum. I’ve always received it in the end, but you can expect a fight unless the contract is absolutely nailed on regarding the acceptance criteria for the retained sum. In all cases, these were clients where things were wrapped up on good terms and often involved repeat work.

Thanks, very useful tip. Do we work around it by increasing our day rate, anticipating the likelihood of not receiving retained sum?

[jamesbrown]

Thanks, very useful tip. Do we work around it by increasing our day rate, anticipating the likelihood of not receiving retained sum?

It would be prudent to factor in that possibility, yes. FWIW, this has always been in the context of fixed price contracts where there's a high risk overall that needs to be reflected in your pricing. I've never seen it with T&M contracts - perhaps that's an IR35 thing to dress a T&M contract as involving risk? - but the same principle applies, I suppose, namely being as detailed as possible about the acceptance criteria and the timeframe for payment (been caught out by that a couple of times where the final payment took months or even a year later ).

[BlasterBates]

Data Engineering and Cloud skills (Azure in particular) have decent number of roles. But client expectations have become unrealistic. They want you to be a Developer, Data Modeller, BA, Cloud Architect, Security specialist, QA, occasionally a Scrum Master and also a Data Scientist .

Last week, Client wanted discuss post April regulatory changes. Verbally accepted that I will be outside if situation changes. But indicated that the amended contract will be issued with clear deliverables, time line and a % of invoice amount will be retained until delivery is fulfilled.

This makes me wonder whether retained sum will have to be written-off if dependancies are not completed on time, thus making me to miss deliverables.

That last 10% can be difficult. An acceptance test specification is very useful in this respect. Once it passes that and it's signed off then the customer has to pay. For any problems beyond that it needs to be a reproducible bug that is usually easy to fix at no charge.

The acceptance test doesn't need to be complex just a list of functions to be executed together with the customer and the expected results.