State of the Market

[MrMarkyMark]

Absolutely, I wasn't debating the average quality of the off-shored staff - it's abysmal. I was just pointing out that ppl shouldn't generalise and think that just because someone works in IT in India or Eastern Europe he/she is crap.

All the large outsourcer are crap, because their main driving force is cost. The irony is that in these giants a lot of the cost is for admin, penalties for breached SLAs and lining shareholders pockets, so there is not much left for salaries. There is an ever increasing number of small companies in main outsourcing destinations that are creaming the top of the talent, value their employees and have high retention rates, able to offer quality service at competitive prices to clients who are in the know.

There is no denying offshoring is bad for the UK job market, but if done right can be beneficial for a company providing both quality and cost savings.

Of course getting it right is not that easy and the big consultancies are not helping the clients much. I worked at HPE and prospective clients were offered a choice of support teams in different geographical locations - almost all of them went for India as it was the lowest cost, they were made to believe that there was no difference in quality of the service as it was all HPE at the end of the day and the SLAs where the same, right, right? Riiiight... There was one client I worked with and when they came on site for a visit we went out, he had one too many and spilled the beans why they kept using HPE services despite the abysmal service - They knew the service will be tulip, factored it in their business operations and were now enjoying close to free IT operations on a multi million contract, because the penalties paid by HPE for the constant breach of SLAs was close to what they were paying in the first place.

Feck me

[LondonManc]

Feck me

Indeed. I'm sure we could undercut them and cock it up for far less from an onshore operation.

[Big Blue Plymouth]

Getting back on topic, I've probably posted in this thread more than once saying that I've been finding the market pretty dead over the last few months.

Now it seems to have slid off a cliff. At least it has for a "full stack" web developer in his early '50s :-(

[rocktronAMP]

Getting back on topic, I've probably posted in this thread more than once saying that I've been finding the market pretty dead over the last few months.

Now it seems to have slid off a cliff. At least it has for a "full stack" web developer in his early '50s :-(

Hey man, Big Blue Plymouth, I am not that far behind you in terms of my age. At least, you know exactly what "full stack" web developer, and usually people are stronger in the front-end technology or stronger is the server side language and platform. It is rare to find people equally strong in both. To me, "full stack" is another way that clients are driving down costs. Instead of hiring or contracting both people, they just want one person, and usually this affords errors, because the people are not so strong. With more errors, the so-called agile process will take longer, and then they could wonder why are we not getting Time-To-Market for this project.

I have been "looking" now for almost since the start of 2017. The market is pants, man. Clients are just taking the p***, taking long to respond, cancelling interviews, changing the job requirement at last minute. I had one the other day looking for a technical "hands-on" architect, but then they changed their mind, "there's been reappraisal of the requirement, actually we need a business analyst". If the client don't know what they are looking for, what chance does a contractor have? Also I agree in the other thread about the "banking" contracts gigs. It all looks very rosy and cheerful and then fecking silence, did the budget actually exist for the hire, the head count, and also no feedback at all? Nada, zero, nothing.

I have blocked Indian companies TGCWorld, Arrows, etc those guys just won't give up. It is just a number game to them.

Anyway rant over for now, and good luck to you, keep on going. I'm sure we will get there in the end.

[Big Blue Plymouth]

Hey man, Big Blue Plymouth, I am not that far behind you in terms of my age. At least, you know exactly what "full stack" web developer, and usually people are stronger in the front-end technology or stronger is the server side language and platform. It is rare to find people equally strong in both. To me, "full stack" is another way that clients are driving down costs.

Full Stack is agent talk really, not how I'd necessarily describe myself.

As I pointed out in another thread, in days gone by I'd have called myself an analyst/programmer as I was involved in requirements gathering, design through to implementation.

Nowadays, I just get stuck in whatever tech silo comes with the current gig. Sometimes that's front end, other times more back end. All pretty one dimensional and dull. Chuck agile/scrum into the mix and it's positively misery inducing

[uk contractor]

Getting back on topic, I've probably posted in this thread more than once saying that I've been finding the market pretty dead over the last few months.

Now it seems to have slid off a cliff. At least it has for a "full stack" web developer in his early '50s :-(

Keep your chin up mate & keep looking I am similar age was thinking its all over jobs wise recently due to how poor the market is then suddenly landed an interview late tomorrow afternoon in the financial services sector with a good rate. Keep any age identifying stuff from your CV as well only cover the last 10-15 years of your career max. Its helps a lot to land the interviews. Personally I would hire people in their 40s & older any day if I was in that position to do so but most recruitment agents think the opposite and want younger workers to exploit rate wise in the 25-35 range! Getting your CV past the trainee tulip on the phone is one thing then you have to get past the account manager who is usually a more experienced recruiter so think outside the box how to conceal age identifying factors from them! I know for certain as illegal as it is age discrimination is rampant in recruitment for IT.

[jamesbrown]

close to free IT operations on a multi million contract, because the penalties paid by HPE for the constant breach of SLAs was close to what they were paying in the first place.

OTOH, I wonder how much it was costing them to have abysmal IT operations. I guess one goes into a little box marked quantifiable, and the other doesn't...

[AndrewK]

Hey man, Big Blue Plymouth, I am not that far behind you in terms of my age. At least, you know exactly what "full stack" web developer, and usually people are stronger in the front-end technology or stronger is the server side language and platform. It is rare to find people equally strong in both. To me, "full stack" is another way that clients are driving down costs. Instead of hiring or contracting both people, they just want one person, and usually this affords errors, because the people are not so strong. With more errors, the so-called agile process will take longer, and then they could wonder why are we not getting Time-To-Market for this project.

I have been "looking" now for almost since the start of 2017. The market is pants, man. Clients are just taking the p***, taking long to respond, cancelling interviews, changing the job requirement at last minute. I had one the other day looking for a technical "hands-on" architect, but then they changed their mind, "there's been reappraisal of the requirement, actually we need a business analyst". If the client don't know what they are looking for, what chance does a contractor have? Also I agree in the other thread about the "banking" contracts gigs. It all looks very rosy and cheerful and then fecking silence, did the budget actually exist for the hire, the head count, and also no feedback at all? Nada, zero, nothing.

I have blocked Indian companies TGCWorld, Arrows, etc those guys just won't give up. It is just a number game to them.

Anyway rant over for now, and good luck to you, keep on going. I'm sure we will get there in the end.

Disagree with you. Don't see any difference writing either front-end or back-end. If you stuck for too long on one of sides, you just need couple weeks to readjust your mindset. That's all. Developer is developer, he should be able to write in any languages and any “end”.

[AnthonyQuinn]

Really Dead Market

In 12 years of contracting, never been out of work for a month. Always had agents chasing me. Now been out of work since November. And calling agents not yielding anything.

[AndrewK]

In 12 years of contracting, never been out of work for a month. Always had agents chasing me. Now been out of work since November. And calling agents not yielding anything.

At least you have country back