State of the Market

[DrewG]

Tell me you don't know how different companies use JIRA without telling me you don't know how different companies use JIRA.

Clue: JIRA is not just used to track junior development tasks

Tell me you think senior engineers are senior when they're actually just junior with a senior title.

[TheDude]

Tell me you think senior engineers are senior when they're actually just junior with a senior title.

Out of interest what qualifies you to define the skillset of a senior engineer?

[Guy Incognito]

Why are we discussing job titles in a contractor forum?

[malvolio]

Tell me you think senior engineers are senior when they're actually just junior with a senior title.

Bollocks.

Putting this is Service Management terms, tickets are raised to request some sort of action, be it a password change or re-cabling an office suite. They are assigned to whoever is most capable of performing the task under their own direction, using subordinates if necessary. Seniority isn't a concern, competence in the required discipline is.

In development/Scrum terms, people take the tickets, rather than have them assigned explicitly, but that should be driven again by competence not rank (or even perceived rank...). The weakness of that approach is people can cherry pick the easy/interesting/high value tasks. Which is one reason - there are others - I don't like agile as an approach to anything other than discrete application builds.

[TheDude]

Why are we discussing job titles in a contractor forum?

The market has flatlined so people are passing time by seeing who can piss the furthest

[SussexSeagull]

Genuine question - why do you working in the city is different to the rest of the IT industry?

*I have worked my entire career in the city bar my first job in defence with Logica and two years at a US healthcare technology and clinical trials company.

Because the city seems to be something of a closed shop which is difficult to get into if your CV shows experience elsewhere and to an extent people who work in the City don't work elsewhere if they can help it. Again I am only going on people I know who work there and what I read on here but it does seem to be something of a macho culture where long hours are expected and some very extreme background checking.

Let me add I have nothing against the City as I am sure the work can be fascinating. In my Permanent days I worked for a Share Registrar and I can see how you could quite get into it.

[DrewG]

Bollocks.

Putting this is Service Management terms, tickets are raised to request some sort of action, be it a password change or re-cabling an office suite. They are assigned to whoever is most capable of performing the task under their own direction, using subordinates if necessary. Seniority isn't a concern, competence in the required discipline is.

In development/Scrum terms, people take the tickets, rather than have them assigned explicitly, but that should be driven again by competence not rank (or even perceived rank...). The weakness of that approach is people can cherry pick the easy/interesting/high value tasks. Which is one reason - there are others - I don't like agile as an approach to anything other than discrete application builds.

Senior technologist ----- re-cabling an office because of your competence....

If you're senior, you'd be the one making key decisions around acquisition of the office, no laying the cables.

Let's put this in scrum terms, if you're a true principal, you are setting the technology strategy, not picking up tickets to write Java with some scrum master breathing down your neck.

[malvolio]

Senior technologist ----- re-cabling an office because of your competence....

If you're senior, you'd be the one making key decisions around acquisition of the office, no laying the cables.

Let's put this in scrum terms, if you're a true principal, you are setting the technology strategy, not picking up tickets to write Java with some scrum master breathing down your neck.

Just for once, read what was written and try to understand it. It shouldn't be beyond your competence.

A senior manager, technical or not, will have a team to do the work under his direction. That's why he's a senior manager. Giving him the task to deliver something the company needs doing is perfectly straightforward. If that's beneath him then he won't be a senior manager for very long.

I love your attitude that you are senior therefore above such things as actually doing productive work. If you want to talk seniority, I've been Head of IT, a lead architect for some very big integrators and delivered programmes up to £72m with teams so of up to 200 people, on rates up to £1500 a day. You come across as just a jumped up coder using a joke methodology with no business knowledge.

HTH. BIDI.

[sadkingbilly]

[dx4100]

Rule 1 of leadership (a good one) - Never ask someone to do something you wouldn’t do yourself

Its an old one, but a good one...