State of the Market

[dx4100]

I had a similar contract.
They had about 15 testers, all from India.
Every time they found something that "didn't work" they would raise a bug. No investigation, no root cause analysis, just raise a bug and assign to one of the BAs.
Just randomly bash in source data and hope for the best.
So we end up with about 80 bugs which are not actually bugs.

Typical Dev moaning when testers show their work was below par and didn't work :P

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

Typical Dev moaning when testers show their work was below par and didn't work :P

Seen the same thing, and then on the flipside, the new indian devs the company had hired as our replacements that we were to be doing knowledge handover to who had all given themselves titles like senior software architect, just deleted any failing tests one by one with no investigation. Took a few days to notice since all we saw was a % of failing tests and then it promptly being 'fixed' to 100%.

[tjccjt01]

Seen the same thing, and then on the flipside, the new indian devs the company had hired as our replacements that we were to be doing knowledge handover to who had all given themselves titles like senior software architect, just deleted any failing tests one by one with no investigation. Took a few days to notice since all we saw was a % of failing tests and then it promptly being 'fixed' to 100%.

I've also seen devs get test coverage up to 100% just by calling functions and not checking any of the return values. No assertions or test data; as long as it doesn't crash it's a test success.

[Fraidycat]

I've also seen devs get test coverage up to 100% just by calling functions and not checking any of the return values. No assertions or test data; as long as it doesn't crash it's a test success.

At least there are some tests that can be improved.

Last client had a million lines of spaghetti code with no tests at all.

[edison]

2022 was a contractor (and employee) market. Companies were desperate for workers and paying over the odds for them. If they didn't 'sort out their contractor law understanding' then, they never will.

Reality for the last 15+ years with the exception of 2022~ it has been an employers market. We are getting poorer and importing many 100ks of people a year. Things aren't getting better anytime soon.

This is spot on in my opinion. The market at that time was insane, agencies were increasing their fees to absurd levels because they could. Some agencies had waiting lists to take on new mandates unless you paid in full up front.

We are very unlikely to see that market demand again and there's not much incentive for companies to get wiser with IR35.

[dx4100]

Had a look at the permie world and got feedback from the interview today.

Basically didn't like the fact I was a contractor lol. It was pretty obvious from my CV I was a contractor so why bother to interview me

I should be getting renewed on the current gig but it ends in two weeks and the promised contract still hasn't shown up so I will keep looking but its almost pointless. No matter how many applications I submit I get next to no phone calls. I know its not me but its hard to not get paranoid and think you are doing something wrong lol.

[dsc]

[...]
Basically didn't like the fact I was a contractor lol. It was pretty obvious from my CV I was a contractor so why bother to interview me
[...]

Probably interviewed you just in case any other permies interviewed were tulip and they had no one to fill the void. Sounds like they had at least one other candidate who ticked all the boxes or they just went with someone internal (like they normally do).

[siddhantkumar]

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...ge-occupations

Think this sums up how poor we have become, and we are handing out visas like candy at 80% of those salaries. Special shout out to those which are actually below national minimum wage ahaha/

Being an immigrant of Highly skill visa (HSMP, when min salary requirements were £45k+), I find its ridicules that current govt reduces salaries to below national avg

I mean look at chemical scientist working in nuclear industry!!

Chemical scientists – only jobs in the nuclear industry

Scotland only

80% of going rate: £22,800 (£11.69 per hour)

[The_Equalizer]

Being an immigrant of Highly skill visa (HSMP, when min salary requirements were £45k+), I find its ridicules that current govt reduces salaries to below national avg

I mean look at chemical scientist working in nuclear industry!!

Chemical scientists – only jobs in the nuclear industry

Scotland only

80% of going rate: £22,800 (£11.69 per hour)

The other key factor being anyone earning less that £38K-ish/year is here at net cost to the UK. Their tax base doesn't cover what, on average, is spent. Put simply, the UK is importing people at a cost to tax payers for the benefit of business alone. I sometimes wonder if the there's any kind of basic understanding of numbers by whoever comes up with these quotas. About six months ago I didn't believe Labour was a nailed on certainty, but with the latest net immigration figures I suspect Starmer could be caught round the back end of a sheep and still romp home.

[PCTNN]

Had a look at the permie world and got feedback from the interview today.

Basically didn't like the fact I was a contractor lol. It was pretty obvious from my CV I was a contractor so why bother to interview me

I had an interview for a permie role last week. It was a technical interview, with the second stage being (if I have passed the first one) a "cultural fit" interview with the head of department. The HR guy already told me that I'd be grilled on me being a contractor and why do I want to go back to permanent employment. They're extremely cautious I won't fob them over. Which I think is fair.

So yeah not every company bins contractors' cv automatically. Good luck if you truly genuinely want to go back to permieland.