State of the Market

[FIERCE TANK BATTLE]

I'm shocked how quiet it is out there when trying to get .NET contracts. Is anyone else experiencing this?

I feel like I'm having to fight for breadcrumbs.

Yep .NET has been rough for a while but gigs are out there, you just have to play the game and be persistent. Also improve your CV, more and more they're being read by non technical HR idiots, so you need to hit all the buzzwords and pretend to be confident at every skill.

I lost a gig because they asked me something really specific about XML that I didn't know (but it took 5 seconds to google it after the interview) and despite the fact I've been doing what they wanted for years they took my lack of immediate knowledge about the obscure question as being a weaker candidate.

Contracting is often fake it till you make it but it's going to new extremes recently. Anyone asks if I can do something the answer is always yep been doing it for *years* no problem at all. Never hesitate.

Also sick of interviews where I say my skill with tech X is only intermediate, having an interview, then being told they weren't sure about me because I only have intermediate skill with tech X.

It wasn't like this a year or so ago. It's just a rough market now it seems. Perhaps a lot of competition against people who are identically skilled so you need to have no chinks in your armour.

[dogzilla]

sounds quite bad out there. great time for me to think about quitting my current job (yes i made a disastrous error and went permie in jan).
second time i've done this in 30 years contracting - both times awful..hopefully i've learnt this time just dont have a permie mindset, i actually would prefer to be on less money as a contractor than go through the hell that is permiedom.
based in London, devop, linux admin, 2 years warchest in easy access ..

You took a permy devops role? Is there something wrong with you? Serious question. The devops contractor market is insane. I have been scraping the ******* barrel for the past 5 years trying to find good people.

I suggest you get out and may hay whilst the sun shines because it's one of the few areas which is still booming and will continue to boom for some years if you can stay ahead of the curve.

That being said, our jobs are actively at risk because the big vendors are all trying to automate our jobs away like we've been automating other peoples jobs away. The ultimate goal being DEV->Production essentially and that's already happening so I expect DevOps roles to go the way of many previous infrastructure roles have gone and the rates will start to bottom out and number of opportunities will decline.

It's just human progress I guess.

[PlanB]

You took a permy devops role? Is there something wrong with you? Serious question. The devops contractor market is insane. I have been scraping the ******* barrel for the past 5 years trying to find good people.

I suggest you get out and may hay whilst the sun shines because it's one of the few areas which is still booming and will continue to boom for some years if you can stay ahead of the curve.

That being said, our jobs are actively at risk because the big vendors are all trying to automate our jobs away like we've been automating other peoples jobs away. The ultimate goal being DEV->Production essentially and that's already happening so I expect DevOps roles to go the way of many previous infrastructure roles have gone and the rates will start to bottom out and number of opportunities will decline.

It's just human progress I guess.

I was quite into devops some time back and had the opportunity to move into it full time, but I just found it too dull. I agree that it also has a limited shelf life, it is only a matter of time before people tire of spinning up kubernetes clusters and start leveraging the likes of lambdas and related services properly.

It seems like only the dreaded vendor lock in is holding people back and at a lower level of abstraction i.e. docker.

As you say, make hay while the sun shines and have an exit strategy in place.

[SussexSeagull]

Been dead in the last week or so. My fear is the industry is packing up for Summer.

[perplexed]

Been dead in the last week or so. My fear is the industry is packing up for Summer.

Six calls today, some geographically wrong, some inside IR35. Some promising ones, too.

[simes]

I finish up at the end of the month.

The network is working well and something may progress there.

The Jobserve, and applying, and having CVs available online, route has had less activity than tumbleweed on a calm day.

That said, I do get lots of emailed messages from OpusRS asking my availability for literally, Every - Single - Job - Role except that which is plastered all over the five pages of my CV.

To cap it all, all their emails want me to send a Read notification. FFS.

[Cirrus]

Crowdspam Appeal

That said, I do get lots of emailed messages from OpusRS asking my availability for literally, Every - Single - Job - Role except that which is plastered all over the five pages of my CV.

Yeh Can everyone spam [email protected] like he spams us, the useless git?

[perplexed]

Simple enough gig, rejected after interview for being too senior.

I guess the fact I'm flexible on the rate, would deliver high quality solution regardless of the required product being fairly simple and indeed would finish ahead of their timescales not important...

Onward and upward then.

[BolshieBastard]

Been dead in the last week or so. My fear is the industry is packing up for Summer the year.

FTFY.

[SussexSeagull]

Simple enough gig, rejected after interview for being too senior.

I guess the fact I'm flexible on the rate, would deliver high quality solution regardless of the required product being fairly simple and indeed would finish ahead of their timescales not important...

Onward and upward then.

Nonsense, isn't it? I get the argument if you are looking for a permanent role but not when you are coming in to do a specific project then leave again with no interest in career progression.