Question from newbe - the contracting life

[DimPrawn]

Citation needed

Personal experience dealing with clients and agents.

[Willapp]

I was going to say your best bet in this situation is getting a contract through someone you know, a previous employer etc. That way you're not a completely unknown quantity with a 2 year CV gap. Assuming you're good at your job then it's much easier to use your reputation with people you know which is where networking is vital.

I got my first contract through a previous employer (of some 6 years prior), and my current contract I was recommended by a fellow contractor who I'd worked with previously and who had just secured the gig and heard they were looking for additional resource. It's a much easier game if you can bypass the recruiter/CV step.

[cntl1]

I think the market for M$ developers died since M$ went all hippy and open source and then realised it offered nothing special or unique anymore. If you are outside the usual .NET stack there's still life in contracting.

I am not saying you are wrong, you clearly have the contracting experience. But can you give me some examples?

I have been getting calls all day today from agents + emails regarding perm jobs, and unless I am missing something, MS stack still by far dominates the corporate market for perm jobs. So it's possible the contracting world is different so I am eager to learn about it.

I think it also depends. It is a little like the proverbial discussion "what is a better tool? a hammer or a screwdriver?" Usually half the people raise their hand for one over the other, before finally pausing and asking "better for what?"

It seems to me, that if you, say, want to launch a web startup from your garage (something that I am in fact contemplating as alternative to contracting, rather than going perm), then MS stack is generally not the right choice (although that might change a bit in the future with the .NET core, time will tell). But I have worked with a few British manufacturers, usually as suppliers to my former employer, but also with a couple customers, and I cannot recall a single instance where they haven't used the MS stack.

[DimPrawn]

I am not saying you are wrong, you clearly have the contracting experience. But can you give me some examples?

I have been getting calls all day today from agents + emails regarding perm jobs, and unless I am missing something, MS stack still by far dominates the corporate market for perm jobs. So it's possible the contracting world is different so I am eager to learn about it.

I think it also depends. It is a little like the proverbial discussion "what is a better tool? a hammer or a screwdriver?" Usually half the people raise their hand for one over the other, before finally pausing and asking "better for what?"

It seems to me, that if you, say, want to launch a web startup from your garage (something that I am in fact contemplating as alternative to contracting, rather than going perm), then MS stack is generally not the right choice (although that might change a bit in the future with the .NET core, time will tell). But I have worked with a few British manufacturers, usually as suppliers to my former employer, but also with a couple customers, and I cannot recall a single instance where they haven't used the MS stack.

Traditional users of MS developer stack and tools and contract hirers:

Big corporates
Big software houses / consultancies
Digital design agencies + web development shops
Startups

All these are using other technologies now. Java is still hot for the corps and consultancies. Node.js and Angular.js for web. Lots of Python, Javascript. Lots of NoSQL stuff going on.

The amount of .NET dev is on the decline. Once MS let go of the desktop, they lost their captive audience who have all wandered off into non MS (and open source) tools, languages and operating systems.

No one cares about Windows development and web dev is mostly a non MS stack.

PS. What MS dev work there is in this shrinking pool, is easily covered by eager permies jumping up and down for £30K p.a. + the work permit brigade + offshore sweatshops full of MCSD grads with MSc in computer science.

[cntl1]

Traditional users of MS developer stack and tools and contract hirers:

Big corporates
Big software houses / consultancies
Digital design agencies + web development shops
Startups

All these are using other technologies now. Java is still hot for the corps and consultancies. Node.js and Angular.js for web. Lots of Python, Javascript. Lots of NoSQL stuff going on.

The amount of .NET dev is on the decline. Once MS let go of the desktop, they lost their captive audience who have all wandered off into non MS (and open source) tools, languages and operating systems.

No one cares about Windows development and web dev is mostly a non MS stack.

PS. What MS dev work there is in this shrinking pool, is easily covered by eager permies jumping up and down for £30K p.a. + the work permit brigade + offshore sweatshops full of MCSD grads with MSc in computer science.

Thanks. I guess I've spent too much time with the MS stack to appreciate the outside world.

The perm market seems to be okey-ish based on my recent experience in terms of availability of jobs, but the rates look abysmal. Your quoted £30k pa certainly seems a much frequent proposition (and I've seen a few below that). With the depreciation of the £, these lower end salaries start to coverage with salaries for equivalent posts in countries like Poland (where I lived two decades ago but still have contacts). But life is much cheaper there. If things continue going the way they are (as seems likely) I won't be too surprised to see the migration pattern reversed the other way in a couple of decades.

Not long ago, the exchange rate £/PLN was at above 6 (even at around 7 couple decades ago if memory serves me well), today it's 4.96. Same story with USD or RMB. It's all a bit of a disaster for folks like me who spend most of their earnings outside the UK.

Due to automation, every year it takes fewer and fewer people - on average - to manufacture things. But the benefits of automation seem to be increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer of fewer individuals. I am complaining about £30-£40k jobs but many folks in this country make much less.

[oliverson]

Traditional users of MS developer stack and tools and contract hirers:

Big corporates
Big software houses / consultancies
Digital design agencies + web development shops
Startups

All these are using other technologies now. Java is still hot for the corps and consultancies. Node.js and Angular.js for web. Lots of Python, Javascript. Lots of NoSQL stuff going on.

The amount of .NET dev is on the decline. Once MS let go of the desktop, they lost their captive audience who have all wandered off into non MS (and open source) tools, languages and operating systems.

No one cares about Windows development and web dev is mostly a non MS stack.

PS. What MS dev work there is in this shrinking pool, is easily covered by eager permies jumping up and down for £30K p.a. + the work permit brigade + offshore sweatshops full of MCSD grads with MSc in computer science.

spookily you just posted exactly what I was thinking!

[cntl1]

spookily you just posted exactly what I was thinking!

I am sure there is a lot of truth here.

But I went on Reed and typed some keywords with radius of 20 miles of London, both contract and perm, and the result pretty much confirmed the image in my head of the current state of things. Of course, this is not really a "scientific" test, just a quick search yielded:

.net 1423
javascript 1340
java 1061
sql server 865
c# 734
python 637
asp.net 377
MVC (.NET) 292
nosql 204
node.js 176
angular.js 116

So to paraphrase Twain "The reports of my MS stack death are greatly exaggerated"

[DimPrawn]

I am sure there is a lot of truth here.

But I went on Reed and typed some keywords with radius of 20 miles of London, both contract and perm, and the result pretty much confirmed the image in my head of the current state of things. Of course, this is not really a "scientific" test, just a quick search yielded:

.net 1423
javascript 1340
java 1061
sql server 865
c# 734
python 637
asp.net 377
MVC (.NET) 292
nosql 204
node.js 176
angular.js 116

So to paraphrase Twain "The reports of my MS stack death are greatly exaggerated"

Still lots of perm jobs in the .NET dev stack. Decreasing number of contracts. If you are happy working your guts out for £35K pa before tax, fill yer boots!

[cntl1]

Still lots of perm jobs in the .NET dev stack. Decreasing number of contracts. If you are happy working your guts out for £35K pa before tax, fill yer boots!

From what you write, there is a difference between contract and perm market on the .NET front. I do believe you, I am just slightly surprised at the level of the discrepancy between the two markets. I guess .NET programmers are dime a dozen nowadays, which kind of confirms popularity of the framework in the perm market.

I think under the new(ish) CEO Nadella, MS may well reverse the .NET prospects in the future to more positive. .NET Core has a few things going against it (kinda late) but it offsets it with much better existing MS tools integration which gives it an edge in the corporate market. I am optimistic on the .NET Core front, C# is making inroads into non-ms platforms, and the TIOBE Index seems to confirm its good overall position.

I decided not to "re-qualify" in other stacks, stick with MS, and just do a radical move away from traditional .NET to .NET core stack, complement it with stuff like Angular 2 and see what happens.But then, if things don't work out on the contracting front, I'll likely play with my own "garage startup", since I ain't coming to the perm world again.

[Chuck]

My personal experience (I'm 49 now and started contracting at 36), is that you may find life tough. It's more competitive now than it was when I was your age, very much so, with increased competition from onshore, nearshore and offshore developers, for fewer opportunities and rates that haven't change much the last decade. You're competing now with guys in their late 20' and 30's, many of whom have nothing in their lives other than software development. When they're not working, they are contributing to open source projects, blogging about it, code jamming about it, writing books or doing training videos. For those of us who have a life outside coding, the motivation to compete isn't what it was and I'm actually happy to have an outside life. I think that age-wise, you're probably at a tipping point where you can enjoy a few years but not much more, maybe 5 or something depending on whether the other elephant in the room (HMRC) kills you first. Either way, good luck.

Wow, are you me? That post echoes my thoughts exactly.