Reply to: State of the Market

[ladymuck]

My 20 years contracting career has been as a non-technical BA. I currently have 3 concurrent gigs. Don't have issues finding work.

Being an old fashioned sort, I believe a BA is all about the business - the clue being in the name - what most BAs really are, are Systems Analysts but that title seems to have fallen out of favour.

[hungry_hog]

I think the demise of the PM partly comes from Agile taking off. In the old waterfall days you would need a PM to chase things along. The modern equivalent is probably the Product Owner, but that tends to be a more technical role requiring domain knowledge.
Some of the old PMs I worked with were more like General Melchett from Blackadder Goes Forth than technologists! Shouting and screaming at the lower orders. Beeeeeeaaah!

[Dorkeaux]

Project Management as a role has been on the decline for over a decade.
I've had clients who abolished the role completely in their organisation.
Non-technical BAs as well.
God save you if your prime skills are Microsoft Project and PowerPoint.

Often these roles are redefined as something else. Delivery Manager, Programme Manager, Product Owner, Business Architect etc..
Sometimes no real difference, but usually the clients want people to take more responsibility for delivery and communications.

I find pure development roles (particularly front-end) to be circling the drain. Sorry to be negative.
There are a lot of people out there with the skills and a lot of low-code tools that will do much of the job.
Also immigration (for decades) and AI (go on, laugh it up..).

Sidebar:

I always thought of pure development roles as more of a stepping stone anyway.
My oft-repeated "ants in a microwave" analogy.
I had a developer once tell me that he wanted his work arranged with an inbox and an outbox. That's it.
I told him I could hire a monkey to do that. He was hired to engage with people at various levels in the company, use his domain knowledge and help figure stuff out.
Most times you have to move out of your box.

[ResistanceFighter]

I’ve been a front-end contractor for 15 years. But the current market feels very strange.

I see contract roles that are a perfect match; Same tech, same level, same kind of work and my CV is good, 2 pages, clear, up to date.

So I apply but hear I nothing. No reply at all!

I did get calls for two roles, but both were put on hold...

Are there even real jobs on the market right now? Or are roles being posted without budget or approval?

This is depressing...

Seeing the same, but parking if the work actually exists or not for one moment, there is a noticible uptick in stuff to actually apply for compared to this time last year.

Im hearing alot of places are prefering to let AI rip on frontend work. I think this is a mistake, but I dont make the rules.

Talking to some higher up decision makers, usually ones with no technical skills, their opinions on AI and what they think it can do is absolutly breathtaking

[avonleigh]

I’ve been a front-end contractor for 15 years. But the current market feels very strange.

I see contract roles that are a perfect match; Same tech, same level, same kind of work and my CV is good, 2 pages, clear, up to date.

So I apply but hear I nothing. No reply at all!

I did get calls for two roles, but both were put on hold...

Are there even real jobs on the market right now? Or are roles being posted without budget or approval?

This is depressing...

There are jobs but still only a slight improvement on the last 3 years imho. Also the problem is there are so many people out of work currently, it's astonishing. Every other person I see on LinkedIn seems to be 'open to work'. I also saw somebody post a PM contract the other day and had 435 CV's in 6 hours. Then you have AI filtering out CV's, so even if your CV is excellent, you may not even get to the recruiter unless all your keywords match the ad.

[cyborg1337]

I’ve been a front-end contractor for 15 years. But the current market feels very strange.

I see contract roles that are a perfect match; Same tech, same level, same kind of work and my CV is good, 2 pages, clear, up to date.

So I apply but hear I nothing. No reply at all!

I did get calls for two roles, but both were put on hold...

Are there even real jobs on the market right now? Or are roles being posted without budget or approval?

This is depressing...

[ladymuck]

The slightly more security conscious seem to use Citrix. Others just use M365, not always with MFA.

[Dorkeaux]

I've only used my own kit since the end of 2018. Do firms still dole out laptops to contractors?

Sure, some.
In the last 5 years, all my clients have shifted to Citrix implementations instead of secure-ish laptops.
But there are still lots that dole out the laptops.

[sadkingbilly]

only if they work in spain.

[caminito]

The good old days when you could install software on a company PC easily... nowadays need a SNOW request just to get internet access. I recall being on one project as a consultant and someone installed Morpheus (P2P file sharing) on the laptop and downloaded about 2GB of songs. That would be a sackable offence these days!

I've only used my own kit since the end of 2018. Do firms still dole out laptops to contractors?

[TheDude]

Aggravating. Is this for a permie role?
In defence of the interviewer, Mrs Dorkeaux is often asked to conduct interviews on behalf of PermieCo, her employer.
She is given no agency whatever.
The interviewees will not be working with her, the interview questions are scripted.
She is not permitted to deviate from the script, and as you say the interview is recorded an summarised by a LLM.

She gets very frustrated not being able to follow lines of conversation nor leave out stupid questions.
Seemingly, it all comes down to liability and risk.

Contract role. Inside IR35. The rate is the same as I was earning in 2013 at the same bank when I was outside IR35

[Dorkeaux]

Aggravating. Is this for a permie role?
In defence of the interviewer, Mrs Dorkeaux is often asked to conduct interviews on behalf of PermieCo, her employer.
She is given no agency whatever.
The interviewees will not be working with her, the interview questions are scripted.
She is not permitted to deviate from the script, and as you say the interview is recorded an summarised by a LLM.

She gets very frustrated not being able to follow lines of conversation nor leave out stupid questions.
Seemingly, it all comes down to liability and risk.

[TheDude]

Interview Friday.

Interviewer reading from script, interview recorded and analysed by AI.

Example dialogue:

Interviewer: What were some of the new features introduced in Java 8 and Java 21?

Me: I am not a Java developer.

Interviewer: *pauses*

Interviewer: In Java 21 how would you implement a....

[malvolio]

The good old days when you could install software on a company PC easily... nowadays need a SNOW request just to get internet access. I recall being on one project as a consultant and someone installed Morpheus (P2P file sharing) on the laptop and downloaded about 2GB of songs. That would be a sackable offence these days!

Probably was then, had anyone taken any notice!

Mind you I had to deal with an irate MOD manager when his new server was running slowly. It turned out the ops were using the built in CD player to play Merlion albums (among other dross) and soaking up a chunk of system memory and marginal CPU power

[hungry_hog]

Done a lot of public sector roles over the years. One time I was on a 12 month role. Used to walk past this lady's desk when I needed to go to lunch / toilet etc. Every time I would see her playing solitaire on her pc pretty much. A lot of people in the public sector are doing nothing but don't leave. Mainly cos their employer is paying 28% into their pensions every month. Another project I was on three of the team were playing championship manager most of the time. Cos there is no urgency to projects and often big delays. They were contractors too and not permies.

The good old days when you could install software on a company PC easily... nowadays need a SNOW request just to get internet access. I recall being on one project as a consultant and someone installed Morpheus (P2P file sharing) on the laptop and downloaded about 2GB of songs. That would be a sackable offence these days!