Reply to: State of the Market

[DrewG]

What if you get given the work in the morning and the deadline is today. Happened to me loads of times.

Why would you be "given" work?

You're supposed to be a senior professional, not a fresh grad.

I can't imagine hiring someone for 600 - 1000 /pd then telling them exactly what to do.

[TheDude]

Anyone else notice an uptick in recruiters on LinkedIn posting that they have been made redundant? Seems to be big inhouse companies.

No but I have noticed a definite reduction in photos of inappropriately dressed recruiters attending industry award ceremonies and team drinks events.

[Guy Incognito]

Anyone else notice an uptick in recruiters on LinkedIn posting that they have been made redundant? Seems to be big inhouse companies.

Yes. Makes sense. Fewer outside roles = less gravy.

[JustKeepSwimming]

Anyone else notice an uptick in recruiters on LinkedIn posting that they have been made redundant? Seems to be big inhouse companies.

[Guy Incognito]

No but I am quite good at what I do, know how to schedule work and quickly escalate any problems.

What if you get given the work in the morning and the deadline is today. Happened to me loads of times.

[dsc]

I'm in automation and I'm used to seeing a fair bit of automated warehouse positions, mostly with Amazon. These have now all gone, there's some defence related work, but again, one ad per month maybe. Remarkably quiet...

[NotAllThere]

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[SussexSeagull]

Yeah sure you do.. What a unicorn you are

No but I am quite good at what I do, know how to schedule work and quickly escalate any problems.

[dx4100]

Some of us get renewed because we don't have to work late on deadline day because we have already finished the work.

Yeah sure you do.. What a unicorn you are

[BlueSharp]

Lot's of contractors work in niche areas. The aerospace and air traffic control sectors put food on the table of many Ada contractors for example.

Ada, that's a blast from my university days before they jumped on the Java band wagon!

[GigiBronz]

In Houston, an employee only needs to gross about $125,000 to achieve the same purchasing power as someone making $312,000 in New York, per Bloomberg.

similar in London.

£400pd outsider ir35 fully remote is probably equivalent to £600 outside in London.
You could airbnb a house on Costa del Sol and still be better off than paying 3k in rent and bills somewhere in London’s commuter belt. With a tenancy agreement that has the potential of bankrupting you if your contract ends.
Cheaper food and better weather is a bonus.

the powers that be can’t continue to depress wages with brownies to infinity. If smart, experienced people are leaving, that is dangerous for them.
it’s not actually about money, it’s made out of thin air the fight is for your freedom.

[rocktronAMP]

I'd agree with this - programming is now a commoditised skills, and the acceleration of AI in this area will only make that moreso. It's a cliche, but a CV has to demonstrate the value you can bring, not the technical skills you have.

Programming is still about feeding detailed instructions to a machine. The machines themselves cannot yet program themselves. Worse. Machines cannot reliably write tests against themselves, because only humans have that ability to think LEFTFIELD, or jump over a logical thought process, innovate by going in tangential directions. Machine Learning (ML) need direction and a very large training set of "good" data. Granted, they can search huge datasets for the types of polymer organic molecules that might fit the molecular receptacle that blocks, inhibits the thing causes cancer, stops viral infections or even prevents pain. Humans are needed to interpret the behaviour, answer of the ML/Deep Learning output. Maxim: Garbage in and Garbage Out still applies here.

What you want to insure in programming is your creativity and problem solving capabilities. My advice is to expand your programming language set. Look beyond JavaScript. Look beyond Java. This means learning a whole new ecosystem and with an ecosystem are people with motives and challenges. (Look on Reddit for Rust programming language and the debacle about virtual online conference, where a keynote speaker had their talk unfairly demoted to just a regular presentation session. It's people, whims, roles and aspiratins and organisations at the end of the day that everyone has to watch out for)

You definitely need even better people skills, because they are more likely to be issues in a workplace. I agree with Paralytic that technical skills are great, but not the be all. Can you deliver? Can you be a trusted advisor? Are you reliable? If not then increasingly: you are done (or you will be done).

[TheDude]

And more likely to be outside compared to bum on seat inside IR35 trading system development for banks.

Most certainly.

That said the Ada developers I have worked with are unable to write a line of code without a spec the size of a phonebook and would struggle at a bank.

[Fraidycat]

Lot's of contractors work in niche areas. The aerospace and air traffic control sectors put food on the table of many Ada contractors for example.

And more likely to be outside compared to bum on seat inside IR35 trading system development for banks.

[TheDude]

Yes, that commonly required contractor skillset.........

Lot's of contractors work in niche areas. The aerospace and air traffic control sectors put food on the table of many Ada contractors for example.