Reply to: State of the Market

[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.

[JustKeepSwimming]

I think we tend to forget how easy to manipulate that is. Like people have fake followers and fake reviews, so why not artificially make it look like there are more applicants. Obviously, the explanation that a lot of people don't apply and click the link if you have to go to an external website makes sense but then LinkedIn asks you if you did apply.

What would be the purpose? High application figures surely puts people off? I certainly think 'Well if there are 200 so far then I'm very unlikely to get read before they have filled their shortlist'. The companies clearly know how many applications they get.

[DrewG]

Not if they are looking for someone to write device drivers or work on embedded systems.

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

[andromedan]

I read somewhere recently that the applications number on Linkedin isn't the number of actual applicants but the number of people who opened the link and clicked through to the company's application page. Many of these won't complete the application.

Sometimes the applicant number for a job is suspiciously very high, other times it seems strangely low. Seems random at times.

I think we tend to forget how easy to manipulate that is. Like people have fake followers and fake reviews, so why not artificially make it look like there are more applicants. Obviously, the explanation that a lot of people don't apply and click the link if you have to go to an external website makes sense but then LinkedIn asks you if you did apply.

[TheDude]

I couldn't ever imagine saying to a client, well you have used up the 7.5 hours within the day so despite the fact we have a hard deadline in the morning that you have been paying me quite a considerable sum to hit over the last couple of months - i am off for the night...

No I would just do the professional and common sense thing... put a few extra hours in, keep the client sweet and probably take it slow for the following days to balance it all up.

God knows how some of you ever get renewed with your attitudes

Most of my clients have been banks and working late on occasion is par for the course.

Having worked for banks for most of my career I have seen that no one is indispensable no matter how good/smart they are/think they are.

[avonleigh]

I read somewhere recently that the applications number on Linkedin isn't the number of actual applicants but the number of people who opened the link and clicked through to the company's application page. Many of these won't complete the application.

Sometimes the applicant number for a job is suspiciously very high, other times it seems strangely low. Seems random at times.

Ah didn't know that. That's interesting.

[edison]

Saw a test analyst contract on Linkedin, been up for less than 24 hours and there have been 678 applicants. Shows how the market is. 3 or 4 times the usual amount of applicants you see.

I read somewhere recently that the applications number on Linkedin isn't the number of actual applicants but the number of people who opened the link and clicked through to the company's application page. Many of these won't complete the application.

Sometimes the applicant number for a job is suspiciously very high, other times it seems strangely low. Seems random at times.

[TheDude]

The smug arrogance of those who believe anyone not working multiple contracts is a fool reminds me of the smug arrogance of people who engaged in questionable tax efficiency schemes before HMRC came knocking.

[TheDude]

Nobody wants a C++ dev, they want someone that can increase throughput on their low-latency trading platform.

Your value should be at the top of your CV, not the tech stack you use to generate the value.

Re-read this classic: Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice | Kalzumeus Software

Not if they are looking for someone to write device drivers or work on embedded systems.

[avonleigh]

Saw a test analyst contract on Linkedin, been up for less than 24 hours and there have been 678 applicants. Shows how the market is. 3 or 4 times the usual amount of applicants you see.