Old skills

[kingshuk]

Why would any company pay £700/day for coding when I can get someone in Eastern Europe with 20yrs experience of C++, a Phd in computer languages and a "can do" attitude for £200/day?
Are these companies mad?

No. Several reasons really -

- Rates in the range of £700 usually are from the investment banks. Its impractical for a project manager (or HR) from say - Goldman Sachs to find out that bright chap in eastern europe.

- Very high chances that the bright chap will not be clued in about the domain (this guy in London will be) and will be considerably slow initially. If the role requires interaction with the end users (traders, quants etc) then the manager can never hire this bright fellow.

- The guy in London speaks fluent English and that too matters to the manager especially if the the role requires interaction with business user.

- This chap in London is likely to have worked for the bank for a while and knows his way around the build team, compliance team, support junta, traders and other managers. This really increases his productivity and that too matters.

-- The guy in Lodnon is also likely to know the application (almost always legacy with years of changes by different programmers in it) well. Thats a very non portable local knowledge but can do wonders with your productivity.


Considering the IT budgets of the IBs (in good years), £700 a day for a few 'good' contractors is a piddly sum - as long as they deliver the goods.

[King Cnvt]

Why would any company pay £700/day for coding when I can get someone in Eastern Europe with 20yrs experience of C++, a Phd in computer languages and a "can do" attitude for £200/day?

Are these companies mad?

[Dark Black]

I leave C# for the script kiddies

I have years of experience in C++ and Java and there's loads of legacy stuff around. The more people that want to do the newer technologies (and I use that word loosely for C#) the better as far as I'm concerned

[BlasterBates]

Actually to get good rates the language is less important, its a mixture. In spite of slow C++ decline, plenty of highly paid C++ contracts out there, saw one for £700 yesterday.

[thunderlizard]

yes C++ is far from dead. At one point I used to do just C#, but subsequently had to learn C++ to get the classy gigs.

[VectraMan]

C++ seems quite healthy. I was looking at the rate stats and generally C++ is increasing, whereas if anything C# is in decline despite the higher demand (because everybody and their dog is now a C# contractor).

But hopefully C++ isn't a legacy skill yet.

I have to do the occasional bit of maintenance on 16-bit Windows apps in my current role, so being old enough to have done 16-bit Windows 3.1 SDK work in my youth helped me get the gig.

[kingshuk]

Just wondering if anyone has any view on which older skills might be worth investing time and effort in brushing up on over the next few years. Eg market seems awash now with newbie and offshore java web c#
people. I have done c++ cobol abap in the past and mulling over breaking out the text books again to pass the time on my daily commute.

C++ is quite widely used still. There are lot of actively used 'approaching middle age' C++ apps around that needs enhancement and support. I see lot of jobs in that area in my current (and last) place of work. But fewer number of new applications are written in C++. So if you want brand new development work learn C# (or java).

In some domains outside of vanilla enterprise apps they do not yet consider java (or C#) as an option - e,g financial math basd apps in banks, some telco apps , games, operating system, device drivers - though unfortunately such jobs are fewer in UK. If you are in one of these domains you shouldn't be worrying much.

[daviejones]

Windows 3.11 (WFW), NT 3.51, or even NT4.......

[darmstadt]

"Legacy" skills can be quite good for middling rates. You won't get the "latest thing" high rates, but you'll possibly have less competion, and still a secure work stream.

As a mainframe person, I resemble that remark except for the fact I get more than .NET and Java put together as 'legacy' people are getting harder to find so we can charge moe

[NotAllThere]

"Legacy" skills can be quite good for middling rates. You won't get the "latest thing" high rates, but you'll possibly have less competion, and still a secure work stream.

[Orbit]

should be able to transition from c++ to c# fairly easily

[adart]

Just wondering if anyone has any view on which older skills might be worth investing time and effort in brushing up on over the next few years. Eg market seems awash now with newbie and offshore java web c#
people. I have done c++ cobol abap in the past and mulling over breaking out the text books again to pass the time on my daily commute.