Being a Contractor

I was reading an article today on outspokenmedia.com that was written back in April of 2009 and I was pretty impressed with it. I too feel that not only are people using the recession as an excuse for not trying, but also that employers are using it as an excuse to get rid of employees without having anyone put up a fight. "I'm sorry Bob, in this economy we have all had to make cutbacks, as a result we are going to give you 10 minutes to get your stuff together and say goodbye to the job you have had for 5 years." To which Bob replies "I can totally understand, at least you are going to give me my Christmas Bonus before I leave right?" hahaha. Poor little developer, you'd be cute if we weren't embarrassed to look you in the eye.

Lisa Barone goes through a few points that employees and especially contractors should be doing in order to not only stay afloat, but to excel during these crazy times. I feel that I am performing the majority of items that Lisa suggests we do: Learn something new, Work harder than everyone else, Do the leg work, Take risks, and Shut up. I am always learning and I love it so this is not a problem for me. Even now that I am not on a full-time gig I still sit in front of my computer for a minimum of 8 hours a day. Not 8 hours a day watching YouTube, but spent coding. I have written a framework from the ground up using PHP5.3 features such as namespaces, closures/lambdas, __callStatic, and late static binding. I use these features to build next level framework components such as Dependency Injection, Annotations and a Unit of Work maintained ORM layer. A little over 7,000 lines of code in a couple of weeks. I have also tried out what the development work cycle is like with Zend Studio 7.1 and Zend Server CE. I also used those tools to build a brand new Zend Framework application using a modular layout and integrating Doctrine as the ORM layer. Finally I have started to work with GWT and have discovered that it can actually be really fun to work with. There are a few other items that I have been researching and playing with, but long story short, I have used my free time to the max increasing my skill set.

The one thing that I am still sucking at is surrounding myself with fighters. It's hard to surround yourself with anyone when you work from home. I feel that I need to start being more involved in the PHP community and so I have been trying to find a PHP user group in Toronto that I could attend and perhaps speak at. So far, no luck. If any of you know of a group in the GTA please feel free to tell me about it in the comments!

The last part of my review of the book The Nomadic Developer: Surviving and Thriving in the World of Technology Consulting continues on from my third post by talking about how to Survive once you have your foot in the door of a development firm and then drawing some conclusions about the book itself.

Once you have started working for a company, you obviously want to remain employed with them for as long as possible. The section on surviving had many great information points, for example: People who create profit don't get fired. The real key to achieving this is by being the go-to person for a client. Preferably a big, fat, whale of a client. The odd thing with my current employer is that they wait for me to become available in order to have work done on their core business systems. Time tracking is a cornerstone that all other aspects of the company rest on, from profit projections to project performance metrics. There are several reasons the big Cs want me to work on this project; trust being at the forefront. The people who depend on this information know that I always say what I mean and that when things are on fire I am not going to leave them hanging. Another reason is that I don't bitch and complain (to them) about what a piece of crap the old legacy code is and how hard it is to work with. For me, I take pride in knowing that every source file I open has been made better in some way by the time I close it. Even if it's not actually related to the bug I am fixing. Not having to hear a developer complain is music to the ears of the project manager as well. Much like getting hired in the first place, the surest way to get assigned to a project is for that project's PM to ask for you specifically.

Another interesting point was that you should strive to not be overpaid. How do you know if you are overpaid? Well, you should be bringing in at least 1.4x your salary, if you aren't then your are being paid more than you are worth. This is a key issue, and one many people have not woken up to: for a business, who stays and who goes in tough times is all about money. I actually told a friend of mine Andy who has his own consulting firm EyeMagine Tech, that although I very much enjoyed working for his small shop, he could not afford to hire me at this time. He was a little disappointed at first (as was I) but after a brief time he actually thanked me for helping him see the business sense behind what I had said. It may seem ludicrous that I convinced a potential employer to not hire me, but you better believe that once he is big enough to afford my rate, he will be on the phone calling me for a position. This is the key to everything in consulting: Setting up the relationships that ensure you will be working for years to come. Read More

The third part of my review of the book The Nomadic Developer: Surviving and Thriving in the World of Technology Consulting continues on from my second post but focuses on the chapter that talks about what you need to ask before you join a firm. It may seem weird, but there are actually many reasons you might not want to join an organization. The obvious ones are related to pay and benefits but I found some of the questions were insightful for determining not only the enjoyment that I could experience working there but also the strength of the company for ensuring that I enjoy a long term contract before before having to hunt for another gig.

One of the key issues I find with my current employer is that they are not very transparent with their sales process. I am not sure if it is because they miss so many sales bids or if they are too busy to update everyone but I definitely think that there is a serious lack of information flowing from sales to the rest of the organization. This makes it hard to stay on top of the vision of the company. By knowing what projects a company is pitching for, you know where you should focus your learning efforts to stay on the cutting edge projects in your company. Two of the best questions they recommend you ask in my opinion were "Does the delivery organization work with sales to make sure estimates are realistic?" This is an important one to ask because knowing that you are going to miss your deadline before you even create your first source file is a very stressful situation. Having a sales team estimate blindly can be a real recipe for disaster. The other important question for me was in two parts "How are leads generated? What happens if a lead is generated by a consultant?" No brainer. Without solid leads your contractor butt is history. That being said, if you generate a lead it would be nice to get more than a free lunch and a pat on the back. Read More

The second part of my review of the book The Nomadic Developer: Surviving and Thriving in the World of Technology Consulting continues on from my first post concerns the portions of the book related to getting into a consulting firm.

There is a lot of common sense in the book, and although this chapter does have have a lot of ideas that fall into that vein. "Appearance Matters" and "Be easy to work with" are a perfect example of something that you shouldn't have to be told. There are some definite points that may developers need to remember. "Always be learning" is one of those suggestions that I wish many developers would take to heart. For me, this is not a difficult thing to do as it is the reason I was drawn to software development and technology in general. Things are always changing, and I like to constantly improve my techniques and skills. There are many in this industry though that joined it because of the promise of high-paying jobs. We can definitely earn high rates for what we do, but only if your skills are in demand. Some of the other points that stuck with me from this chapter are:

* Be active in your technical community
* Demonstrate good writing skills
* Develop your network

The last item is one of the main concepts of the book, and to be honest, this is the area that I need the greatest improvement in. This idea only makes sense to me since for most of my life I have gotten job by being personally recommended by someone I know. Let's face it, a good resume can be put together by anyone who has been in the industry for a couple of years. Having a quality person hand your resume into the person in responsible for filling the position is worth more than anyone you could write on the piece of paper.

The next part of this book review is important for knowing what you need to know in order to join a firm.

So I just finished reading The Nomadic Developer: Surviving and Thriving in the World of Technology Consulting and I thought I'd write up a quick book review on it to get back into the swing of things with my blog. The problem is, once I got started I ended up having a lot to say about this book and about my experiences as a technology consultant. I have decided to break the book review down into the main sections that I found useful from this book. I guess from the introduction you can surmise that I liked the book and that I am going to recommend that you get it. You would not be mistaken, but let me explain why.
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