Top Coders Tell Agents, "Show Me the Money!" 288
theodp writes "So, you're a 10x developer or a 25x programmer, but not getting paid like one? Keep your chin up! BusinessWeek reports that Silicon Valley is going Hollywood and top software developers can now get their very own agent through 10x Management, which bills itself as 'the talent agency for the technology industry.'"
can I get (Score:5, Funny)
residuals on the software I write?
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Re:can I get (Score:5, Funny)
"Will I need to have headshots distributed?"
only if you are going to be making FPSs.
Programmers != coders (Score:4, Interesting)
To many, coders are programmers
They aren't
Programmers program - from the inception phase all the way to the completion
Coders, on the other hand, only code, as instructed
That 10X management agency can't even differentiate the two
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That's your opinion, but it isn't fact.
I've variously called myself or been called a software developer, programmer, coder, code monkey, C monkey, software architect, software engineer (not my doing since I'm not an engineer per se) and several other things not fit to print.
It's like hacker v cracker -- I've always used hacker in a way which covers both usages, and occasionally use cracker but not as much.
In fact, hacker was in use first before cracker came along, a
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Re:can I get (Score:5, Informative)
"Agent" is just a rebranding of "head hunter", which up to now has been used to describe both the people representing companies, and the engineers and programmers looking for work. I suppose "agent" just means the head hunters who pitch talent to companies. It's clever. Athletes and movie stars have agents, not head hunters, so why not programmers?
Maybe there's no difference, but head hunter always seemed like an appropriate term to me, because so many of them use questionable tactics, like pretending to be someone related to an engineer in a department to get past the receptionist, and after gaining confidence of one person, milking them for all their knowledge about who might be willing to leave their current job. I remember one very fine looking lady who we hired to help us fill a position who then worked hard to strip our current employees. That's why "agent" doesn't sound right to me, because head hunters quickly switch back and forth from representing companies to representing potential employees, depending on the economy.
That said, the really good ones gain reputations based on their integrity, and these are good people to know. Most head hunters don't know anything about engineering or programming, and couldn't evaluate talent if their life depended on it. The good ones have personally hired plenty, and have an exceptional ability to match talents to roles. Moving a guy from a dead end job to a place where he can really make a difference is huge. These guys are rare, and don't deserve to be called head hunters, but "agent" doesn't do them justice either. They're more like match makers.
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The good ones have personally hired plenty, and have an exceptional ability to match talents to roles. Moving a guy from a dead end job to a place where he can really make a difference is huge. These guys are rare, and don't deserve to be called head hunters, but "agent" doesn't do them justice either. They're more like match makers.
This, right here.
I've run the gamut recently (and over the years) from folks who only represent you, to those who only represent the company. Some will keep in constant contact with you, others will call once, say "you'll make an excellent fit! I'll get you two together immediately!", then you never hear from 'em again. Way too many flop out an email to you and do nothing more.
Very damned few ever take into account the corporate culture, let alone compare it to your own. The ones who can make sure of both a
Re:can I get (Score:5, Funny)
I think the word you're looking for is "pimp".
Re:can I get (Score:5, Interesting)
10x Management has found me gigs in the last year, after I'd been doing freelance Rails work for the year prior to that. I can tell you one thing for sure, there is a big difference between their agency and your typical headhunter. Ever try finding an actual short-term contract gig through a headhunter? It doesn't happen. Headhunters are not incentivized for that sort of thing. They want to get you into a full time position so they can score a percentage of your salary as a reward. So it follows that they aren't really looking out for the needs of freelancers.
10x Management, on the other hand, gets a cut of your hourly rate; they're setup for exactly what a freelancer needs. They do a great job of representing you in negotiations so you can earn as high a rate as possible, which of course increases their own cut as well. And they're always looking for new gigs for you so you don't have to. If you're not getting paid, neither are they, which makes for a much more rewarding long-term relationship compared with a headhunter who just wants to get you placed in some salary, take their cut, and move on. 10x also takes care of the dirty work that comes with freelancing, from invoicing and making sure you get paid as agreed to mediating if expectations are not met on either side of the relationship. I feel that eliminating the burden of the administrative drudgery that comes with freelancing is alone well worth their cut.
Overall, I understand your cynicism, especially since an agent and a headhunter look quite similar on a superficial level, and I certainly share your disdain for the vast majority of headhunters. But, in this particular case, I would say that cynicism is unwarranted. Headhunters and freelancers just don't mix. Speaking from experience, 10x has done a good job of filling that gap.
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Re:can I get (Score:5, Interesting)
Without getting too detailed, I'll say that they've negotiated rates for me which are above what I'd get on average representing myself, even after their cut. Considering that I didn't have to do any of the extra work of finding the gig, negotiating the contract (besides specifying what I will and won't do in general terms), handling the paperwork, or invoicing, it's been a very profitable arrangement for myself. If you've done a significant amount of freelance work, you'll well know that this extra overhead cuts significantly into your time.
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I figured someone would make this claim. Sorry, you've got the wrong guy! I'm actually the CTO of an entirely different company: http://sweetstak.es/ [sweetstak.es] As such I haven't had a whole lot of time for freelancing, so I haven't worked with 10x in a few months, but I do give my honest recommendation. I hope more talented engineers can make the leap to freelance work, which can be far more rewarding than working the wrong salaried position.
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residuals on the software I write?
Are you going to accept responsibility for any trouble your software causes,
or just offer it without "Warranties of Merchantability or Fitness for a Particular Purpose?"
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residuals on the software I write?
Are you going to accept responsibility for any trouble your software causes, or just offer it without "Warranties of Merchantability or Fitness for a Particular Purpose?"
Do any of the idiots in the movie/music industry that get residuals take responsibility for the crap that they produce?
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residuals on the software I write?
Are you going to accept responsibility for any trouble your software causes, or just offer it without "Warranties of Merchantability or Fitness for a Particular Purpose?"
Do any of the idiots in the movie/music industry that get residuals take responsibility for the crap that they produce?
Not... really... the... same... thing.
While bad movies/music might be hard on passengers, they'll never down a plane, like bad software could.
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Do any of the idiots in the movie/music industry that get residuals take responsibility for the crap that they produce?
Yes, they do. If nobody buys your music or watches your TV show, no residuals or royalties for you.
If you're a programmer who wants the equivalent of royalties or a cut of gross or net receipts like an actor or musician gets, you're absolutely free to do that. Write your own mobile or desktop app, sell it and you're getting paid for every copy. Of course, that means you take the risk too. That's how it works.
How's that... (Score:2, Insightful)
In all seriousness, working for someone else sometimes sucks. Being in management and already having to deal with headhunters on top of all of the bloated resumes sucks. Adding in another agent is just one more thing that those trying to hire doesn't need to deal with.
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Well a few years ago I was working full time as a web developer, making 60k/year and working a 40 hr work week. I am over 50, and those jobs have disappeared because by that age you are expected to have management experience. I don't. I am not interested in management in fact. So, no more development. With the current economy up here in Canada, and the tendency of companies to outsource whatever the fuck they can, there are very few jobs available. I have loads of experience but I am self-taught. I am thus
Follow the money (Score:2, Interesting)
Developers who want to be paid really well should do what I did, go where the money is.
First step, learn the ropes [google.com.br].
Second step, use your knowledge of software to program your way to riches.
Re:Follow the money (Score:5, Insightful)
...do what I did, go where the money is.
I would, but I'm not sure I could ever make enough working in the financial markets to buy back my soul...
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It's poetic in a way how just about the least valuable thing you could do for society is one of the most uniformly lucrative.
How about a 10x admin? (Score:2, Redundant)
I think it might be easier (Score:2, Insightful)
...to sell my services as a professional Slashdot spam article submitter instead.
"Hollywood wages" = Unions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Want "Hollywood" money? How about programmers banding together and insisting on the protections that stop Hollywood management from moving every aspect of production to the cheapest outsourced labor: Unions. Writers, actors, makeup, costume, camera --- they've all got unions, so their jobs aren't competing with $9/hour H1-B labor.
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Want "Hollywood" money? How about programmers banding together and insisting on the protections that stop Hollywood management from moving every aspect of production to the cheapest outsourced labor: Unions. Writers, actors, makeup, costume, camera --- they've all got unions, so their jobs aren't competing with $9/hour H1-B labor.
So, without the SAG we would be swamped with actors coming over from Bollywood?
Re:"Hollywood wages" = Unions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actors, gaffers, electricians, focus pullers, you name it. Do you think the typical Hollywood studio exec pays the folks who man the lights a living wage out of the goodness of his generous heart? Hell, no; they're greedy bastards just like the folks who run every other industry into a race-for-the-bottom cash-grab. Thanks to unions (a large variety of unions supporting each other in solidarity, so the actors don't say "screw cameramen, pay them less and us more"), the whole working class gets enough money to support their families and live with dignity (even in an expensive part of the country). And behold: having the "burden" of all those unions doesn't seem to make Hollywood a terribly unprofitable place, or prevent top talent from earning megabucks, or drive away the industry to some labor-hating hellhole of an anti-union town.
Re:"Hollywood wages" = Unions. (Score:5, Interesting)
Hollywood doesn't make a profit. Just ask any studio accountant~
You are correct. Funny, I'm in a software union and I work 40 hour weeks and make a livable wage. I find that when paid by the hour the amount of extra work you must do after 40 hours approaches zero.
Did you know most software developer who are paid salary shouldn't be?
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Did you know most software developer who are paid salary shouldn't be?
Salary can be great. I usually work 30 hour weeks as a result. Since I do good work, my employers accept this. I would not want to go back to hourly (not to mention, filling in an timesheet is insulting).
Re:"Hollywood wages" = Unions. (Score:4, Interesting)
Which doesn't mean that we don't regularly not comply with these regulations. But that is done in agreement with the employees who in turn have the option to opt out and will get handsome bonuses in pay and time off for overtime.
A couple of my clients have serious issues with the bills we send them. We bill by the hour nicely broken down by day and activity. We often get ourselves into death marches for which we will take higher hourly rates and need double the effort in project management. Last year I myself had a period where I worked 16 hrs a day each day for a couple of weeks and during the Christmas holidays(and went on a nice long vacation on the bonuses we divided amongst us and time off due to amassed overtime). The client was the Asian tentacle of one of our larger corporate behemoths. The European HQ told us not to bill more than 10 hrs a day and nothing for Sunday because their working agreements also extended to contractors. We got official encouragement to invent employees to divide that time more evenly.
In short you need regulation. Best way to do it is having an agreement between unions and employers. Worse way would be to have regulation by law. And yu are thouroughly fux0red if you need a legally mandated minimum wage to make sure that your people can actually LIVE on what they earn during 40hrs a week.
Salaried pay only is bad when your market for employment is heavily stacked against the employees.
Grad students are in the UAW! Which union r u in? (Score:3)
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Unions are their own class, and the actual working class resents them for it.
Re:"Hollywood wages" = Unions. (Score:5, Informative)
Then join the class (or make your own), instead of resenting it. It's a lot easier to join the union class than to join the billionaire class, and a lot more pleasant than joining the homeless unemployed class.
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In countries with functioning union systems, there is no working class that isn't represented by their own union.
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Are you kidding me? Hollywood is one of the biggest producers of useless 1%ers.
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Without the unions, I doubt there'd be many fewer useless 1%'ers --- but there'd be a lot fewer productive middle-class workers, to the enrichment of a few 1%-of-1%'ers. You want a more meritocratic or even egalitarian wealth distribution? Then make that a priority of the union you form with your co-workers (you don't have to use anyone else' model).
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a union is only going to have any power if it is big enough to not care about the individual any more. Too many places have high paying union jobs and lots of homeless where non union areas have much higher employment even if slightly lower pay.
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Want "Hollywood" money? How about programmers banding together and insisting on the protections that stop Hollywood management from moving every aspect of production to the cheapest outsourced labor: Unions. Writers, actors, makeup, costume, camera --- they've all got unions, so their jobs aren't competing with $9/hour H1-B labor.
So, without the SAG we would be swamped with actors coming over from Bollywood?
Mexico, Eastern Europe, China.
Hell, you could hire the top actors in Australia for half the cost of American prima donna's. And it's not like that wont work, I'm met a lot of Americans that think Eric Bana and Sam Worthington are Americans (hint: they're Aussies putting on a yank accent). The only thing stopping them are unions.
Drop the protection for American pop stars and you can watch the market being flooded by cheap Asian pop stars. They're smaller, more complaint, create less controversy and wit
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SAG rates set the lowest you can go; it's all uphill from there. A lot of developers earn more --- so do a lot of actors. A lot of developers will also be earning a lot less (or have no job at all) if they let the race-to-the-bottom in wages Walmartize their industry sector.
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And most union hotel maids get paid less than programmers (and actors) do, too --- but better than their non-union counterparts (unless there is a high enough concentration of union shops in an area to force everyone else to compete on higher wages/benefits, instead of lower). Unionize, and you're better off than not --- not only in wages, but, perhaps more importantly, in not being treated as disposable and subject to whimsical brutalization by management.
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yea that has produced a bunch of talent and quality for hollywood without ballooning costs hasn't it
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Of course then you'd just have the few union coders that make the big bucks then the other 99% of them out only able to do open source stuff for free hoping to get "discovered"
Re:"Hollywood wages" = Unions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, because there's no demand for programmers that speak American English natively, or for folks to make American-specific games, American-specific websites, provide software for American unionized companies, so unions are hopeless. It's not like scads of top technology companies all tend to cluster in tight geographic regions, as though there was some benefit to being in particular American locations. Nope, if all the American programmers walked off the job right now on strike, no one in the tech industry would even notice.
Oh, wait, none of the preceding is true --- if American programmers got their act together and pooled resources to fight back against the Zuckerbergs of the world, they could bring the entire US IT industry to a grinding halt, and get basically whatever concessions they asked for.
Now, this might not always be true in the future, so if you don't want to wait until you're really powerless (already entirely replaced by a crew in India), then you'd better start organizing *now* while you've still got a chance.
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If Bollywood suddenly started churning out quality American-style movies at (say) 1/10th the price, do you really believe studios wouldn't tell unions to go fuck themselves and start hiring Indians?
Meanwhile, every single unionized American actor/writer/technician would never again set foot in said studios. Whichever few studios stayed American would overnight become the only folks lined up to release a whole season of movies with all the big-name American acting stars. In the grand scheme of things, labor costs are a pretty small factor in what makes a movie profitable --- no matter how well produced a film is, it's not going to gross $XYZ,000,000 on the opening weekend without $MEGA_STAR and $MEGA_S
Standard agents' cut (Score:2, Interesting)
These guys take the same cut as hollywood or sports agents do: 15%
Say you're a top flight programmer with an expected $150K+ salary... that's over $25K a year to the agent. Not a bad deal at all for them.
I was wondering when this was going to happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
15% is a very reasonable cut to do basic business management and cold calling for freelancers. It is much better than what a lot of "recruiters" (aka pimps) take as a cut for their "consulting agencies", which can be as high as 80% of the hourly rate. Even using something like TriNet to handle most of the business stuff still doesn't compare because you still have to either find someone with business contacts or do all the calling yourself on unpaid time (which you then need to charge for later as part of your bill rate, or starve).
I really hope this practice starts putting some downward pressure on the pimps and time wasters who populate the IT recruiting market to start doing better work for a more reasonable rate. Nobody deserves 80% of a developer's pay just because they made a few phone calls. I would definitely consider working for or with a group of freelancers if someone was handling the business side at 15%.
Not new (Score:5, Informative)
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Would really appreciate if you could post contact details for this firm as I have a brother in Sydney who is currently looking for work in this area.
How do we know that they are 10x coders? (Score:2)
Oh, because the business representing them asserts that that is the case. I think an agent for freelancers is an interesting idea. but others are saying that's not new.
What's new? (Score:2)
Did they patent the business method? I have been working through similar agencies for years, they charge $1-2 per hour to do the billing and get me new jobs. Nothing shocking here.
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What part of the country? $1-$2 is really low....Can you tell me who you use?
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Actually it's in the Netherlands, rates vary between €0.75 to €2.50 for this agency [goo.gl] for example, including insurance.
recruiting company (Score:2)
Can we just have unions already? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want a good life you need to start protecting it. That means Unions + a strong Federal Gov't (states are too weak to stand up to corps).
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You're a cog, and you will be replaced by an Indian or Malaysian or some other *-ian that makes less than you do because they don't have indoor plumbing and clean air/water.
If you're one of those people, I'm not surprised you want a union. But those of us who aren't have no desire to be lumbered with dragging along dead weight just because their union says they can't be sacked.
Re:Can we just have unions already? (Score:5, Interesting)
IT apprenticeship seem better then CS for helpdesk (Score:2)
IT apprenticeship seem better then a BA/BS or more in CS for helpdesk / desktop / networking.
A mixed tech school / apprenticeship will be good for tech / IT work and it will take less time / lower cost then college
You can always be sacked (Score:2)
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I'm probably one of the guys who gets paid the big bucks to fix the code you write in the drudgery that you call your career. Seriously, if that's your attitude toward the craft, then you can't possibly be very good at it. I don't doubt for a second that it would be easy to replace you with anyone from any country ever. There are all kinds of problems with outsourcing development work, but they don't stack up to nearly the same problem as a developer putting code into production without a drop of passion or
No (Score:2)
Re:Can we just have unions already? (Score:4, Insightful)
1) We see in other industries they make it hard to fire incompetents. Do you really want to have it impossible to get rid of lousy coders? Unions tend to be based on seniority, which is only somewhat related to skill.
2) We see in other industries that unions slow everything down. That's basically the opposite of Agile and Extreme. Do you really want yet another bureaucracy to deal with?
3) It's not clear what benefit a union will provide. If a union doesn't promise to provide me with something tangible, why support it?
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You know a neat thing about unions? They're made of the people in them. You want a meritocratic, agile, decentralized Union that represents a Hacker/techno-utopian ethos, with blackjack and hookers and bitcoin micropayments? Then make that union! What benefit does the union provide? Well, what would you want with a bigger voice in how your workplace runs? Higher wages? Better hours? Better security against being laid off or bullied by retarded managers? More freedom for side-project work? Advanced training/
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The leadership of a union represents it's members in about the same way a government represents it's citizens - that's to say on paper, but really they're in it for themselves.
I'm a developer, my wife's a teacher. She was recently laid off, and got nothing whatsoever. How helpful were the union? They did nothing. After years of being forced to pay dues to a union she didn't even want to be a member of they were completely useless the first time she had a problem they're supposed to be there to help with.
On
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Yes, it's a lot like government. The more the rank-and-file members work to take democratic control of the union, instead of turning it over to government/business management types, the more democratic it'll be. Because many nominally democratic governments suck at representing their people, do you think humanity should just give up and turn everything over to authoritarian dictators (the default structure for corporations)? Or, should we instead strive for more and better representative forms, at the natio
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Hey, it would at least be an important lessons to the techno-libertarian types that their utopian ideals are full of fail (or, maybe prove me wrong on that assumption --- more power to them if so). I'm personally much more left-anarchist, so I think there are much better organizing principles (focusing on equality and solidarity, rather than self-interested "meritocratic" infighting); however, my point is that it's their workplace, and their union --- so they've got the freedom and responsibility to build b
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And when you have an utterly political system that aims to grow itself in complete denial of business realities
It's a risk you face, against the certainty of an utterly corporatized system that grows itself in complete denial of human realities. And sometimes, when all goes well, brief flashes of democracy and solidarity break out to improve the lives of all. We have yet to find the perfect arrangement for human society, but shall not (I hope) give up the struggle on that account.
Shame (Score:5, Funny)
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So, software developers using agents (Score:4, Interesting)
And that's supposed to be news?
Common practice for high-end/specialist freelancers here in northern europe at least.
I commonly work with one agent(who's also my lawyer), and sometimes with another agent, in a slightly different field. In fact, if you get a trustworthy agent, it's one of the best way to sort out the "grinders"(clients who try to pile on more and more work on a project), scammers and other undesirables.
In fact, those two agents and those of us who use their services have formed a guild of sorts, blacklisting bad clients, blacklisting devs who negatively impact the reputation of freelancers by being scammers or just failures, helping each other out in case of sickness, or just the need for a vacation, yet we still compete with each other in bids for projects etc, so yes, it requires blacklisting out the sociopaths that can't cooperate.
Might not work quite as well in the US though, US geeks seeming content with being exploited and seeing banding together in mutual defense as anathema......
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Agent the way you describe it is very close to being the norm in the industry, give or take a few big name companies that will only deal straight with potential employees.
The article is talking about agents in the artist sense....which is honestly the same thing, just with some pretense of being more than that tacked on.
called headhunters in the old days (Score:2)
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Can I call myself a 10x document writer? (Score:2)
Hi Tech Agents (Score:2)
I liek this (Score:2)
I've seen small companies with just a few excellent programmers produce systems where larger companies with many more mediocre programmers have struggled.
The question
Top, Best, Ultimate... (Score:2)
Exactly what constitutes a Top, Best or Ultimate programmer?
Is there a list somewhere I missed?
-Hack
bid those salaries up guys (Score:2)
I am happy at my company, but when I get C++ jobs that want to pay 50-60k I always email back and let them know that is a 125k job! do it.
The Myth of the Golden Child (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a case of the Golden Child vs. the Goat. I've seen this stupidity in action for decades.
Take two coders of roughly the same skill. One has flash and a high reputation, the other is plain spoken and just says what works and what doesn't. Management gives them both a task that has an unexpected issue and delivery is delayed. When the Golden Child has trouble management goes "that was much harder then we thought, lucky we had our ace working on it, or things would have have been much worse." When The Goat is late it's "so-and-so is just average, it's not a surprise they can't get the job done in time."
Now add in the cost and visibility of the 10x or 25x parachute in super coder who is so extra special they have an agent!!! No matter what happen management is going to conclude that they made a good investment in the high priced person. If they say otherwise then it would reflect badly on them. Any internal dissent by existing staff will be seen as sour grapes/incompetence. If there is a failure it will be laid at the feet of anyone but the Golden Child. No manager is ever going to admit they made that kind of mistake.
I wish I had understood this better earlier in my career. I could be sitting on my yacht right now if I had understood how much you can get for the right kind of hype.
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I learned at a young age half of your job is just making sure people like you and trust you. I'm not saying lie to them or be deceitful, but have a good personality will take you pretty far. If you have a good personality and skills the sky is the limit.
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i voluntarily worked a 20 hour workweek for years and absolutely loved it. for once in my life i finally achieved the elusive work-life balance. i never had a problem paying any bills and have more savings than ever.
unfortunately my boss eventually asked me to go back to full time and i did. the only better thing is the more money but once again i hate getting home at 6 or later and having little left of my day.
the only other negative thing about going part time is it's not like your workload cuts in half
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A 40-hour work week pays for our current standard of living. A 20-hour work week would reduce that standard of living.
There are some people, and a considerable number of them, for whom that doesn't really matter. Cheap house, cheap car, decent food, good computer, good internet. I don't need that many luxury goods. I just wish I had more time to make use of what I have.
More importantly, if people are becoming more efficient (since machines and computers can assist with or even take over some tasks that humans used to do), but don't work less, then we must find more to do. Finally and perhaps more interestingly, working les
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A) reduce the work week gradually. 38 hours, then 36, you get the idea.
B) have basic healthcare provided, This means preventative care, ER visits, and some relatively well-known and general diseases. If you want cancer, chronic diseases, etc covered, you'll need to pay for supplemental insurance, just like today. This would significantly lower the bill on businesses hiring individuals
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Australia reduced it's maximum work week to 38, all the employers just reigned their employees to contracts that expected unpaid "reasonable overtime" every week. Reasonable being 2 hours or more.
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I'm genuinely curious to know whether that has ever been formally challenged.
I'm no expert on Australian law, but for employment law and tax purposes here in the UK, the actual working arrangements can be at least as relevant as any theoretical employment arrangement set out in a contract.
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Bosses that use face time as a performance metric are toxic anyhow. Sooner is better then later.
I don't do 40+ hour weeks and I'm still doing OK (Score:4, Insightful)
I have never worked 40+ hour weeks for extended periods in my whole career, as an employee, freelance contractor/consultant, or running my own "real business". I think I can honestly say that my contribution was still valued everywhere I've ever worked, I've never suffered for not putting in a bunch of unpaid overtime on a regular basis just to be seen, and the businesses I started are doing OK so far. Of course, I was also lucky in the sense that the guys I worked for and with as an employee were all decent people and more interested in getting a good job done than stereotypical poor middle management.
Then again, if you're any good as a coder then you can choose not to work for silly people, at least not for long. It's just a shame how many professionals in the field don't realise that and allow themselves to be exploited for years until hopefully they learn better. Listening to an enthusiastic 25-year-old talking about how great it is that he works 60 hour weeks writing code because his employer brings in pizza if they're still there at 19:30 and buys lunch as well on weekends is like listening to a documentary about Stockholm syndrome.
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My ex was a translator and she was constantly complaining about the steady decrease in work because of machine translations being used. The machine results were crap, but they were free, so the businesses didn't care.
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My ex was a translator and she was constantly complaining about the steady decrease in work because of machine translations being used. The machine results were crap, but they were free, so the businesses didn't care.
They've also taken a clue from Project Gutenberg, the last time I saw a rather major translation project (English -> foreign) it went like this:
1. Start with machine translation - it's faster to correct than start from scratch and their equivalent of OCR.
2. First round pass by third world worker who knows it as a foreign language
3. Second round pass by a native who will do QA until it's "good enough"
I've found you can also improve quality considerably "on the cheap" if you do reverse translation and try
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You can't translate word by word even if by some insane miracle the grammatical integrity of the sentences remains intact.
Literal translations are shit. They do not take into account that you can't literally translate phrases but rather need to replace them with substitutes in your target language. Semantics of words also widely differ between languages. Words can have multiple holonymes and they can differ between source and target language and yo
What an amazing coincidence! (Score:3)
I have a no nudity clause in my contract.
But I will do implied for union scale......
What an amazing coincidence! As your employer, we also have a no-nudity clause in your contract....