Are You An It Contractor?

[wickywackywoo]

The link you gave barely scratches the surface, and is probably not a good way of convincing people you need a clue to be a developer. You also need to learn the STL and BOOST, however the difficult part is knowing what to write, and not how exactly to express it in C++. That is why a decent CS degree should be required.

The thread (and the post you responded to) are about IT. My experience is that most IT people just about know what cable fits into what hole on a computer. The most useful ones don't tend to be clever but tall and strong, and can be told to carry equipment from one place to another. "Network administrators" who cannot understand the concept of a statically-assigned DHCP address or do not know what a netmask is good for? I have seen them.

The best part of the crunch for me is that there is no longer any money to pay for incompetent IT muppets to interfere with my work. It takes a tiny proportion of my time to administer the firewalls, do the backups, and replace failed equipment. Before it was a struggle to do something as trivial as bridge two networks. It was also expensive because the chief IT cretin insisted on buying ultra-expensive firewall boxes in the hope that perhaps one would come with documentation he could comprehend. It was no good telling him it could be done better and for free by installing Linux on a discarded computer with multiple network cards, or that we could also have VPN that actually worked running on the same hardware.

I agree with a previous poster that IT people can be paid out of all proportion with their skills. We had that problem in a tech company that possessed the expertise to know just how long it would take to do one of IT's year-long "complex" projects that the chief IT muppet insisted needed outside contractors to do. However, the politics of the place was such that this was allowed to go on for a long time, the only concession being that they did not interfere with developers much and allowed them to tunnel past the webfilter. Eventually the money run out, and both remaining IT people departed. It turned out there was less than a day worth of work per week for both of them, and that was in weeks when someone missed them at all. Admittedly, other parts of the company had shrank too but they clearly were a massive waste of money. At least one was paid more than substantially more capable and educated engineers who could do his job a lot better and faster. I suppose the pay differential must have been because they lacked MCSEs ...

Maybe I should mention I also experienced competent IT people. Sadly, the last place was the sysadmins in the university Computing Lab. They are much harder to find in the private sector.

Decent competent IT people aren't hard to find. Your company is either paying peanuts and expecting something other than monkeys or the people doing the interviewing are cr@p.

Edited August 19, 2009 by wickywackywoo

[wickywackywoo]

I've got a mate who's made a good living as a computer programmer ever since leaving uni with a philosophy degree 30 years ago. We meet up every couple of years and he always seems to be working for a new firm.

Last time I saw him I asked him how many of the projects he has worked on over the years have proved commercial successes. His reply astounded me.

In an entire career not one of his projects has ever made it as far as the market!

I still find this difficult to believe.

So do I. He must work on some strange crazyass systems. Plenty of 'normal' systems fail for a wide variety of reasons but I've seen plenty go live during my career.

Edited to add: It seems the clue is that he's always working for a new company. It's him, he's a bellend, lol.

Edited August 19, 2009 by wickywackywoo

[Wuluf]

such as the Newton-Raphson method for solving the roots of polynomials (like Excel's goal-seek)

It isnt that complicated..

[wickywackywoo]

It isnt that complicated..

Bet it is if you have to write it in SQL.

[Wuluf]

I've got a mate who's made a good living as a computer programmer ever since leaving uni with a philosophy degree 30 years ago. We meet up every couple of years and he always seems to be working for a new firm.

Last time I saw him I asked him how many of the projects he has worked on over the years have proved commercial successes. His reply astounded me.

In an entire career not one of his projects has ever made it as far as the market!

I still find this difficult to believe.

Does his name begin with a "j"??

[petetong]

I've got a mate who's made a good living as a computer programmer ever since leaving uni with a philosophy degree 30 years ago. We meet up every couple of years and he always seems to be working for a new firm.

Last time I saw him I asked him how many of the projects he has worked on over the years have proved commercial successes. His reply astounded me.

In an entire career not one of his projects has ever made it as far as the market!

I still find this difficult to believe.

I'm surprised he continues to get hired given that fact

[SNACR]

Fair enough.

I get quite a buzz making stuff like this for IT contractors!

They never seem to pay in cash though...

How much does something like that set them back?

Never thought of having a fitted home office -I got mine out of the same furniture catalogue we use for the office, Dams stuff, I think.

Edited August 19, 2009 by Soon Not a Chain Retailer

[Mr Yogi]

It seems the clue is that he's always working for a new company. It's him, he's a bellend, lol.

Very possibly. There seem to be plenty of other bellends happy to employ him though - on good money, too.

It will be interesting to hear what he's up to when I see him later in the year.

[Wuluf]

Bet it is if you have to write it in SQL.

If you limit the number of iterations (ANSI sub-queries levels) to 10 (given that the function normally converges by the 7th or 8th cycle) then you probably could..

[Mr Yogi]

How much does something like that set them back?

5-8k depending on spec. PM me for details of my special HPC discount scheme!

[porca misèria]

Fair enough.

I get quite a buzz making stuff like this for IT contractors!

They never seem to pay in cash though...

Nasty!

(That thingey with the keyboard and mouse on would do my back in in minutes. Even with a better chair than the one pictured).

[the_duke_of_hazzard]

I suspect that many a contractor does indeed "go stale" and doesn't think about how their skills fit into the market. The reason I went into IT was that it would never get boring, and this has proved to be the case, but it's so fast moving that you have to be adaptable too. And prepare for hefty pay cuts at times.

[MongerOfDoom]

Decent competent IT people aren't hard to find. Your company is either paying peanuts and expecting something other than monkeys or the people doing the interviewing are cr@p.

We are talking 50k+ for a "head" of IT and the sole permanent IT worker (who could not quite grasp port forwarding and other tricky networking concepts). We tried replacing him with contractors who wanted UKP800 a day. It turned out they did not understand what crossover Ethernet cables were for. They also could not cope with the concept of a computer connected to two networks that was not also a bridge between them.

In the end I maintained the network because it was by far the most efficient way, and also because it then actually worked. I suppose this sort-of supports you claim that competent IT people are easy to find (since I was right there), however good IT people who only do IT *are* difficult to find because the ones that are any good consider it much too boring. I think you might be right that our interviewers were clueless, however the fact that utterly incompetent IT people thought it was worth their while to apply and demand a lot of money suggests they also get away with it elsewhere. Hence I think others are right to observe that many IT people are overpaid for whatever little they know.

[wickywackywoo]

We are talking 50k+ for a "head" of IT and the sole permanent IT worker (who could not quite grasp port forwarding and other tricky networking concepts). We tried replacing him with contractors who wanted UKP800 a day. It turned out they did not understand what crossover Ethernet cables were for. They also could not cope with the concept of a computer connected to two networks that was not also a bridge between them.

In the end I maintained the network because it was by far the most efficient way, and also because it then actually worked. I suppose this sort-of supports you claim that competent IT people are easy to find (since I was right there), however good IT people who only do IT *are* difficult to find because the ones that are any good consider it much too boring. I think you might be right that our interviewers were clueless, however the fact that utterly incompetent IT people thought it was worth their while to apply and demand a lot of money suggests they also get away with it elsewhere. Hence I think others are right to observe that many IT people are overpaid for whatever little they know.

I'd agree that there are many useless IT people circulating around - I've worked with quite a few.

In my experience it's fairly easy to weed them out at interview stage though. You just need a real techie asking them some difficult questions.

I'm a pure developer, know little about networking or hardware, but even I know what a crossover cable is for.

[A_Landlord]

Glad I am a contractor in the Oil Industry rather than IT. However, several friends in IT are struggling.

As with many of life's decisions, perhaps more luck than judgement.

Consulting in the oil industry is good for me too - no drop in rates, with increases each year and too much work available to someone who cannot say no ... last few years I have been putting in around 240 days a year - building up my rainey day fund, plus buying & paying off BTL properties.

I'm 41 years old and in an industry which has its average age of its work force in its 50's, so looking forward to the very big day rates in 5 years time when the old boys start retiring on mass.

The oil industry does appear to be an industry where experience is rewarded well through to retirement - unlike what I am reading about IT.

Only down side for me is that I am away from home a lot and maybe for 3 or 4 weeks at a time ..... I am currently typing this from another dull hotel room a flight away from home.

[Yoss]

Depensing on what you're supporting (and how well you're supporting it), helpdesk work can be bloody tricky stuff. I've worked in companies where the line between tech support, BA and developer was really blurry. However the pay rate is set by what the "market value" for your job title is, and the BA, regardless of actual skill, nearly always comes out on top of that. I suspect it's simply because BA's generally have better presentation skills, so are better at convincing employers how important they are.

BA's generally have a understanding of the business they serve, a BA with Business & IT skills, will know when a developer is yanking his chain on the "It's complicated and may take some time" front.

A good BA will also be aware of the rates globally for good IT resources....Problem with the UK IT industry,

1) Housing costs to much and thus wage demands are massively unrealistic

2) Employers NI

3) UK levels of taxation

No doubt there are skilled IT people in the UK, but when they cost 3-4x the global equivalent..How exactly can you justify the cost?

A clearly defined specification and VERY STRICT coding standards and you get the code back in days at rates that would make most UK IT peoples hair curl.

That's the problem with any trade, that can effectively be farmed anywhere at the push of a button.

[Grime- skint wouldbe ftb]

I'm a little mystified... one of the Blair era soundbites in the mid 90s, along with Tough on crime, tough on the causes... Education, education, education... No more boom and bust... was that we were going to be a "High skill, high wage economy", and that IT (along with finance) was one of the key sectors.

Surely that wasn't also a load of baloney too???? That would mean.. everything, literally everything Labour has said in the last 15 years has been complete rubbish??

[djm1972]

Youngsters don't know how to code these days. If you're looking for a programmer and want someone who knows what they're doing hire age 30+.

We're the generation who grew up with LOGO (the perfect introduction to procedural programming); and rolled our own code on the ZX81, BBC Micro and other computers that let you get your hands dirty.

Nobody is programming in their teens anymore.

Edited August 19, 2009 by djm1972

[Guest joeschmo]

The trick is to own the content/intellectual property of any IT/web business. You can then get anyone to do the delivery.

[Yoss]

I'm a little mystified... one of the Blair era soundbites in the mid 90s, along with Tough on crime, tough on the causes... Education, education, education... No more boom and bust... was that we were going to be a "High skill, high wage economy", and that IT (along with finance) was one of the key sectors.

Surely that wasn't also a load of baloney too???? That would mean.. everything, literally everything Labour has said in the last 15 years has been complete rubbish??

Education, Education, Education......

What they failed to mention is that leaving uni with £23k's worth of debt... That's before you even think about by buying the smallest flats in Europe at 8x avg wage.

Compare that to the avg world wide Graduates cost of training then you wake up and realise how FUBAR the UK is.

Just try explaining having a £23,000 GBP debt to a graduate from China.. You will get nothing but blank looks... and they probably got a better education!

Then take into account the fact they are happy to work in a nail bar on min wage (Even though they got a first in physics), because when they go home in 5 Years, they can buy a home outright.

[porca misèria]

We are talking 50k+ for a "head" of IT and the sole permanent IT worker (who could not quite grasp port forwarding and other tricky networking concepts). We tried replacing him with contractors who wanted UKP800 a day. It turned out they did not understand what crossover Ethernet cables were for. They also could not cope with the concept of a computer connected to two networks that was not also a bridge between them.

In the end I maintained the network because it was by far the most efficient way, and also because it then actually worked. I suppose this sort-of supports you claim that competent IT people are easy to find (since I was right there), however good IT people who only do IT *are* difficult to find because the ones that are any good consider it much too boring. I think you might be right that our interviewers were clueless, however the fact that utterly incompetent IT people thought it was worth their while to apply and demand a lot of money suggests they also get away with it elsewhere. Hence I think others are right to observe that many IT people are overpaid for whatever little they know.

Hehe!

Anecdotal. When I was a one-man business, I had occasion to support various folks. Not with any great enthusiasm: I'm a developer at heart, and I prefer to be doing something that hasn't been done before! But that wasn't paying the bills at the time.

I've never claimed to be competent with Windows - in fact I'm terrified to connect it to the 'net, 'cos doing that without a great deal of expertise lays you wide open to being, for example, coopted into a botnet. But I recollect on one occasion, sitting on a bus, with no computer or network to hand, taking a call from a client who was trying to sort out a networking problem on windows. I was able to talk him through fixing it, just based on a bit of general knowledge, and guessing where to look on Windows. The hardest bit was trying not to be too annoying to my fellow passengers.

His supposed techie, with an MSCE qualification and with the computer in question in front of him, had been at a loss!

[the_duke_of_hazzard]

Youngsters don't know how to code these days. If you're looking for a programmer and want someone who knows what they're doing hire age 30+.

We're the generation who grew up with LOGO (the perfect introduction to procedural programming); and rolled our own code on the ZX81, BBC Micro and other computers that let you get your hands dirty.

Nobody is programming in their teens anymore.

I call bullsh1t.

What do you want them to code?

What's wrong with the many teenagers coding python?

Actually, you're not a real programmer anyway unless you possess a magnetised needle and a steady hand. ZX81s were for gaylords.

[porca misèria]

I'm a little mystified... one of the Blair era soundbites in the mid 90s, along with Tough on crime, tough on the causes... Education, education, education... No more boom and bust... was that we were going to be a "High skill, high wage economy", and that IT (along with finance) was one of the key sectors.

"IT" is ... um ... a Big Tent. Some IT jobs are high skill, many are technician-level. Pay doesn't necessarily have any relation to skill.

Recommended reading: http://www.seebs.net/faqs/hacker.html

- explains the kind of people who actually get things done (so that, for example, HPC has the software to run this forum).

[djm1972]

ZX81s were not specifically for gaylords.

What circumstances lead to teenagers coding in python?

Edited August 19, 2009 by djm1972

[Guest theboltonfury]

I love it when IT guys always insist that they've been 'headhunted'. No one ever admits that they've just stuck their CV on Monster.

Were contractors moaning during the boom years when they were creaming it in?

I'll get my coat....