Ask Slashdot: How To (or How NOT To) Train Your Job Replacement?

An anonymous reader writes "I am a contract developer from a major U.S. city. My rate has never been the lowest, but it's nonetheless very competitive considering the speed and quality of the work I have always delivered, as well as the positive feedback I've received from most clients. In the past ~3 years, I have been working on a sizable project for a major client. For the most part it has been a happy arrangement for both parties. However, for various reasons (including the still ailing economy), starting this year they hired a fresh college graduate in-house, and asked me to teach him all 'secrets' of my code, even though they have the source code by contract. The implicit (although never openly stated) goal is of course for him to take over the project and hopefully reduce cost, at least in the short-term. I say 'hopefully' because I am pretty sure that, because they are unfamiliar with the software industry, they underestimated what it takes to make quality, production-ready code. I am not afraid of losing this particular client, as I have many others, but I want to ask Slashdot: how do you handle this type of situation — training someone whom you know will eventually replace you at your job?"

Comments

You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[Anonymous Coward]

Give him the source code. Have him go over it. If he has any specific questions, answer then succinctly and accurately. But keep in mind that as a contractor you have no obligation to share any of your coding "secrets" with anyone, or teach anyone else how to code. Don't let your ego and desire to brag about how clever your coding solutions are make you forget that you are under no obligation to train anyone to take your place (no matter how much junior may flatter you).

You've given them the deliverables, you've presumably fulfilled your contract. Nowhere in said contract does it say anything about training other coders, I presume. Be professional and polite (don't refuse to answer questions they have about the code, for example). But also be firm about the limitations of your contract (it doesn't include answering questions like "Hey, can you teach me how to do this neat trick like you did?" and "Can you teach me how to do good memory management?").

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[geekboybt]

While I agree mostly with what you've said, keep in mind that, as a contractor, he's been asked to provide a different service, to train the new guy, and is being compensated as both parties deem appropriate. I completely agree that the submitter shouldn't work for free, but if he's amicable to this agreement (as he appears to be) then there's no reason he can't continue. He's made his objections about hiring a newbie to do it, but it's their code to do with as they please.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[assertation]

Basically, be a professional, be pleasant, do what you are obligated to do, but don't volunteer to go further.

Sounds about right.

If someone is replacing you, they can figure the "beyond obligations" stuff out for themselves.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[the_B0fh]

Geek boy has it right. You don't have to train him in comp sci, but showing him the ropes about the app is within scope.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[Synerg1y]

Agreed, just be available to answer any questions. It would also be nice to show where stuff's at, if you set up a process that touches 3 servers arbitrarily, you should share, but maybe only when the need for the knowledge arises. Don't schedule a meeting for something like that, wait for a manager to acknowledge the need for training, and then do it. Basically, my point is nobody makes more for training somebody. And interestingly enough, they won't replace you if they're not confident in your replacement, so probably expect at least another 6 months.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[SpaceMonkies]

Your reputation is worth more than your ego. Be kind, be polite, and helpful ... to a point. Make a 30/60/90 day 'grace period' to answer "hey, can you remind me..." questions. Do this via email so it's all documented - use the excuse of "this way, you have it for reference". You don't need to bend over backwards for your 'replacement', but as a contractor, your reputation and network are paramount.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[eth1]

While I agree mostly with what you've said, keep in mind that, as a contractor, he's been asked to provide a different service, to train the new guy, and is being compensated as both parties deem appropriate. I completely agree that the submitter shouldn't work for free, but if he's amicable to this agreement (as he appears to be) then there's no reason he can't continue. He's made his objections about hiring a newbie to do it, but it's their code to do with as they please.

Yeah, if you're getting paid to teach him your code, why not? Also, if, as you seem to think, they've bitten off more than they can chew, you might end up getting paid to teach him, then keep the contract anyway, when they realize it's not going to work. That might not happen if you just shove the code at them and leave.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[fermion]

I would agree that you have sold the code, not the expertise that wrote the code. I also think that there is a responsibility to document what you have done. As in any professional situation a person versed in the craft should be able to figure out what is going on.

What I would say is that contractor is exactly that. There appears to be other contracts, so I don't see what the problem is here. Be professional, answer questions, be forthcoming, show any spots where something tricky is going on, explain the business rules, and bill for the hours.

It may be that this gambit does not work out and they come back and say that still need a experienced professional. I think it would, however, be best if that decision were made because the situation was tricky and they needed an experienced professional, not just because the code is obtuse.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[VAXcat]

And, if you're friendly about it all, you can count on years of providing support to the new guy, which should bring in a lot of money.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[Fluffeh]

Can't agree with this more. We had a similar experience withinmy company when a lot of the in-house support and dev guys were replaced with (much) cheaper contractors. They did the entire handover nicely, showed the new guys the ropes and moved into other roles or other companies. The new contractors of course are giving the quality of service as is being paid for - so many of our systems are suffering constant delays, SLAs are being missed and there is a strong push from within the business side to re-hire some of the folks that were let go. Of course, now to get them back, the salaries will have to be extra competitive as we want those exact folks back.

Sometimes cheaper is not really cheaper. I would say do a great job of handing over the project as best you can, let the new guy take the reigns. If it works out, great, if not, the company will probably want you back in short order anyhow. You can even look at it as an opportunity. Why not offer to stay on with a retainer, let the new guy handle all the gruntwork, but offer to explain or guide him/her for an hourly fee if needed. Assuming the do improve over time, you will be able to work in a new company at your normal rate and still get a small fee from this older company.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[Geoffrey.landis]

Give him the source code. Have him go over it. If he has any specific questions, answer then succinctly and accurately. But keep in mind that as a contractor you have no obligation to share any of your coding "secrets" with anyone, or teach anyone else how to code.

I would say exactly the opposite. I assume they are in fact paying you to train him, but assuming that they are, and that the person you've been assigned to train is intelligent and teachable-- then, do your best.

First, training the next generation is, or ought to be, part of everybody's job; it's to everybody's advantage that the next generation be capable and competent. (They'll be maintaining the infrastructure when we're in nursing homes shaking our canes at the doctors.)

Second, teaching people, assuming that they're intelligent and want to learn, is fun.

And, third, you're training someone who will go on in the industry-- he won't be at your customer's place forever, you can count on it-- and if you train him to be competent and useful, he will move onward and upward and at every spot he goes, he's going to be crediting you as a really great programmer. And, the better he is, the better he makes you look./ He's not taking business away from you-- he's generating business for you.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That doesn't necessarily equate to blackmailing anyone. For example, imagine that person X is a great developer, output-wise, but bad with people ("weird guy"). It may very well be that X doesn't consider himself a good teacher. Now, you might argue that the best of developers should be good a communicating their knowledge and skills, but Bill Joy's "That was simple, I read the specification and wrote the implementation" comes to mind.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[Will.Woodhull]

As a contractor you bring your knowledge and experience, and the skills you have derived from that knowledge and the wisdom you have derived from that experience, to your client.

You can only teach your client's employee some of the knowledge that you have acquired. You cannot teach him your skills, in the same way you cannot teach someone new to bicycling how not fall over. He can only acquire skills through his own experience. Similarly, you cannot teach your wisdom; like skills, that is not transferable between human beings.

You and your client need to be clear about the limitations involved in this situation. Probably you need to be talking about a different kind of contract with the client, where the employee will be doing some of the heavy lifting that you now do while he begins to gain experience, but you will continue to provide the experience and wisdom that avoids costly mistakes. This would be similar to a traditional master - apprentice approach, but with a third party (the employer) paying the apprentice.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[sgt scrub]

I disagree. If they are entering into an agreement that includes training he is indeed needing to "train him in comp sci". The article doesn't mention that there was a written agreement; but, if the customer is verbally specifying the desire for training there is an oral agreement. They both should take the time to write down specifically what needs to be done. It has been my experience both are going to end up very unhappy if they do not.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[sjames]

If the pay is by the hour, be SURE to train him in comp sci. At least fill in any gaps in his education, in great detail.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[bdwebb]

This is an extremely rational viewpoint to take. I work for an MSP in our projects division implementing complex network environments and a ton of virtualization for our customers and we frequently take our projects to a managed level as the OP appears to have done as well. We have found that after a customer environment has stabilized, these customers tend to be growing in size and scope over the term of our initial managed service agreement and eventually want to take most of the management in-house as a result. Ultimately while they may be extremely satisfied they perceive a threshold at which the recurring managed services costs get close to one or two lower level technicians that they can hire to maintain and grow with the company at an equal or lower cost.

Ultimately, we are contractors and we are not obligated to train their employees but we do so willingly because not only are we being paid for the time we invest into their engineers but we actually end up being able to free up resource time when done for newer projects and we do not require a staff of hundreds to turn projects AND support every one of our recurring customers. Of course the training is out of scoope of our managed services agreement and therefore we are paid time & engineering to support and train their new staff members but when done we have about a 99% success rate of then selling block-time agreements for supporting those customers and about 75% of the time, once the block of time has run out, a new block of time is sold thus continuing a managed services style engagement but with less hands-on involvement in the day to day 'my printer is not working' style simple issues that the staff techs can then handle.

Ultimately the new technicians are either going to be motivated knowledge sponges or, more commonly, will stagnate and reach a comfortable knowledge level within their own environment and continue to rely on our company to provide troubleshooting & support for critical issues beyond the scope of their abilities. In either scenario, I see the following benefits to our company:

Motiviated Knowledge Sponge
- Is able to quickly adapt to environments and continues to expand upon knowledge level
- Has been brought into an environment where his primary resource for knowledge of his daily operating environment was our company and therefore he knows he can rely on us for critical scenarios he cannot resolve or for new project deployments
- Continues to be a close contact or resource as his career progresses, likely with other companies which garners more project work for our company
- May see the benefit of potentially becoming an employee of a company such as ours and pursue a career with us and essentially the training cost of this employee has been subsidized by a separate entity at that point. This one can be iffy because some clients don't like having their employees hired away but most times the technician has progressed to the point that he is already pursuing higher pay than his current company is willing to shell out. We can return to a managed style services agreement, gain an knowledgeable and motivated technician, and he is still associated with their company by proxy and therefore the innate knowledge he has of the now more complex customer environment allows him to interface with them more easily and resolve trouble tickets rapidly while still being used as a technical resource for other contracts or projects.

Stagnant, Satisfied Technician
- Has been brought into an environment where his primary resource for knowledge of his daily operating environment was our company and therefore he knows he can rely on us for critical scenarios he cannot resolve or for new project deployments
- Continues to be a close contact or resource as his career progresses, likely with the same company which garners more project work for our company
- Typically does not have time (or in some cases, the desire) to escalate his knowledge level to critical troubles

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[bdwebb]

Or if the company is not amenable to the retainer idea, sell them a block of hours so you have a guaranteed dollar amount of revenue at your desired billable rate for them to use if they need or not. Ultimately I think you'll find that about 75% of the time companies will continue to purchase blocks of hours from you for critical support because they will see the value in having a backup resource to supplement their newer technician's knowledge. Also, there is perceived flexibility of using you only when needed as well as the idea that 'well we've already paid him for these hours, might as well use him' which turns out to happen more frequently than anyone thinks will happen.

Once you get under 5 hours of support time left in that agreement all it takes is one critical issue to take you over the zero threshold and if you build into the agreement an emergency service rate for out-of-agreement hours required you'll find that the first time that happens the company understands the need for your services MUCH more implicitly and you will continue to have signed agreements for blocks of hours well before your current block of hours is fully utilized just to ensure that you are continually available to support their environment.

It is a win-win-win - you train the technician and become his go-to resource for future work/projects/critical support, the company knows they can still rely on you for critical issues, and you begin work on a new project or with a new company while still supporting your previous employer/client on a semi-regular basis.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[Registered Coward v2]

If you consider yourself to be a professional, you will always do work that you take pride in. As you get older, it's amazing how small the world becomes - your reputation needs to precede you. At worst, you leave this job with everyone happy with you. At best, you have a new code monkey that sees you as a guru and future consultant and a former client who would happily recommend your work. There is nothing better for your word-of-mouth than having a brilliant protege.

Not to mention someone may move to a new company or position where they need your skills and remember you as "the guy who helped us out and left us in a great position even when he knew he was training his replacement;" or have a friend who says "I need..." and recommend you. It's part of being a professional, as you correctly point out.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[ancientt]

Oh, I like this suggestion. Experience and knowledge isn't a matter of secrets, it is a product of time, effort and study. If you're to train a replacement to handle your work with your competency then by all means attempt to spend the time on the education and experience it takes to match your own. It's practically a job for life. (Even if you train to today's competency, you won't catch up to the level you'll have after doing that training.)

Unless your secret is that you're overpaid or an idiot. If that's the case and you want to continue to get paid for it, then lay traps, misdirect and discourage. If you can get him to quit in disgust after damaging various things and costing the company loads of money only to swoop in for the rescue yourself, then you're set.

If you're unfamilar with either, you should read The story of Mel and The story of Terry Childs.

Re:You're a contractor. Your "secrets" are yours

[Mr Z]

There are a lot of good points in this thread. It's worth noting that there's no direct replacement for experience. You bring N years of experience to the job, and the only thing that can bring you N years of experience is N years of doing the job. While you can teach some the broad lessons (and, I would say, teach them specifically in the context of this app; you're not a professor and you're not teaching a class), there's no replacement for experience.

When I was fresh out of college, I could write programs that did very interesting and useful things. Now it's *mumblety* years later, and I know for a fact I would write my programs far differently now, with generally much better outcomes in maintainability, scalability and flexibility. Much of that was learned through trial and error—ie. experience. That only comes with time and practice.

Be cooperative

[kawabago]

They will probably need you back when the newbie crashes and burns.

Re:Be cooperative

[Sparticus789]

They will need you back when the newbie crashes and burns.

FTFY

You train them

[Anonymous Coward]

I am always in-favor of being a trusted agent. This way you might get a lead on the next contract as someone who can be trusted.

Re:You train them

[Trepidity]

It might even get you more contracts at the same place, despite their intent to replace you. There are pretty good odds that at some point in the future, the person you trained is going to run into some problem where they'd love to get your input on it. Unless the system is quite simple and exceptionally well documented, that's almost inevitable. So there's a good chance the company will want to pay you a nice consulting rate for some hours in the future, regardless of what they think their plan is. And if the person you train was happy with your mentorship, they'll be a good internal advocate for steering those contracts your way.

Let the new developer lead the training.

[Dareth]

If you actually are willing to take on the job, then I would suggest you let the new developer lead the training. See if the new person is self motivated and willing to learn. Guide the conversation where it needs to go, but make the new developer do the homework and show they got the prerequisites.

I love doing that, actually

[rebill]

My primary goal as a contractor is to "put myself out of a job". It can be scary to let go of an existing income stream, but no job is a guarantee. If I walk out of a site with a happy customer, they have an incentive to hire me back ... and I get to work on something new (to me), rather than being stuck maintaining the same code for years.

There are risks, but if your replacement flames out, they can always come back to you, later.

Re:I love doing that, actually

[Anonymous Coward]

+1

Another way to look at this: Your value to the client goes up a huge amount when you're no longer a liability.

I begin documenting my projects for the inevitable client take-over as soon as possible, and the hand-off process is great all around.

I am almost always kept around as a senior resource ( this is more fun ) or as someone to escalate to, but when I'm not, I consider it a job well done and move on.

Not being able to move on, update skills, etc is the kiss of death in tech consulting. Fear the golden handcuffs, not the young replacement.

Re:I love doing that, actually

[pnutjam]

Everybody has been trained by someone older and more experienced. This is how a society moves forward. If we stick to what we know and hoard our knowledge we stop learning and our accomplishments die with us. Have some kids and train some young people. It's a rewarding experience to be a mentor.

Re:I love doing that, actually

[MillerHighLife21]

Totally agree. I've always gone into projects with the goal of automating things (right down to outage buffering, failover, etc) to the point that they don't need me anymore. I take it as a point of pride and my work reflects it.

If you're taking any other approach, namely one that will force your client to remain attached to you I'd have to question your ethics, motive, and ability because what you're doing is creating a dependence on you that is borderline blackmail (if that's something you're doing).

So to the original question, help with a smile on your face, show him how the more complex pieces of the code work, document where possible and generally make sure that the tools are there for the project to continue to go on without you. They're either going to recommend you to other people because of how professionally you handled the transition and what a good job they did or they're going to be calling you back shortly when new guy isn't delivering at the rate you did. Drop off a copy of Mythical Man Month when you leave. Just leave it laying around the office somewhere. :-)

Re:I love doing that, actually

[yurtinus]

This this this!!!

I'm sad this wasn't the first post. You need to look at it from the right perspective. If you do a great job on the software and a great job on the training, in the long run you've saved that company money as opposed to being a contractor who milks money out of them and leaves them unsatisfied. Most companies will remember that. They'll refer new business toward you, and you'll be first on their list when they need something new that they can't do in house. You've freed up your time to work on other clients *and* will likely see more occasional business from this client. The next call you get from this client will be because they *want* you, not because they *need* you.

So absolutely yes - train this new kid as best you can. Put yourself out of that job if you can. Unless you're a one-trick pony who only knows how to support some niche legacy product, it really can be a great opportunity for you and should be treated as such.

The Dilbert Way

[Anonymous Coward]

Like this: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2004-02-07/

Re:The Dilbert Way

[hardburlyboogerman]

LOL! I've actually had this happen.Guess what.The replacement turned out to be so incompetent that the client lost his ass.Then he wanted me to come back and try to repair the damage the replacement had done.By then,I had moved on to another job that paid much better.Told him"you made your bed,sleep in it"

As Wil Wheaton says ... "don't be a dick".

[Anonymous Coward]

Your reputation is worth more than your ego. Be kind, be polite, and helpful ... to a point. Make a 30/60/90 day 'grace period' to answer "hey, can you remind me..." questions. Do this via email so it's all documented - use the excuse of "this way, you have it for reference".

You don't need to bend over backwards for your 'replacement', but as a contractor, your reputation and network are paramount.

Is training in the contract?

[Red Herring]

First, is training included? If not, well, make it worth your while. Generally when I've done (much smaller) projects, I generally make sure that the contract I sign lays out that the payment is for the code, and specifically covered training regarding the operation/implementation of the project. Bringing a fresh person up to speed on the code that I provide is not part of the contract, but can be for the right amount of money.

Since I also work full-time at my "real" job, are you sure that this isn't just them wanting to bring the project in-house, more under their control? It might not be about the money, specifically, which means that this might open other opportunities with them on other projects, or even a full-time job with them (if you want it.) Looking at it from the point of view of my real job, there are times when I want ta project done by a contractor/temp, and there are times when I want it done/supported in house. It's usually more about the strategic vs. tactical value of the project than the pure "how much am I paying the guy" number. Make sure that you understand the motivation of the client, so you can better position your next move...

Give the kid as much as he can take

[sackofdonuts]

He will absorb what he/she can and then with the new found skills find a better job someplace else. You will be called back at which point you can raise your rate. Everybody wins!

Write documentation

[concealment]

You're on a per-hour, right?

You're going to walk him through the code; answer questions; answer the phone; bill a minimum for each. This is just good consultant practice. After that, you're on a per-hour basis to fix what he can't. No problem there, because these are the conditions under which you formed the contract.

However, you might want to pitch the writing of some documentation so he has a roadmap to your code and a description of how each (major) function/routine works. That's more hours for you, and less helplessness for him; this is important because when you're on another contract, you really don't want to take a couple hours out to put out fires at a dead-end gig (for you).

Same Way You Should Do Everything Else For Them

[SirLurksAlot]

You do it well. You've obviously already determined that they're planning on cutting costs by getting an in-house developer to take over, and I'm assuming you know that means they're not planning on keeping you on that particular project forever. So rather than doing a half-assed job and leaving the newly-minted dev with the codebase, a handshake, and "good luck!" do them a favor and help them learn everything they should know to do a great job. You really have nothing to lose by training the new guy well; you've got other clients lined up, if you do a good job this client may have you come back in the future (when the economy has more fully recovered) and do more work for them, and you'll have built another relationship with a developer who remember that you took the time to help them out.

Be a Professional

[Anonymous Coward]

Your a contractor. You should have lots of business ahead of you if you try and be professional with each and every client. Teach these developers as well as you can and to the best of your ability. (Unless you dislike training others enough you don't even have a rate you'd be willing to charge...) The people you have done business with in the past will likely want to do business with you again if you are professional and priced correctly. This includes the developers you train. They may end up wanting to hire you when they are in another job later.

Don't be a jerk. Be honest with your customers, too. If the developers have limitations try and express what they will be able to do well without over selling them.

Re:Be a Professional

[TheRaven64]

It's a shame this is at 0, because it's exactly what I would say. If it's a major client finishing up a piece of work, you want them to consider you for future pieces of work, and that includes building their next system, or extending this one when it's beyond the ability of the person that they've hired to maintain it. And even if this customer never needs more work from you, people move between companies, and you want them to think, next time they embark on a big project, 'at my last company, we had this really great consultant who shipped us working code and then trained our in-house staff to maintain it. We should see if he's available'.

Re:Be a Professional

[funwithBSD]

Train him up.
If he can't you know they will be back to get additional support.

If he can really run with your code, hire him away, put him to work on projects that make you money. =)

A few thoughts

[onyxruby]

If you can't be replaced you can't be promoted. If you can't be replaced you can't move on to something better without hurting your client. If your hurt your client by your leaving you will be remembered in a bad way.

Re:As a contractor

[Anonymous Coward]

This can be categorized into 'how to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs'.

Developers get fired all the time - and yes the company, the manager, the new developer will all go through a period of fighting fires. But you will never be irreplaceable. At the end of the day, they dont wanna keep paying $100/hr for ever, they will hire a $80K developer for sure.

If you are good and try your best to at least give the new developer some idea of how to do things, they may call you back for other business. Otherwise, they will remember you for screwing them over. IT industry is a big world, but slowly reputation does travel.

So tell them how much time it will take in addition to what you have allocated for development, and then copy the development manager and send the developer the docs & source code and ask him to ask you questions anytime. Set aside some time for one-on-one meetings to help him understand the code if possible. Keeping the development manager in the loop about training is probably the most important part of this deal.

Teach Him

[Harlequin80]

I know this will be screamed down by the psychotic anti-corporates on this site, but teach him.

No CS grad can compete with an experienced developer in the short term. You teach them and they will see how far short they are of being able to replace you. Take it like they had given you anyone else to train without the implied potential replacement side.

I don't get this argument on this site in particular. We scream for open source, free information, anti-copyright but the second we are asked to pass on any information of our own the response is the equivalent of closing the source, giving no documentation, and threatening lawsuits.

Also

[Sycraft-fu]

Usually if a company hires someone cheap n' incompetent to replace you because you cost too much, you'll find future work in fixing what they break. If you were a dick about it an the company feels you tried to screw them, they'll look for someone else. However if you did what you were asked and did it well, they may hire you back.

Remember as a contractor you are not an employee, but you are always a future contract hire if they like your work.

Been there, done that

[sideslash]

As a contractor I've been through this more than once, and actually had very good experiences training / mentoring customer employees to "take over" the programming of my projects. In one case I met weekly with a guy over many months, and took him from hand-holding up to completing major releases. I don't see it as a threat, because if you're already sharing the source code (which I always do), then you're explicitly offering that the customer can take over the job in the future. So -- assuming that mentoring is a service you want to offer -- do the best job you can, and have fun. And it is a tremendous amount of fun to teach when you are good at what you do, have some communication skills, and also have a beginner student with decent aptitude along with a serious attitude toward learning. I had all of those. /toot-own-horn

Good luck, hope it goes well for you!

Let's face it.

[nickserv]

We're people and we suck. The only thing that matters is what this employer can do for you when you finish working there.

Are they going to be an asset for networking or as a reference? Are they going to get you more work by recommending you? Are they going to be bringing you back for more work?

Your answers to these questions will dictate how much time you should spend supporting the new hire.

It's just business.

They hired you as a developer

[Arancaytar]

If they want you to train employees instead of just code, you should insist on a new contract and negotiate a much higher rate.

And

[gr8_phk]

And as I understand from contractor friends, you bill for "time and materials" not finished code. If you quote a deliverable you better be a good estimator and good at documenting the requirements up front, etc... To eliminate the uncertainty you bill for time and materials, and at that point it doesn't matter if they have you writing code, writing a manual, teaching, or shoveling shit.

IMHO he's best to document and teach everything he can to make his customer happy. If you want job security through obscurity get a direct position at a big company and take on something complex that nobody wants to touch. Of course then they won't pay so much, so you'll want to be a contractor. ;-)

Re:And

[Belial6]

I have done both kinds of work. For deliverable contracts, I charge ~3X as much as I estimate it will take, and make the requirement that I have complete control of the environment for the deliverable. It only rarely taken, which is good because when you charge by the deliverable, you have to be a total hard ass about the spec changes, and if it isn't in the spec, I get to choose how it works. This tends to make both me and the client less happy with the outcome.

You're a contractor. Your clients are *everything*

[yurtinus]

I can't disagree more, as this poster put it - if you've done a good job on the software and a good job on the training, you'll have a happy client more likely to recommend you or consult with you in the future. You'll have a client that wants to call you for their next project, instead of being stuck calling you for support on their past projects. Don't look at it as the client trying to replace you with somebody cheaper - look at it as the client freeing up your time for more valuable and interesting tasks than maintaining an old project. Do the best you can, try to save that company money, and you'll be viewed as an asset to them and see greater long-term gains from them and others they recommend you to. Do a halfhearted job and you'll be viewed as a leech just hanging out for more money - they'll be anxious to get rid of you. You say it's been a happy relationship for both parties, don't ruin it for your ego.

For a group that fosters the FOSS movement, why would you all be opposed to getting *paid* to train somebody else to maintain your old software? Let it go and move on to bigger and better things!

Re:As a contractor

[iiii]

Parent post is well stated.

There really is no benefit to becoming adversarial or doing anything to undermine the future success of the project. And there are many possible down sides, including your rep within that company and your broader rep.

Continue to provide them the best value you can. It sounds like right now that value might be to advise them on the level of complexity of their codebase and the level of talent and experience needed to maintain and continue development on it. Even if that doesn't change their minds, you are on record with your attempts to help them steer a better course. And then, whatever their decision, do the best you can to transition knowledge and prepare the new guy for success.

If you leave with them knowing that you did everything you could to help them make good decisions, and you did everything you could to help them be successful given the decisions that they made, they'll be much more likely to call you for the next project. Or maybe the CTO will call you when he finds a challenging project at his next company. If you help people out, even when there is no angle for you, and create a history of doing this, you'll find that people want to work with you and there are more opportunities coming your way.

If you burn these guys, and do it again somewhere else, and create a history of that, you'll eventually find that people don't want to work with you.

Building a good rep and a network of people who recognize your value and enjoy working with you is a long-term investment worth making.

High road

[Concern]

I don't agree that you should get legalistic about what is and isn't in your contract. If you're writing software, answering questions about it and helping others understand it is part of the basic standards and practices of the profession. If you're a contractor, training up internal resources to take over your project is totally ordinary.

They've been a client for years. Take good care of them. If they want to move the role full-time, in-house, that's a good growth step for them.

If you're the kind of contractor who's hostile to that, and looking for ways to resist and debating what's in your contract, or being unprofessional when it comes to transitioning your role, expect not to be welcomed back, and don't look for them to give a glowing reference.

If you act like a pro, and take good care of them, then you're helping your reputation and chances for future work.

Watch out

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

You might get lucky, but here is my experience with this issue:

  - You act nicely, and teach the noob the "secrets" of your code
  - You go away, the noob didn't understand shit, he gets lost.
  - He eventually will either screw up big time, or just fail to produce new deliverables
  - He gets pushed, blames you (he'll either say your code sucks, or he'll say you are keeping "secrets", or in any other way trying to protect your job by preventing him from doing his.

You'll end up forced to tell the customer to STFU and GTFO, or you'll be doing work for free.

My recommendation:

If you have fully documented the code (both inside the code, and in a standalone documentation that explains everything from coding style to APIs), tell the customer everything any competent coder might need is in the docs, and remain available for any specific questions the coder might have, under a pre-arranged hourly rate.

If your product hasn't been fully documented, send them a quote for full documentation, and go back to the previous stage.

You're now officially the BOFH with a PFY

[HighOrbit]

Sounds like to perfect opportunity to be the BOFH vs the PFY. Enjoy! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastard_Operator_From_Hell && ofcourse http://www.theregister.co.uk/data_centre/bofh/

I would have phrased it as

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a contractor. Make a new contract.

You're obviously not going to do this for free, so approach it like any of your other services for hire. Work out how much time they want to dedicate to it or just get the to agree to a suitably high hourly rate for your new services, which are now essentially tier 2 support. Be sure to include enough of a 'get out free' clause so that if the new guy rips the code/configuration/hardware to shreds, you're not obligated to clean up his mess. Then just rake it in.

teach him gleefully!

[the-build-chicken]

So, I'm also a high earning contractor whose wages are consistently 30% above market rates, and have been for as long as I can remember...I also have (paid for myself) obtained complementary teaching qualifications so I can offer exactly what you're describing as a "value add" service to my clients. I always have a new contract waiting for me at the end of the current one, I've never been unintentionally unemployed (I like to sit on the beach a lot), I'm regularly re-hired by the same clients that have used my services previously, and usually they bid against each other for my services, I don't work very hard (can't remember the last time I even said the word "overtime") and I make buckets of money...why?

Because I approach every single contract with the view that at any point I could get a better offer somewhere else and I don't want to burn the current bridge. Every single thing I do, be it code, or architecture, or business process modelling, or teaching/mentoring is highly documented, and at least one full time staff member has had a walk through to the point where, in a pinch, they could get by without me. And every single client appreciates my approach and recommends me wholeheartedly to their business buddies.

"Knowledge lockin" is a petty and small way to build a career...if you have to rely on it, eventually you will have no career (I have seen it over and over again...cushy contractor locks in his position through knowledge bargaining rather than services provided and sure, he gets 5, maybe 10 very stressful years out of it...then his career is toast)

And teaching is fun...remember, that kid you teach today is going to be the project manager signing your very hefty invoice tomorrow. Many of the "kids" I taught at one point are now in very senior executive positions...who do you think they recommend when the job has to be done right?

And finally, the ethical aspect. My art teacher once said to me "Everything you learn in life is taught to you by someone...to die without passing that knowledge on is stealing from humanity."

My advice, don't just teach that kid...teach the hell out of him...make it obvious that you're more than happy to do it. Understand that, once a contract is coming to an end, it's a natural and expected part of the development cycle for your client to want to fund the maintenance of the project in a more cost effective manner (and who the hell wants to get stuck doing maintenance anyway?). And go out of your way to make it as visible as possible that you understand that part of the development cycle and are enthusiastic to have done such a great job at design that maintenance can be handle by a graduate. And through all this, keep asking...referrals, referrals, referrals.

Re:As a contractor

[Firethorn]

But you will never be irreplaceable.

I'd argue that, as a company, I don't want ANY one individual, not even the CEO, to be counted as 'irreplaceable'. What if the OP was killed in a car crash tomorrow? Had a heart attack or stroke?

The kid might only be able to do some things with the software, but he could reduce an emergency to an urgent situation as he keeps the system operating long enough for a new contractor to figure out the program.