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Top Coders Tell Agents, "Show Me the Money!"
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.'"
I am a programmer in Sydney, Australia, and for a few years I have had a contract management company handling all my sourcing and negotiations. They get 2% and I make the final decisions on accepting the work. The demand for non permanent programmers to tackle one-off projects is huge here, especially from the financial sector. Conversely the supply of decent people to fill it is low.
"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.
Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
You are joking, right? Translators face an increasingly tough market. Sure, there will always be some documents that need smooth, polished renderings into a foreign language. But the truth is, a lot of more informal texts that used to go through professional translators at decent wages are now just put through Google Translate for free. Machine translation is not perfect, but it's often considered good enough
I struggle with this trend with my own clients, who don't send their texts to me unless they feel they absolutely have to, and are pretty upfront about the fact that they'd rather gamble on some lost sales due to low-quality machine translation than pay the high rates professional translators demand.
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 too. i had the same amount of work and less hours to do it, so some days were extremely stressful.
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 more or less screwed I fear.
I now drive pizzas, and work around 50+hours a week to make around 25k a year (but spend around 6k of that on gas etc). Its funny to see articles like this extolling programmer agents, because I am sure that both of those jobs up here in Canada are currently filled. If I Canadian company needs a developer, they hire them for the 1 project then kick them out unceremoniously. The only full time development positions I have seen locally seem to be developing for collection services/marketing companies and they pay very poorly for long hours.
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.
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/ 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.