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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.'"
residuals on the software I write?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
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%.
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.
I see that it's time to accept that technology means not everyone has to work. We create our own social model, we can change it. Why can't we accept a 20 hour work week for the same standard of living? What else is technology good for if not to help us?
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.
seriously. Can we? You're not a star. You're not special. 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 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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I would clearly deserve to be recognized as a Top Coder through representation by such an agent, if it weren't for those Dunning-Kruger assholes.
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......
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 less may make people more efficient, which should presumably increase the standard of living.
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
...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...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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.
Why is Snark Required?
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.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !