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.'"

Comments

can I get

[geekoid]

residuals on the software I write?

Re:can I get

[geekoid]

"Will I need to have headshots distributed?"
only if you are going to be making FPSs.

Re:can I get

[WaywardGeek]

"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.

Re:can I get

[PopeRatzo]

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.

I think the word you're looking for is "pimp".

Re:can I get

[dristoph]

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.

Re:can I get

[dristoph]

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.

"Hollywood wages" = Unions.

[femtobyte]

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.

Re:"Hollywood wages" = Unions.

[femtobyte]

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.

[geekoid]

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?

Re:"Hollywood wages" = Unions.

[femtobyte]

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.

Re:"Hollywood wages" = Unions.

[femtobyte]

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 was wondering when this was going to happen.

[undeadbill]

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

[TheEffigy]

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.

Re:Zuckerberg

[Reality Man]

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?

Re:Just maybe...

[CRCulver]

start valuing coders the way foreign language translators and interpreters are valued: precious assets of high quality that could cost you a lot if they do a poor quality job.

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.

Can we just have unions already?

[rsilvergun]

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).

Re:Can we just have unions already?

[sandytaru]

So be a picky union. Like the plumber's unions - you don't get to join a plumber's union without a decade of apprenticeship, peer recommendations, and a practical test. Union shops may coerce everyone into joining, but independent unions can leverage the brand name to guarantee star power. And can kick out dead weight, to boot.

Shame

[HRbnjR]

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.

Re:Follow the money

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

...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...

The Myth of the Golden Child

[Required Snark]

I'm sure this will catch on, but my cynical self knows it's almost complete bullshit.

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.