Do Good Programmers Need Agents?

braindrainbahrain writes: A rock star needs an agent, so maybe a rock star programmer needs one, too. As described in The New Yorker, a talent agency called 10x, which got started in the music business, is not your typical head hunter/recruiter agency. "The company's name comes from the idea, well established in the tech world, that the very best programmers are superstars, capable of achieving ten times the productivity of their merely competent colleagues." The writer talks with a number of programmers using agents to find work, who generally seem pleased with it, though the article has viewpoints from skeptics as well.

Comments

Here's the deal

[russotto]

The value of an agent to me is the difference between what I can get and what the agent can get, minus the amount the agent skims off the top. The worse I am at negotiating, the larger the difference is... but the greater the amount the agent skims off the top. Most likely outcome: the agent, whose entire compensation is based on separating me from as much cash as possible, manages to take more than that difference and I get screwed while thinking I got a good deal.

Re:Here's the deal

[Matheus]

Generally right.

There's a bit of benefit on the "I don't want to have to do that crap" or "I don't know the right person to talk to but they do" side but when it comes down to it in our field there's a pretty fine line between an Agent and a Recruiter. The big difference being that technically the Recruiter is working for the employer (they get paid from that side not from you) whereas an agent is technically working for you (ergo the skim) but the benefits they provide should balance out to the same in a perfect world.

Honestly I think this is just another company trying to get $ out of the other side of the equation. Not a bad business model since plenty of people will buy into it BUT I honestly don't believe they will do any better at the job so negligible benefit to the person taking 85% of their paycheck.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the agent wants quick turnover and will attempt to place you in a position you semi-fit instead of waiting for a perfect match at optimum price. It is the old principle-agent problem.
Ask who ultimately the agent is working for .... the company they are recruiting for, you, or...themselves!

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

You've obviously never worked with good "agents" "recruiters" or "headhunters". They will earn their paycheck, if you have talent they can sell.

Re:Here's the deal

[Harlequin80]

Time to get flamed out of existence.... I am an agent. Though I would argue there is no difference between an agent and a recruiter or a headhunter. They are different skillsets of the same job.

To a "candidate" the primary service I provide is I spend all day every day talking to companies and hiring managers about their projects, their workloads and what they see as the main challenge to delivering their projects from a manpower perspective. I also learn what their capabilities are vs their competitors. This means when I speak to you and you tell me your skills, your motivations and what you want in a future employer I, hopefully, will be able to say company A, C, and X are actively looking for someone of your background and companies B, V & Q want to know about your type of skillsets when they come on to the market. Because I do this all day everyday I will know this information, where as you, doing what ever it is you do, will not.

From a Company perspective, the service I provide is that I spend all day every day speaking with candidates, about what their ideal job would be in the future and where they want to go with their career. So when the company asks me for a particular skillset I will know 20,30,100+ people with that skillset that would be tempted by what they as a potential employer would offer. Again something that they can't do themselves because they need to be doing what ever their real job is.

Now as for fees and charges. If I find you a permanent job the company pays me a fee based on your salary. If I find you a contract job the company pays me a fee based on your salary on an hourly rate. The IT industry in particular sees that as me taking a cut of your wages, but I don't negotiate with you about my rate. I negotiate with the company about what they are going to pay me for my finders service. What I don't see is two people working in the same job in the same company with the agency guy getting less take home then the direct guy, as a general rule. In my market sectors the lower paid person will just leave.

So if you want to look at it another way, given I am paid a % markup, I want you to get paid the most I can negotiate for you.

Just as an aside I don't recruit in the IT space. I recruit for civil engineers. I did have a brief stint in the early 2000s in IT recruitment but I left that sector as fast as I could as it is extremely difficult to determine if someone can do what they say they can and the general attitude from "candidates" is extremely hostile to recruiters.

Finally, I would like to add that recruitment is a very difficult job that most people can't do. Not because it is technically difficult (it's really quite simple) it is however very difficult emotionally. There is a reason most recruiters only have a couple of years of experience, it is because most people just can't keep doing the job. Most of us try to do the right thing, we are in the end normal people. But for most of us this job is thankless with companies telling us to go jump and candidates thinking we are ripping them off. You will however find that if someone has done this for a long time it is because they have found their niche and they are respected by both their clients and the candidates.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

The value of an agent to me is the difference between what I can get and what the agent can get, minus the amount the agent skims off the top. The worse I am at negotiating, the larger the difference is... but the greater the amount the agent skims off the top. Most likely outcome: the agent, whose entire compensation is based on separating me from as much cash as possible, manages to take more than that difference and I get screwed while thinking I got a good deal.

This simply means that you are not a rock star programmer. I'm a high demand developer and I use an agent to filter jobs for me. It saves me time and effort to have someone else perform the vetting on the jobs and price negotiation. Sure, my agent wants to get a cut from it, too, but that only give her incentive to negotiate the best rate possible for me. I'm happy and it has saved me a huge amount of time and allows me to focus more on getting work done. With the extra time I can spend it with the wife and kids at home.

Re:Here's the deal

[mjwx]

The value of an agent to me is the difference between what I can get and what the agent can get, minus the amount the agent skims off the top. The worse I am at negotiating, the larger the difference is... but the greater the amount the agent skims off the top. Most likely outcome: the agent, whose entire compensation is based on separating me from as much cash as possible, manages to take more than that difference and I get screwed while thinking I got a good deal.

However the value of you to an agent is how much they can get out of the company for you.

This is how recruiting and head hunting currently works. The company puts out an ad or contacts a recruitment agency, basically they make their intentions known. Recruiters approach the companies on the behalf of the perspective employee and set terms that if the employee is hired they get money. If the employee lasts longer than X months they get a bonus.

All an "agent" will do is double dip. They'll still get the recruiting fee and bonus from the company and then they'll turn around and charge you for their services again.

In this scenario, the money they get from you is just icing on the cake, their working for the company, not you and because of this the recruiter has a vested interest in getting you in the door as cheaply as possible.

Re:Here's the deal

[thegarbz]

Yes, no, sometimes. It depends on the agent being a full time agent or a one off recruiter. It depends if the contract is a commission based payment or a continued percentage of your salary.

In the latter case yes, in the former case no. For one-off recruitment companies have little problem with spending $40k or so to end up with the right candidate for the job. The result typically will not affect your final salary either. It is far more costly to end up with the wrong employee, or someone who leaves after a short term than to pay the fee to end up with the right person who'll stay with the company for a long period.

Re:Here's the deal

[hax4bux]

I have been contracting since 1992. It is true we both want to get paid max($$). It is not true these are separate money pots. Most companies will look at your commission and my hourly rate as my total burn rate.

I will agree that recruiting is difficult because I don't know anyone who sticks w/the job even though it can be a license to print money. I will also agree that a competent recruiter is a joy. I switch jobs perhaps every year which means I am always looking for my next contract. Most recruiters are on to some other sales position in a matter of months, so there is constant churn.

Yes, there is a hostile attitude to recruiters. Some of it is silly, some of it is well earned. The fake jobs on DICE just to collect resumes are one bad example. The meat market, commodity skill attitude is another. I have a dedicated phone line that I keep just for recruiters to leave voice mail, and I have an amazing collection of WAV files containing broken english about skills I never had for jobs I would never consider.

My favorite ploy is the agencies who stalk me on LinkedIn. When I move to a new contract, they call my old employer to ask if they need any additional help. And they call my new employer to ask if they need any additional help. The kicker is they drop my name as if I endorse this action, which frequently gets me a email about "which side are you playing?" Needless to say, I do not return the phone calls of these agencies.

To wrap up, I would starve without recruiters and I am happy to do business w/them when it works out. You just have to be picky about who represents you.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

What a detailed and convincing argument. Do you weave such magical, dominating, conversation during your interviews, Svengali?

Re:Here's the deal

[Harlequin80]

I agree with most of what you have said. The total cost factor can come in to it when looking at who is the most expensive contractor but I have agreement with my clients that sees the transfer fee reduce over time. So after a while my contractors shift across to direct contracts. This tends to be the norm here in Australia but was not the process in the UK. I don't know about the US.

The other comments you have put tends to be the actions of less experienced agents. I don't advertise at all. I lose more time to calls from people applying for jobs then it generates for me as an income. Also the name dropping like that is very very dangerous. LinkedIn is quite often out of date and calling up and saying I see Hax4Bux has just left when you moved 6 months ago is a fast track to being blown out.

Most of my contractors have been long term with me. I've even been to a few of their weddings. But I am an old dog in this industry at nearly 15 years.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

| So if you want to look at it another way, given I am paid a % markup, I want you to get paid the most I can negotiate for you.

Let's correct that. Your motivation is to get the candidate placed. Just like a Realtor's motivation is to make the transaction by bring the buyer up and the seller down. Why struggle squeezing the last 10K of the employer? It's too much work and risks getting nothing. 30 percent of something is more than 30 percent of nothing.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Few observations you are not aware of.

1: Bringing in External HR is always an operating expense to any organization. IT people, typically being quite astute, realize that your pay always takes away from their potential to be paid more; now whether management view their labor as a bunch of slaves or people to be motivated with money, now there's a debate. Whether this relation is direct or indirect is an irrelevant discussion.

2: If the first thing you discuss with a candidate is pay level, not only are you incompetent, but you are the worst kind of slave driver. Also, your job has been outsourced to India, since the calling around for desperate people work has been outsourced to India.

3: IT is the only discipline that has both a salary and overtime exemption (for the sake of clarification). It's also a profession where the law is so unclear on the difference between W4 (Regular employee) and W11 (Outside consultant\contractor) contracting that most companies don't hire any IT people on W11. Think about it; Carpenters, Stonelayers, even accountants, lawyers, and executive consultants can be hired as a contractor, but not IT. We are forced to use HR Companies to subcontract us, so we cannot self-market niche specialties or develop and market niche products; that means the HR company is going to abstract the labor being done from the individual since all companies have to do this. That's the reason Joe the Database Ninja is working for small corp wasting his life away, and why MegaPowerCorp is dieing from Cyanide poison from drinking the H1B Cool-aid. You are, ultimately for our profession, not useful.

Re:Here's the deal

[mrsam]

My favorite ploy is the agencies who stalk me on LinkedIn. When I move to a new contract, they call my old employer to ask if they need any additional help.

I found a very easy solution to this problem, a long time ago: I simply do not provide enough details to precisely identify any of the companies I've worked for in the past, on my publicly visible LinkedIn profile, and I locked it down so that nobody, except me, can see my connections, and try to figure it out. All that anyone sees is my connection count, and nothing more.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

I want you to get paid the most I can negotiate for you.

You left off "for the least amount of work on my part."

Simple math says that it's only ever in your best interest to mazimize a given client's salary if the effort required to increase the salary by $X is less than the effort required to raise ANY OTHER client's salary by $X, including new clients.

Put another way: If there's a line of people outside your door asking you to place them for $(market), then you have almost zero incentive to spend extra time help one of them get $(1.5 * market), because you know it'll much easier to place the next guy at $(market). More money for less work = no-brainer.

Re:Here's the deal

[Harlequin80]

In reverse order:

3. Not in IT, Not in the states. I have no idea what any of those clauses or things mean other than the bitching I head about H1B visas on here.

2. I don't believe I ever mentioned salary or pay levels. These are important factors but fall far down the list. I believe I said I spend all day talking to candidates finding out what their ideal job looks like and where they want to go in the careers.

1. Completely disagree. Any service is an operating expense, some things though are cheaper to do internally and some are cheaper to do externally. Recruitment costs are a cost of doing business. Same as lawyer, accountancy or other sub-consultancy costs. Believing you are astute and thinking that recruitment costs means you are paid less actually points to you being naive. Companies pay recruitment costs because it is CHEAPER than doing the recruitment themselves. Otherwise why would they use a recruitment company. This means that a recruitment spend frees up capital that could be used somewhere else. Maybe it will be used to pay you more money, maybe it will be used for something else that the company determines is more valuable.

Re:Here's the deal

[Harlequin80]

There is no risk because I have never ever lost a placement through asking for more money during the negotiation phase. This is one of the biggest advantages of using an agent. I have no emotional involvement. I won't get insulted by an offer and say something stupid. Don't forget I don't get to accept the role on your behalf. I advise a company and I advise you. You are the one making the final decision. I can tell you whether I think you are pushing too far. And I can tell the client whether I think they are trying to go too low.

Re:Here's the deal

[dbrueck]

This is exactly right. Others have noted that this agent thing is similar to realtors and there's good evidence to suggest that realtors don't really have much incentive to find the highest bidder for your home (see e.g. http://curbed.com/archives/201...) but have more incentive to get rid of your home quickly.

Re:Here's the deal

[Bob_Who]

They apparently don't have talent at all. They try to obstruct it because it makes them meaningful. They become a source of skills and talent that they will never develop themselves. Parasites have had a necessary function in nature for eons.

Re:Here's the deal

[Harlequin80]

Except that finding the person the job is by far the biggest part of the work load. To put it into perspective for you I will, on average, place 1 person a week. And, believe it or not, that puts me in the top %s of recruiters for specialised skill sets.

To place 1 person I need to organise 5 interviews between a company and a candidate so I am pretty much organising an interview a day and to do that I am on call 7 days a week and usually work about a 60 hour week. I am often talking to people at 8pm on a friday night, or taking a reference at 2am because that is the international time difference.

So when I do have a job offer for someone it is worth me taking the time to negotiate the best possible outcome. What's more is that the negotiation process takes very little time or effort. I may have to invest 30 minutes of telephone time across a week. I lose more time making coffees.

Re:Here's the deal

[qwp]

Quick Question: (Completely off-topic)... In civil engineering how do you tell the B.S. candidates from the actual quality candidates? So as far as I've seen it's about 1 good in 20 total. I must be too judgmental. Also, anywhere to find your contact info?

Re:Here's the deal

[AchilleTalon]

The problem is good "agents" are rare as pope shit. You get bad ones and they keep at least 50% of the paycheck for themselves doing almost nothing and not representing you properly because they don't care since they have a list they submit and they don't know the difference between a bit and a byte. So, they cannot really sell you. The good one is only as good as the contacts he has, if you are good his sell pitch is trivial. If he really has the good contacts he is running a consultancy business and you are his consultant. He keeps then more than 50% of the bill at the end.

It seems there is plenty of guys around ready to work on a contractual basis for something around 50-60$/hr. This is the paycheck someone should expect for a permanent position, not a contractual one. You cannot stay in business on the long term with a 50-60$/hr in a developed country.

Re:Here's the deal

[AchilleTalon]

You would starve because you don't charge enough to have a buffer between contracts. So, you throw half your money at an agent that will get about the same money as you for few days of work and you do that since 1992. You must be silly.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

The question of the article is rather "is the programmer a talent, or just a highly skilled worker?"
Also, you're confusing agents with headhunters, which don't care about repeat business.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

So when I do have a job offer for someone it is worth me taking the time to negotiate the best possible outcome.

Sorry about the AC, I'm moderating. I've been in IT for 30 years and found good recruiters to be of immense value. Thanks for what you do.

Re:Here's the deal

[Harlequin80]

I guess it is more of an art than a science.

Couple of generic points (and these are guides rather than set in stone)
* Good people work with good people.
* Good people tend not to boast
* Good people are willing to say they can't do something or that it would be a challenge for them
* Good people are specific in what they want
* Good people tend to have longer stints in each company

On top of that I have been in the civil engineering space for a long time. And while I couldn't design or build a bridge I can hold a conversation about what is involved in doing it. So when someone is talking to me I can get a feel for if I am being spun a line or not.

Finally, after 10 years in the same market I am close friends with a number of the managers in the consultancies and have long working relationships with many more. One of them will know you or of you.

I normally don't post about work on here so try to keep it separate - send an email to harlequin80@mailinator.com and I will email you directly with my contact details.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Been contracting ~6 years here, I'd roughly agree - although I'm purposely not on LinkedIn (counter-productive, and not at all constructive).

A good recruiter can be amazing to work with, especially if you're in a highly competitive market.
On the flip side of the coin though, if you've got skills and proven experience that talk for themselves - you typically don't need to even look for work, work finds you.

I think it'll really come down to how good you are at your job and interacting with other people, if you're not that attractive - recruiters are a god send, and especially so to get your foot in the door (which is what I used them for, after working a full-time gig for a decade).

But this topic is more about rockstar developers, and honestly I wouldn't quite call myself a rockstar developer (although I also don't often work with people with my level of skills either - so maybe I am and just don't know it?) - if I get job offers and people head-hunting me while already in contracts, and maintain ridiculously high job security as a result - I suspect rockstar developers have it even better (people making dream jobs for them with dream salaries) - what use is an agent when people are already throwing money at you?

(For reference I only earn 120 AUD/hr - definitely not rockstar, when I think 'rockstar developer' I consider people in those lucrative 200-250/hr positions)

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, as a contractor I've dealt with this before.

Just sue them for false/misleading representation and damaging your business/reputation, it'll depend on your country but this was quite a simple court case for me in Australia - do the world a favour and take those bastards down, they don't deserve to exist, and they certainly don't deserve to smear your name or feed off your reputation.

Re: Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

s/agent/pimp/g

no, really, they're pretty similar

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

So to the companies you say you spend all day every day talking to the candidates, and to the candidates you say you spend all day every day talking to the companies.

To both, therefore, you are a liar.

Have a nice day.

AC

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

"I spend all day every day talking to companies and hiring managers about their projects"

"spend all day every day speaking with candidates"

Which one is it hot-shot?

Re:Here's the deal

[Xest]

"The other comments you have put tends to be the actions of less experienced agents."

It's not simply less experienced agents, it's the type of people they are and the type of company they work for. You mention the UK so presumably have some knowledge of UK recruitment agencies, so take Computer Futures for example, they literally just harvest CVs, and throw as many vaguely close CVs as they can at employers and throw as many employers as they can find at candidates. They make no effort to compare suitability, and they also pay no credence to the data protection act. They will never remove your data from their systems and will always spam you over and over long after they have any legal right to do so. They will lie in the desperate hope they can make something stick and they waste a phenomenal amount of people's time as a result- if a candidate is seeking £50k and an employer only offering £40k they'll tell the candidate they're offering £50k and the employer the candidate will take £40k, so each side wastes time in interview, is happy with each other only to find that the salaries just aren't going to come close to each others expectations because of the recruiters lies.

Thankfully I've learnt through hard experience who the good recruiters are, and who the bad are. But fundamentally a lot of the bad recruiters aren't bad simply through inexperience, but that a number of agencies are happy to act outright illegally in some cases to try and make their commission. It's an industry that desperately needs to be investigated by the ICO amongst others because the number of genuinely good recruiters are sadly an absolute minority and law breaking (again especially with respect to the DPA such as use of illegally obtained - i.e. stolen - CV data, unsolicited communications and so on) is rife.

People like you are incredibly helpful and provide an important service. But you're uncommon heroes in an industry that's overflowing with incompetent criminal fucktards.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been contracting since 1992. It is true we both want to get paid max($$). It is not true these are separate money pots. Most companies will look at your commission and my hourly rate as my total burn rate.

This is true, but it leaves out the fact that it costs companies money to recruit people. Most companies are happy enough to pay a recruiter a $5000 fee for a good hire who lasts out the year. The company can spend that much on considering an OK candidate. The same companies will also pay a signing bonus that the new employee has to repay if she or he leaves within the first year.

Companies don't do this out of the goodness of their hearts. They pay out that kind of money because it makes it more likely that the employee will stay long enough to develop value. The first few months, a developer will have trouble learning the systems well enough to be really productive. A developer is as likely to cause problems as to remove them in the early months. If a recruiter can reduce those costs with a good employer/employee match, then there's a real gain.

All that said, I don't work with recruiters any more. The problem is that recruiters are overwhelmingly trying to recruit for the high-paying in-office jobs that I don't want. I'd be willing to take a big cut in my salary ask for the first year in exchange for the kind of job that I want. Unfortunately, this makes me uninteresting to the typical recruiter, as they want to maximize my salary so as to maximize their fee. The industry conventions actively work against me getting what I want from a recruiter.

Now, there may be a good recruiter out there who could help me, but I'd never meet that person. I only see the aggressive recruiters. These are primarily young kids who are encouraged to do whatever is necessary to get one of their "clients" hooked up with a job that will pay commission. They'll lie to the prospective employer, to me, whatever is necessary.

Re:Here's the deal

[Erikderzweite]

> So if you want to look at it another way, given I am paid a % markup, I want you to get paid the most I can negotiate for you.

No, you don't. You want to give your "candidate" a job as soon as possible, any job. Two people with crappy wages will net you more than one high-salaried person for whom you have to spend twice the effort.

Re:Here's the deal

[buddyglass]

Don't recruiters, or their employers, typically get paid a sum based on the salary given to the person they placed? So, in theory, they have an incentive to see that the job-seeker gets the highest salary that doesn't price him out of the market entirely.

Where I could potentially see 10x being useful is for guys who are the acknowledged "best in the world" at some particular thing. Like, "tuning huge postgresql installations". Because you're the primary committer on the project, or something. There are employers willing to pay "best in the world" level compensation for these guys to do short-term work. 10x would be useful if it put the devs in contact with these employers and they would not otherwise have come into contact with them. In that sense it's a sort of match-making service, bringing "guys who can charge exorbitant consulting fees" together with "companies willing to pay exorbitant consulting fees".

Re:Here's the deal

[BVis]

Just as an aside I don't recruit in the IT space. I recruit for civil engineers. I did have a brief stint in the early 2000s in IT recruitment but I left that sector as fast as I could as it is extremely difficult to determine if someone can do what they say they can and the general attitude from "candidates" is extremely hostile to recruiters.

There's good reason for that. In my experience 99% of all recruiters that work in the IT space are useless idiot C students who don't know, for example, the difference between Java and Javascript. They could be selling cars with the same tactics. Some recruiters will send your (sometimes doctored without your knowledge or consent) resume to a client company without contacting you first; this becomes awkward when you independently apply for that position but you get tossed for not being able to keep track of where you've applied. Then there are the boiler-room operations who will lie to you about a position being open (as in they filled it last week) just to get you in to their offices and consequently into their databases, so they can brag about how many people with a given skill set they have when they sell their services.

And, more frequently than you would expect, the recruiter will lie to you about the compensation package to get you to take the job (so they can get paid). I have first-hand knowledge of this one. Cost me the equivalent of $20,000 in total compensation (salary + 401k contributions) a year. (Granted, I bear some responsibility for that one, as I didn't insist on the job offer being put in writing before I showed up the first day. I didn't want to not go in on my first day because the recruiter couldn't get their shit together, and I was out of work at the time.)

I even saw where some recruiters will operate under a pseudonym for a time, until their sleazeball tactics catch up with them, and then they'll mysteriously "have left the company", to be replaced by someone who sounds just like them.

These are recruiters that give the whole industry a bad name. Many IT workers also resent the fact that you're an impediment between themselves and the hiring manager, and recruiters may or may not be able to accurately convey the details of your skill set, because they have no actual knowledge of what any of it means. They just shotgun out emails to everyone that matches a keyword search. This is why two or three times a day I get an email pimping out some awesome 3 month contract in a city 1500 miles away doing something that isn't actually in my skill set.

It's unfortunate, but most recruiters in the IT space are either liars or idiots, sometimes both.

Re:Here's the deal

[buddyglass]

If, after interviewing somewhere, I end up taking a job for which I'm a poor fit then the fault is mine and not the recruiter's. I view the recruiter's job as getting me interviews at places where I'm likely to be a good fit and where they're likely to be willing to compensate a level I'd be satisfied with.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem there is when you get to the point where you are actually looking for a new contract. Or, being a contractor, LinkedIn happens to be a primary marketing tool in the "gotta get me a new contract" toolbox. Locking it down actually hurts you, since you have less visibility to people who may seriously be looking for someone with your skill set. On the other hand, if you have a full time position and are not looking for contracts, then yes, locking it down isn't a bad idea. It prevents pain in the ass recruiters from calling you at work (this happens to me regularly and it pisses me off to no end), and the PP's scenario of being stalked.

Re:Here's the deal

[deadweight]

Many of us in the IT industry got "recruited" half to death back in the day. I got more calls about jobs that did not actually exist. I started out every call with "Is this an ACTUAL JOB and who/what/where details please or I am hanging up". I can see the value of a GOOD headhunter/agent/recruiter, but the space is filled with hacks that just throw everything against the wall to see if anything sticks.

Re:Here's the deal

[jellomizer]

However the company will be willing to pay a bit more to cover the agent cost to cover the risk of hiring a new employee.

Really the difference between an Agent and a head hunting firm, is that the agent should be having some credibility behind his name for offering quality workers.
So even if you are good at negotiating say you think you should be getting 250k a year. However most business will not be willing to hire you because, while your resume looks good with glowing references. You are still a risk. If there is an agent and he may get 50k for your job. The company may be happy to pay that amount if they know they will actually get a good worker.

Re:Here's the deal

[mrchaotica]

Do you ever run across companies who need a civil engineer who is also a programmer (or vice-versa)?

Re:Here's the deal

[DavidCBillen]

As someone who often does the hiring, I agree with you (at least in our case). We consider what to pay a developer and if a recruiter is used then that fee is an entirely peripheral issue. I've never been witness to a person summing the two in order to fit a budget. Maybe that happens in some much larger companies that are trying to quantify everything, but it would be new to me.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Worse, this practice becomes common and agents end up deciding who gets employed and who does not, and what the wages will be. It will always be cheaper for them to be on the take from prospective employers than whatever they're skimming from the top. Imagine the next H1B discussion "we can't find enough qualified labor" (our agents are paid not to find any). From a big corp angle, you're safe from lawsuits from the gov't, you're practices are legal and in consistent with policy. The agent is well paid to take a risk and can disappear when things get hot. Meanwhile more people out of work.

Re:Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent sounds more like a "recruiter" than an agent.

Re: Here's the deal

[Dishwasha]

In this same vein, I find technical people to be the worst at talking to C-level people. A good recruiter can really talk you up to the right people which has pretty significant value and can effect your bottom line. Even if you're applying for a job at a company your best friend is working at, if he/she is in IT they will probably do a lousy job advocating for you.

Re:Here's the deal

[MooseTick]

This is like a real estate agent getting a % of the sale. Sure they do better it the house sells for another $10k, but if the house is already $300k and they are getting 3%, that turns their $9000 commission into $9300. It isn't likely in their best interest to risk a sale for an extra $300 when they could move the property and start working on getting the next one sold.

Re:Here's the deal

[Harlequin80]

Not so far. Though there are some areas where the line seems to blur such as ITC (Intelligent Traffic Control) and instrumentation design for plants. But I specialise on the physical side so the closest I come to those are the mechanical engineers and electrical engineers doing piping design or HV/LV transmission design. I don't really ever cover the next step along so it is out of my experience window.

Re:Here's the deal

[Harlequin80]

The engineering space saw the same thing as well. I actually felt sorry for one guy who made the mistake of uploading his CV to a job board and his skillsets made him incredibly rare. He basically got a new phone number. But most of those recruiters have flamed out. It was a time when recruitment was relatively easy, the market is much more difficult these days.

Re:Here's the deal

[Harlequin80]

And believe me I wish this wasn't true. I actually like what I do and I think I provide an important service for people. But I am always battling against the actions of others.

With regards to the impediment to the hiring manager though. I would disagree with that point. A good recruiter will have the contact details and relationships with people you won't even know. So they should be facilitating your contact.

As I have said before I have been operating in the same area for a long time. So I organise about 20% of my interviews without having a CV from a candidate. I do this because I have tracked the right person down, approached them and got them interested in a new role. The clients I speak to trust my judgement and will interview the person on my recommendation alone. This is where a good recruiter can open doors for you.

Re:Here's the deal

[Harlequin80]

Then why does anyone specialise in high salary areas? Why aren't we all just placing unskilled labour? I have addressed this elsewhere but simply put, in the highly skilled area, you do not place the raw number of people to make this work and negotiating salaries is easier and takes very little time. Compared to getting someone a job the negotiation part is less that 1% in time.

Re:Here's the deal

[Harlequin80]

I worked for 3 years in recruitment in the UK. I don't know Computer Futures personally, and all I will say is that I have seen vastly different levels of skill, capability and ethics in recruiters inside the same company. It is a very difficult thing to manage.

Some of the things you have mentioned there are illegal (advertising a role without one for example). Some of the things are pointless. Why do I want to see the CV of someone I cant place? Why send someone on interview when the salary is 20% + out? It wastes everyone's time, including the recruiter.

Re:Here's the deal

[Xest]

It's the modus operandi of some recruiters. Your ethos and that of all good recruiters is to focus on placing the right candidate with the right job. The ethos of recruiters like Computer Futures is to throw everyone at everything in as short time and with whatever lies necessary in the hope that things will stick.

I only deal with recruiters that work in the manner you do personally, but Computer Futures et. al. obviously have a view that volume works. As I understand it their staff can barely even be called recruiters, they effectively just run a call centre that both legally and illegaly harvests CVs and as I say, throws as many as they can at jobs.

Effectively they leave figuring out if the candidate is relevant to the client, and too many employers seem to believe this is basically what recruiters are meant to do without realising there are better ones out there that could go about the same job without wasting as much of their time by pre-filtering.

Re: Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL @ this nonsense. if you can't find yourself a contract then you don't need to be contracting. I do everything myself and I get almost 100% profit. keep feeding these vultures if you want, I'll be over here counting money.

Re: Here's the deal

[Anonymous Coward]

liar,
rockstar programmers don't have time to procreate. a wife you say? nonsense; waste of time. could be time used to write code. your post stinks with lies. a rockstar posting AC? gtfoh

Re: Here's the deal

[philmmaker]

In the Movie industry agents are a must if you're a hot commodity. They take a percentage of what they can get for you, so the more they get you, the more they get. If you're sort of hot or pretty decent then what they can get for is part of a dynamic whereby they maintain good relations with the Studios/Producers so that they can continue to make a living until the next superstar comes there way. But if you don't know how to realistically judge your own value, as well as a particular Studio/Producer's budget then agents are a very necessary evil. Not to mention the buffer they provide during negotiations, because if you were the one playing hardball to get the rate you wanted it will probably leave a bad taste in the mouths of several key players.

Re:Here's the deal

[Erikderzweite]

The MooseTick's comparison to the real estate agents is valid. Not everyone is selling crappy houses because there's demand for good ones too. But quantity above quality principle is still valid here. Why risk losing a contract on a salary negotiation trying to make additional $300 when there's $9000 at stake?

Maybe that's just me, but I could secure a better job by myself than anything offered by recruiters. They usually got me offers which have nothing to do with my desired area which is embedded programming. Then again, it's pretty close to full employment amongst software developers in Germany nowadays.

Name's Layne Cobain

[Anonymous Coward]

Went to school at one of these http://news.slashdot.org/story... I need no intro: Look at my name.

Everyone is 10x better than average

[Anonymous Coward]

Same as with driving, and Lake Wobegone's kids.

It depends on who's doing the evaluating.

The question should be..

[Anonymous Coward]

Do good programmers write their own AI agent?

10x Productivity

[lgw]

The "10x productivity" idea is somewhat silly anyhow - sure, some people are quite productive, but mostly if one guy is 10x another, the other guy just sucks.

I'm not valued because I can bang out more code than the next guy - I'm valued because I can lead a team of people and make them more productive: through design review, best practices, experience doing agile right, and so on. Sure, all those things make me more productive to, but it's much more valuable as a force multiplier for a large team.

That's what the job is, as a senior dev. That and doing all the horrible wrangling with project management systems, clarifying user requirements coming from PMs and translating them into sanity, and so on. The more senior I become, the less time I spend coding, because there's only so much value I add working by myself.

Re:10x Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

You will be the first one let go when the hammer falls.

Re:10x Productivity

[lgw]

You will be the first one let go when the hammer falls.

No, I really won't. Cheapskate organizations don't hire senior devs in the first place: only managers are paid well. Mature software shops, on the other hand, value devs on the technical track highly - they're harder to hire than managers. Especially once you get past the equivalent of first-level managers: Principle Engineers (or whatever you call the equivalent to a second-level manager) are golden. Middle management comes and goes with every re-org, but those few guys who work as engineers at that level certainly don't need agents - I know my company has an entire team of recruiters that do nothing but look for those guys.

Re:10x Productivity

[phantomfive]

The "10x productivity" idea is somewhat silly anyhow - sure, some people are quite productive, but mostly if one guy is 10x another, the other guy just sucks.

Plenty of studies have shown that it's true. If you can't see it, maybe you're one of the less productive ones?

The more senior I become, the less time I spend coding, because there's only so much value I add working by myself.

Heading into management, eh? Definitely sounds like you're one of the less productive ones.

Re:10x Productivity

[mjwx]

The "10x productivity" idea is somewhat silly anyhow - sure, some people are quite productive, but mostly if one guy is 10x another, the other guy just sucks.

I'm not valued because I can bang out more code than the next guy - I'm valued because I can lead a team of people and make them more productive: through design review, best practices, experience doing agile right, and so on. Sure, all those things make me more productive to, but it's much more valuable as a force multiplier for a large team.

That's what the job is, as a senior dev. That and doing all the horrible wrangling with project management systems, clarifying user requirements coming from PMs and translating them into sanity, and so on. The more senior I become, the less time I spend coding, because there's only so much value I add working by myself.

This, 1000x this.

I hate managing with "rockstar" developers because they're always too arrogant and full of themselves. They detract from the team, argue and refuse to listen to others. As soon as I see anything remotely "rockstar-ish" in an interview they immediately go to the bottom of the pile.

Senior devs are the antithesis. They help the junior devs and often their time is better spent doing this than banging out code even though their code is a lot better than the juniors. Someone who can manage a team is valued for more than just their coding skills, if they've got people skills they are definitely a force multiplier.

You need all the team to be involved in the development of the product, letting one "rockstar" do their own thing means when they leave you've got an codebase no-one has any knowledge on and it's always a matter of when (people win lotto, go on sabbaticals, change career or move to a nicer climate).

Rockstar devs dont need agents, the concept of rockstar devs needs to die.

Re:10x Productivity

[narcc]

he "10x productivity" idea is somewhat silly anyhow

That doesn't make much sense to me either. I've found that if you want productivity, you don't hire "rock stars" you hire average programmers that are comfortable working on teams. The best hire you can make is a guy who just does his job -- follows guidelines without complaining, completes one task and just moves on to the next.

Programming is easy. As a consequence, it gets really boring. When you're building LOB apps, it's even worse. The last thing you want on your hands is a bored "rock star" inventing new ways to keep himself entertained. I'm convinced that they're the #1 cause of unmaintainable software.

Re:10x Productivity

[hax4bux]

Good. Amazingly, there is more than one job out there.

Re:10x Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Majority of the companies are your "cheaskate" organizations. Productivity of the developer is a very hard concept to grasp for the MBAs. Despite being fundamentally different, software development is still treated as manufacturing or McDonald's service type of job. Until companies start thinking in value added vs man hours we would see the continuation of the current decline in STEM.

The hierarchical compensation model that made sense in the manufacturing society doesn't make any sense in the world where a good software developer can create more value than the CEO. Unfortunately, management will fight till the bitter end to keep the status quo and as a result the good software developers will remain a specie on the brink of extinction.

Re:10x Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

"60% of the time, it works.... every time! They've done studies, you know."

Re:10x Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, a lot of people in the software industry do suck.

Re:10x Productivity

[The Raven]

To be perfectly blunt, I think you have never worked with a rockstar programmer.

I'm not trying to say 'anyone not hiring a rockstar is wasting money'. Instead, I'm saying that programming is very difficult, and those the right mix of communication skills, technical experience, and plain intelligence are extremely rare and valuable. They have been there, written that, and groked the algorithm. They don't just know the library, they recognize the functions they are traversing from the debugger output. There is an incredible amount of time wasted looking stuff up, and if you have internalized that knowledge you can just code instead.

I am not a rockstar, but I've worked with one. In his particular domain (coding multithreaded, networked, redundant communication systems) he was a god. Outside that area, he was merely very good. The value that intelligence and experience brings to the table is underrated. I can see why Agents can bring value by finding jobs that fit with the skills of their clients.

Re:10x Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Programming using abstractions that lift your code to be compact, correct, and maintainable, is actually quite hard. And believe it or not, it needs a lot of vision, creativity and ongoing improvement.
In fact, programming is currently one of the most difficult trades to master today.

That is because software is extremely complex, especially ever-growing software written by your average programmers.
A lot of programmers today don't strive to lift their abstractions, remove complexity, and frankly delete code as much as possible.
And the one you described above fits the bill perfectly.

And believe me the one you described above is at the best case your most average hire, and at worst the reason why that company will not be prepared, or be able to continuously adapt and change

Re:10x Productivity

[dubbayu_d_40]

Most programmers suck.

Re:10x Productivity

[cowdung]

Majority of the companies are your "cheaskate" organizations.... Unfortunately, management will fight till the bitter end to keep the status quo and as a result the good software developers will remain a specie on the brink of extinction.

Sounds like you're working in the wrong industry. Go work for a Software company.. they appreciate a good engineer.

Re:10x Productivity

[lgw]

I suspect you're a self-proclaimed "rock star" who's convinced he's God's gift to programming, but hasn't worked on a team of equally-smart people, or who doesn't understand the reality of large projects.

Ability to bang out lots of code is the right way to measure a junior developer, but is not the essence of productivity. Two guys drive from NYC to LA - one at 10 MPH, one at 100 MPH. Who get there first? Well, it's important to know which one is headed in the right direction, and which one drives into the ocean, and is either of them so careless they're unlikely to make it there alive in the first place.

If your job skill is "given a clear design with unambiguous requirements and success criteria, I can bang out that code very fast," well, that's great for a junior dev. If you write well-tested, debugable, supportable, maintainable, secure, scalable code given ambiguous requirements, great, that's a successful mid-career dev. If you can fix everything wrong process-wise with your 100-dev organization so that everyone can work twice as fast, well, you're 10x as productive as the guy who sits in a corner and bangs out 10x the code, aren't you? If you can invent a product that solves a problem that everyone has, but no one else thought there was a solution to, well, the guy banging out code isn't even on the same scale.

Re:10x Productivity

[Pulzar]

If you can fix everything wrong process-wise with your 100-dev organization so that everyone can work twice as fast, well, you're 10x as productive as the guy who sits in a corner and bangs out 10x the code, aren't you? If you can invent a product that solves a problem that everyone has, but no one else thought there was a solution to, well, the guy banging out code isn't even on the same scale.

Those don't come even close to being described as "programmer" jobs. We're talking about "rock star programmers", and whether they can be 10x productive compared to a normal programmer. We're not talking about rock-star senior managers driving a 100-dev organization.

Re:10x Productivity

[lgw]

I've work with multiple people like that throughout my career. I've done fun tricks myself like fixing a bug in a production system that couldn't be rebooted by just editing the contents of memory, quickly debugged software we didn't have the source code for by stepping through the object, debugged complex systems from hex dumps of memory (just a print-out and a mark-1 eyeball for tools). None of that really holds a candle to not having the bugs in production in the first place, which in turn is far less important than building the product the customer actually wants, instead of what they ask for.

The better you are, the more likely it is someone less good will have to maintain your code, debug your clever multi-threaded tricks without your insight, answer customer calls asking "why is it doing this" and so on. You can only do so much yourself - how good are you at making your team more productive? How much can you teach? How well do you test and document? How good are you at working with that team 12 timezones away that your whole project depends on? How good are you at spotting the 3 candidates in a sea of dozens of interviews that are as good as you, and making sure they get hired?

Banging out code is an important part of the job, to be sure, and is probably all that matters for a junior dev. But the more senior you are, the more it matters how well your skills scale with team size.

Re:10x Productivity

[complete loony]

... the other guy just sucks.

True, but the world of programming is full of these people. If your entire team is full of them, you won't even realise it.

Re:10x Productivity

[Pulzar]

I hate managing with "rockstar" developers because they're always too arrogant and full of themselves. They detract from the team, argue and refuse to listen to others.

Those aren't rock-star developers. As another poster said, you likely have never worked with a rock-star developer. They are great at what they do, *and* they make the team better. They are rare, but it's awesome when you see somebody that inspires others around them by what they can do.

They help the junior devs and often their time is better spent doing this than banging out code even though their code is a lot better than the juniors. Someone who can manage a team is valued for more than just their coding skills, if they've got people skills they are definitely a force multiplier.

You sound like you work in a big company, on big teams. This is certainly true there, and in order to have a large team productive, you need a lot of good people keeping those juniors productive.

Several times, though, I've seen those similar good people bang out their much superior code and finish the project in the same amount of time, while have a team that's 6 or 7 times smaller, with no juniors.

Re:10x Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

and what this guy is saying, is that they're related. The only person nitpicking about this is you.

Re:10x Productivity

[mjwx]

Those aren't rock-star developers. As another poster said, you likely have never worked with a rock-star developer.

Nope, worked with them, dismissed several of them because their behaviour was detrimental to the team (one got sacked because he went and told the book keepers that he was more important than they were and should do what he said).

The ones who actually make the team better dont consider themselves to be rockstars. There is a correlation between humility and talent (otherwise known as the Dunning-Kruger effect)

They are rare, but it's awesome when you see somebody that inspires others around them by what they can do.

This is how they like to imagine they are, but not what they're like in reality. In reality they are childish and petulant. If their authority and awesomeness is not recognised they will make everyone else's life hell until it is.

You sound like you work in a big company, on big teams.

Wrong again.

Largest organisation I worked for in that capacity was 80 staff with 20 developers (most in a consulting capacity). In fact that's why I ended up managing the dev teams, we didn't have enough of them to justify their own manager so it fell under my jurisdiction as IT manager.

I had a pair of senior devs who could keep the team together and moving and were great at it, I considered it my job to keep things out of their way so they could do their jobs.

Re:10x Productivity

[lgw]

Have you ever worked for a big software company? That's not the job of management at all. It's the essence of engineering: improving the performance of a complex system (a system of made of programmers), or alternatively, to invent the stuff that really matters. That's why the tech track exists, and that's how you get paid the same as those senior managers.

The whole point is: your productivity as a coder is just nice, but there are more important skills for senior developers to focus on: skills that scale with team size.

Re:10x Productivity

[Escogido]

And you seriously expect agents to be able to thoroughly understand all this enough to be able to use it?

>They don't just know the library, they recognize the functions they are traversing from the debugger output

do you think there is even a way to evaluate programmers on this level? I agree this matters, but there is no way to know until you have actually worked with that person, which takes us back to square one. And even if you do obtain this evaluation somehow, not only it's going to be hard to comprehend for someone who is not a professional themselves (doesn't look like there are a lot of programmer professionals among agents) - it also requires a non-trivial amount of knowledge about the position that needs to be filled.

Re:10x Productivity

[Pulzar]

The ones who actually make the team better dont consider themselves to be rockstars. There is a correlation between humility and talent (otherwise known as the Dunning-Kruger effect). ... This is how they like to imagine they are, but not what they're like in reality. In reality they are childish and petulant. If their authority and awesomeness is not recognised they will make everyone else's life hell until it is.

Like I said, I don't think you've worked with them before. What you describe is most definitely not what people consider a "rock star developer". And, they don't go around calling themselves that, either. Other people do.

The two I've had a pleasure to work with were both very humble, and incredibly good at what they did. Everybody who worked with them got better for it... I know I did.

Largest organisation I worked for in that capacity was 80 staff with 20 developers (most in a consulting capacity). In fact that's why I ended up managing the dev teams, we didn't have enough of them to justify their own manager so it fell under my jurisdiction as IT manager.... I had a pair of senior devs who could keep the team together and moving and were great at it, I considered it my job to keep things out of their way so they could do their jobs.

Ok, not a big company, but still very bottom-heavy. One senior dev per 10 developers, and one manager for a group of 20... it explains why you do have values of a manager in a big company -- since your team works like one.

If you had 4 senior devs that could "bang out" high quality code, each could do that and still lead 2 more junior developers, and your team would be almost half the size and finish in the same amount of time. And, with that smaller team, you might actually be able to dedicate some real time to individuals you manage.

Re:10x Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree - good employers are not shy to reward experience.

I would rather be mediocre at coding but great at leading and encouraging a team, than be some poettering prima donna...

Re:10x Productivity

[petes_PoV]

Plenty of studies have shown that it's [ 10x productivity ] true. If you can't see it, maybe you're one of the less productive ones?

Being able to bang out 10 times as much code in a day is not "productivity" - although, sadly, far too many people use this as a measure.

True productivity is to complete a project: from initial requirements specification through to testing, documentation, integration and acceptance in a shorter time. This is not the job of a single, lone, "superstar" programmer but of a fluent, experienced, team of professionals who know how to work together. Just parachuting in someone who can crap out code at ten times the rate of another programmer won't speed up a project (ref: The Mythical Man Month adding manpower slows a project down) and if they are an arsehole or prima-donna who won't work as part of a team, it will cause more long-term damage than it's worth.

The key to fast project delivery is good management and perceptive staff selection. Looking for a superstar programmer as some sort of silver-bullet is both naive and doomed to failure as it will make hardly any difference to the overall project timescales.

Re:10x Productivity

[phantomfive]

Just parachuting in someone who can crap out code at ten times the rate of another programmer won't speed up a project (ref: The Mythical Man Month adding manpower slows a project down)

Have you read MMM? It gives suggestions about how to add new people to a project without slowing it down (and actually speeding it up).

Re: 10x Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

From the wiki about Donning-Kruger effect:
"...highly skilled individuals tend to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others."

Re:10x Productivity

[carnivore302]

Plenty of studies have shown that it's true. If you can't see it, maybe you're one of the less productive ones?

I can imagine someone being more productive because he has experience with the business, ie. because he knows a lot he doesn't have to have everything specified or call for meetings. But when it comes down to just coding, I can't imagine someone being 10x more productive than the next guy (unless, as someone else mentioned, the next guy just sucked). Coding isn't that hard. It's a trick you can teach virtually anyone. After years of programming people will develop their own style and some styles better match a certain project than another. But 10 times difference? I'd like to see those studies.

Also "If you can't see it, maybe you're one of the less productive ones" is uncalled for.

Re:10x Productivity

[phantomfive]

I'd like to see those studies.

Start in Mythical Man Month.

Also "If you can't see it, maybe you're one of the less productive ones" is uncalled for.

If the shoe fits, wear it.

Re:10x Productivity

[rev0lt]

This is not the job of a single, lone, "superstar" programmer but of a fluent, experienced, team of professionals who know how to work together.

Having been the "lone superstar" on a couple of global projects, I can assure you there is a time and a place for everyone. While I don't agree with the stupid "10x productivity", a "rockstar engineer" will save you money and trouble, and make sure the project meets or exceeds the criteria. If the only guys you've worked with are unsufferable code monkeys (and usually existing codebases tend to get *smaller* with me, not bigger), its your problem.
And, in my case, having both business experience on the sector and being a full-stack engineer, I spotted and fixed problems in the specifications that would take weeks to identify and fix, saving time, trouble and money. I'm not the most pleasing guy to work with, and as most guys like me, I'm not really attracted to long-term maintenance/bugfixing jobs, but I'd say there is definitely a place for people like me in most projects.

The key to fast project delivery is good management and perceptive staff selection

Good management is a myth, unless your management stack is comprised of individuals smarter than you on the specific field. It can help a lot (and I've worked with wonderful management), but that's it. Its not a silver-bullet.

Looking for a superstar programmer as some sort of silver-bullet is both naive and doomed to failure

Having a superstar programmer in your team will help push the envelope and inspire younger programmers. There is always so much to learn, and not everything is about lines of code. Its about tools, processes, thinking outside the box. If you measure the rate of a programmer by its code deliveries, well... you have flawed metrics and in the end you get what you paid for.

Re:10x Productivity

[phantomfive]

I suspect you're a self-proclaimed "rock star" who's convinced he's God's gift to programming, but hasn't worked on a team of equally-smart people, or who doesn't understand the reality of large projects.

And what, you think you're good because you're a manager?

Ability to bang out lots of code is the right way to measure a junior developer

I don't think you even believe that. It's better than not being able to bang out lots of code, but as you know, it's know good if it's a bug ridden mess.

If you can fix everything wrong process-wise with your 100-dev organization so that everyone can work twice as fast, well, you're 10x as productive as the guy who sits in a corner and bangs out 10x the code, aren't you?

Cool, good job! You did great! I'm glad you could improve the processes at your company that much.

Also, you just admitted that some programmers code 10x as fast as others.

Re:10x Productivity

[rev0lt]

Nope, worked with them, dismissed several of them because their behaviour was detrimental to the team (one got sacked because he went and told the book keepers that he was more important than they were and should do what he said).

That basically demonstrates you've worked with assholes, not rockstar devs. Its not the same thing.

The ones who actually make the team better dont consider themselves to be rockstars.

So, you never worked with a guy that is somewhat difficult to manage, but has above-average productivity AND is a problem-solver for your team? I'd say you have pretty limited experience. Or bad luck.

This is how they like to imagine they are, but not what they're like in reality. In reality they are childish and petulant. If their authority and awesomeness is not recognised they will make everyone else's life hell until it is.

You seem to have a pretty strong opinion about people you never met - from your own experience. I'd suggest that is the issue: you do have a comfort zone regarding managing devs, and answering defiance (or what you perceive as defiance) is outside of that zone. That is actually your "problem" (or characteristic), not the guys you get onboard.

Largest organisation I worked for in that capacity was 80 staff with 20 developers (most in a consulting capacity)

Freelancers? You're telling me you managed freelancers and, gosh, they didn't delivered as expected?

I had a pair of senior devs who could keep the team together and moving and were great at it, I considered it my job to keep things out of their way so they could do their jobs.

So, apparently you did have rockstars. To a point where you wouldn't even interfere. See?

Re:10x Productivity

[phantomfive]

Look, here's something more practical for you:

That and doing all the horrible wrangling with project management systems, clarifying user requirements coming from PMs and translating them into sanity, and so on. The more senior I become, the less time I spend coding, because there's only so much value I add working by myself.

1) Why are you wrangling with project management systems? The amount of time you spend with that should be minimal, otherwise it's hurting you. Are you trying to update all the features to the next sprint or something? That's a waste of time, don't do it.

2) If you need to 'translate user requirements from PMs' on a regular basis, it sounds like you are micro-managing a part of the process. If that's the case, then you can gain efficiencies by teaching your developers to do that. Push as many responsibilities down to the developers as you can, and watch how much more focused, effective, and efficient they become. MMM calls it like magic. A good metric to test yourself for how you are doing: if you disappeared, would the team continue functioning normally (even getting requirements from PM, etc)? If the answer is yes, then you are doing it right.

3) Be careful, if you aren't programming, you're on the road to the executive here. Seriously, re-find the joy in programming. If you can't do it, then your developers will secretly look down on you, and you'll be missing a level of motivation that you could have.

Re: 10x Productivity

[carnivore302]

I have the mythical man month right here. It's a book with essays about project management, ie., it deals with groups of people, not individual coders. As far as I am aware it never mentions differences in individual coding productivity.

Re:10x Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree with everything you said. From my own personal experience this is exactly what happens. The consultancy I work for used to have an absolute gun developer, really knew his stuff but couldn't string two words together or work with others (eg: mentor juniors, help with project management activities, conduct "discovery" meetings with stakeholders). He was let go.. being a one trick pony didn't hold up in the long term. A gun developer that can't share knowledge is useless when the rest of the team is struggling due to lack of skills/experience/direction/leadership.

The people that progress up the ranks quickly, stick around for a long time, earn good money and end up with clients fighting over who gets the pleasure of their time are the technical people that always look for ways to improve their skills. They can plan, run a meeting, lead a team, share knowledge with other staff, freely admit when they screwed up or that they don't know something then immediately go about fixing the gap in their knowledge, or finding a way to fix their mistake. I can see where an Agent would be invaluable for someone like this who's got the skills/potential but is struggling to build their business network.

Re:10x Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that you know anything about unmaintainble software given that you think Javascript and PHP are good languages (even though they're the number one reasons for unmaintainable software) and are lying about hiring people when you have zero commercial experience.

But for someone who thinks programming is easy you don't half make a lot of mistakes in the things you say every time you discuss programming.

Re:10x Productivity

[Xest]

This seems to be somewhat of a misnomer, if you're a rockstar programmer and can churn out elegant effective code faster than everyone else then that by itself is a key factor in being an effective senior programmer because it means that your staff will respect you and will want to learn how you do it allowing them too to become increasingly more efficient.

I don't see how you can scale well if you're not efficient in the first place. How can you teach and enforce efficiency if you don't know how to be efficient like a rockstar programmer to start with?

I also disagree that the more clever you are the more tricky debugging becomes for others- for simple problems they'll write elegant code that's easy to work with regardless. For difficult problems it becomes true but I'm not sold on the argument that the solution is to just not solve those problems because you can guarantee eventually your competitors will, and guess where that leaves you? Solving the problems others couldn't or wouldn't is precisely why the search engine market when from vast plurality of almost identically implemented search engines to Google taking the market by storm and becoming the giant it is today- they let great developers do new things and killed the competition as a result. You can't simply say we'll cut that feature or not solve that problem because the dregs will struggle to debug or maintain it and expect to stay in business for long.

Your argument seems to imply that you believe being a rockstar programmer and a great leader are mutually exclusive, but I disagree, I think the former is fundamental for the latter. You cannot lead effectively if you do not have any abilities that garner you the requisite respect to be an effective leader in the first place. Aiming for mediocrity so that the mediocre do not have to struggle seems to be the fundamental point of your argument and whilst that might seem comfortable in the short term because it means less hassle as a manager I don't think it's viable in the long term.

Re:10x Productivity

[buddyglass]

I've been doing software dev. for about 15 years. I'll grant that the level of productivity between "the worst" and "the best" is at least 10x, if not more, because "the worst" are essentially producing nothing. Or, worse, have negative productivity in the sense they're creating stuff that is totally non-functional and will need to be re-written by someone else at a later date.

That said, the difference between "the best" and "the average" is probably not 10x. At least not if productivity is measured in "amount of output produced at some acceptable level of quality". Where "the best" guys excel is in being able to solve problems that average guy is probably never going to be able to solve (well) no matter how much time he's given. On the other hand, those sorts of problems come up less often than most people think.

Re:10x Productivity

[Jon Peterson]

Good management is a myth, unless your management stack is comprised of individuals smarter than you on the specific field. It can help a lot (and I've worked with wonderful management), but that's it. Its not a silver-bullet.

Awww. I'm glad you found time during all your rockstar full stack development to work out that good management is a myth.

I recommend your next step should be to start a company where you don't bother hiring those non-existent good managers - I'm sure you'll be a millionaire in no time.

Re:10x Productivity

[rtaylor]

A rockstar programmer doesn't bang out a lot of code.

They pick the right algorithm which scales well (doesn't need to be rewritten), considers and handles most error cases cleanly (few bug reports), and often leaves easily maintainable code (another person can take over, doesn't require a support team).

Re:10x Productivity

[Cederic]

I was going to quote the parts of your post I consider to be wrong, but realised it's everything you've said.

Average people are not as productive as above average people. Great software engineers work well on teams too; why inhibit your people by giving them mediocre colleagues?

Anybody that "just does his job" is a drain on the system. I want to work with and employ people that are constantly asking and answering, "Is there a better way of doing this?"

Sometimes they get it wrong, sure. But a bored software engineer doesn't lead you to unmaintainable software, it leads you to automated solutions where the brainpower of your above average developers is used to solve the difficult problems, not the mundane ones.

Sure, if you're working on a ten year government contract and everybody must follow the same bureaucratic process and innovation is a waste of four syllables then your approach may be the norm. The rest of us want to improve, whether it's ourselves, our company, our profession.

I hope I never accidentally find myself working for you. Although.. you wouldn't ever employ me. Hurrah!

Re:10x Productivity

[Cederic]

It's a tricky one, and I don't have an easy answer. I do when interviewing look for people with curiousity and understanding, try and evaluate whether they do more than turn up and tap on a keyboard, but I haven't recruited enough developers to be able to easily assess relative productivity, communication skills (above a basic level) or team working.

I do know that I don't trust an agent working for the potential developer. They aren't acting in my interest, they know less about the candidate than the candidate themselves, and just because they work for a company called x10 doesn't mean their clientele are anywhere above average.

If a top end software engineer wants an agent, and the agent does the work of tracking down potential roles, assessing the hiring organisation, helping the engineer apply for the job, helping the engineer prepare for interview (or other recruitment activities) and then even handles salary negotiations on behalf of the engineer, I think that's a valuable contribution and I can understand the engineer taking their services (at a certain price).

If the agent rings me up and tells me they've got a great candidate they'll be invited to remove my number from their contact list.

Re:10x Productivity

[Katatsumuri]

You have to see those people to believe, but they do exist. It is not like they "bang out" more code. They take it smarter and make life better for everyone.

Instead of writing 10x as many random publish/subscribe plugs, they will create a unified processing architecture where the data is routed automatically. Instead of writing 10x as many boilerplate model classes, they will build a code generator.

You've got to have a certain level of proficiency and the right attitude to see such possibilities, to suggest, defend and implement them.

Re:10x Productivity

[The Raven]

This is bullshit. That's why 'communication skills' are part of being an awesome programmer... otherwise you're just a lone wolf. Read through the open source Quake code and tell me it's unreadable... being a rockstar (such as Carmack) does not mean making horrible code.

Re:10x Productivity

[narcc]

We're talking about "Rock Stars" not "Great software engineers".

There's not much, if any, overlap there.

I want to work with and employ people that are constantly asking and answering, "Is there a better way of doing this?"

Those guys work in architecture, not the development trenches.

it leads you to automated solutions where the brainpower of your above average developers is used to solve the difficult problems, not the mundane ones.

How long have you been at this? >99% of development doesn't involve solving difficult problems. (For LOB apps, you'd be hard-pressed to find a difficult problem!) As I said before, programming is easy and, as a consequence, it's often very boring. The last thing you want is a bored prima donna introducing unnecessary complexity (usually in the guise of half-baked 'solutions' or 'frameworks' to 'automate' or 'simplify' the boring slog that is the bulk of development) to keep themselves entertained.

Re:10x Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

The "10x productivity" idea is somewhat silly anyhow - sure, some people are quite productive, but mostly if one guy is 10x another, the other guy just sucks.

Plenty of studies have shown that it's true. If you can't see it, maybe you're one of the less productive ones?

"Plenty of studies", eh? But you couldn't be bothered to cite even one. I've no doubt there's a range of productivity, but the idea that there's this small cadre of elite has always struck me as complete bullshit.

Re:10x Productivity

[Anonymous Coward]

The "10x productivity" idea is somewhat silly anyhow - sure, some people are quite productive, but mostly if one guy is 10x another, the other guy just sucks.[...]

Let me introduce another stereotype to put against your cartoon prima donna programmer: Lard-ass the middle-manager.

This guy has no ability of his own, and so he loathes and resents people who do. At all costs he can't allow a talented individual to make real accomplishments. The "team" must do it, because only then does lard-ass get the credit.

If Bob-rockstar has a great idea and can go to his desk and get it working, what good does that do lard-ass? None. Bob's idea must be discussed in the next meeting. It *must* be refined and converted into an idea produced by the team, and then the team must be coordinated to implement it. The lard-ass team made the accomplishment all to the credit of lard-ass. That's what lard-ass does. It's all he does. If the idea can't be made into his own, and the accomplishment credited to him, then it will be killed regardless of the loss to the company.

Re:10x Productivity

[DavidCBillen]

Programming is easy...

That's like saying "woodworking is easy". It depends on whether you're making birdhouses or you're a luthier making Stradivarius. I work with embedded DSP code and it's not easy to find capable programmers.

Re:10x Productivity

[narcc]

The difficult part isn't finding competent developers, it's finding competent developers with the relevant domain knowledge.

Re:10x Productivity

[lgw]

I don't see how you can scale well if you're not efficient in the first place.

I know you were talking about people, but that line made me laugh - imagine saying that about code in this century.

Your argument seems to imply that you believe being a rockstar programmer and a great leader are mutually exclusive,

Nope, I'm just saying that banging out lots of code is really important for your first promotion, after that it's still good, but becomes less important as you advance. "10x" is just a silly name for a talent agency.

Re:10x Productivity

[phantomfive]

if productivity is measured in "amount of output produced at some acceptable level of quality".

To me that seems like a really good way to measure productivity.

Re: 10x Productivity

[phantomfive]

What exactly do you want me to say? You chastised me for being a little harsh earlier, and maybe I deserved that.....

but seriously, have you ever heard of an index? Look up the word productivity.....in my book that leads me to page 31 which discusses this exact topic. Do you need me to teach you how to use an index too?

Put a little thought into this and we can have better conversations.

Re:10x Productivity

[phantomfive]

considers and handles most error cases cleanly (few bug reports),

Exactly. I agree with all your comment, but I chose this phrase specifically because a lot of people spend so much time on bugs it really drags down how much they can accomplish, even when they type quickly.

Re:10x Productivity

[rev0lt]

Awww. I'm glad you found time during all your rockstar full stack development to work out that good management is a myth.

Awww. I'm glad you love MBA-types so much. The biggest project I've worked on is an astounding success because it was created without "managers". And while I certainly don't make millions off it, the company probably generates more than a billion in revenue from it each year. And its not like we had a tight budget or didn't have staff available.

I recommend your next step should be to start a company where you don't bother hiring those non-existent good managers - I'm sure you'll be a millionaire in no time.

Yah sure. Lets have a bunch of MBAs discussing acceptance criteria for stuff they have no clue how to work and *if* it fullfills the business requirements. Lets have software rewritten every 6 months because project managers, product owners and most of the upper layers focus on deliver and not on maintainability. Lets do it your way - after all, there is no chance other people have different experience than yours, right?

Re:10x Productivity

[gnupun]

what good does that do lard-ass? None. Bob's idea must be discussed in the next meeting. It *must* be refined and converted into an idea produced by the team

So? I thought on IP-hostile slashdot, ideas were worthless, only the execution of ideas count. So what's wrong if bob-rockstar does not get credit for a good idea?

Re:10x Productivity

[lgw]

Yup, very strong programmers certainly exist, but "10x" the code is not the reason they're strong. It's a pet peeve of mine, because writing that code generator instead of the 10x model classes looks like you're doing less work, to naive managers.

Re:10x Productivity

[buddyglass]

It's one way. I should have been more specific. "Amount of moderately difficult work completed at a moderate-or-higher level of quality." Another might be, "Ability to complete extremely difficult work at a extremely high level of quality in non-infinite time." Someone who excels at the first might not excel at the second, though generally I'd expect there to be a lot of overlap.

Re:10x Productivity

[phantomfive]

"Plenty of studies", eh? But you couldn't be bothered to cite even one.

Nope. Anyone who can't do the research to find it themselves isn't worth talking to. They aren't exactly hidden.

Re:10x Productivity

[david_bonn]

The "10x productivity" idea is somewhat silly anyhow - sure, some people are quite productive, but mostly if one guy is 10x another, the other guy just sucks.

It is more like 10000x rather than 10x.

First off, we humans are just barely intelligent enough to write nontrivial computer programs in the first place. I believe strongly if humans were on average ten percent less intelligent we would still be stuck on the towers of hanoi and bubblesorts. Of course, what "intelligence" means in the context of computer programming is highly idiosyncratic and not very well understood. Finding those people with the right cognitive toolkit for solving a particular set of coding problems can make a huge difference in the success or failure of a company. Or at least a product.

Second, I've lost count of the number of times where I've ran into someone (or some enormous team of people) who labored on some project for years and then ran into some dude (nearly always a dude, sorry ladies) who solved exactly the same problem in a few weeks. Or less. For an infamous example consider the history of the Xanadu project versus the early http servers and Mosaic. Yes, yes, I know Xanadu was trying to do something totally different than the WWW did. Of course, WWW worked and Xanadu never did.

Third, a lot of the real value add is the "Aha!" type of insights that translate large, intractable problems into easily solvable ones (see again Xanadu/WWW). The people who can provide those kinds of insights are rare and precious. The whole purpose of the enterprise is to solve problems, and if you aren't finding and taking vicious shortcuts to solve those problems you aren't doing your job.

In the end I absolutely agree in the sense that writing software is largely a creative enterprise, not an engineering one. And the people who write software need to be managed and compensated as creative people are, not like they are replaceable parts. Because that is the other point where software authoring is so different from other enterprises -- coders are often extremely specialized, to the point where managing coders, especially talented, productive coders, becomes largely a problem of matching tasks to appropriate talent.

Re:10x Productivity

[lgw]

1) Why are you wrangling with project management systems? The amount of time you spend with that should be minimal, otherwise it's hurting you. Are you trying to update all the features to the next sprint or something? That's a waste of time, don't do it.

Large companies often require multiple levels of approvals, often from teams in multiple time zones, before you can even get on with the business of coding. A couple years back I had a project where getting the approval took 6 weeks, and the code took one day (yes, I left that company not long after).

2) If you need to 'translate user requirements from PMs' on a regular basis, it sounds like you are micro-managing a part of the process. If that's the case, then you can gain efficiencies by teaching your developers to do that. Push as many responsibilities down to the developers as you can, and watch how much more focused, effective, and efficient they become

Indeed. But junior developers, almost by definition, aren't good at this. Most large software actually corps have this firmly in their interview process: give the candidate ambiguous requirements, and see whether he asks clarifying questions or just jumps in and codes some arbitrary take on the problem. It's a good way to assess the senior-ness of a candidate.

Practically, "how big of a design/project can you own" is the best measure of a developer. A senior dev drags projects across the finish line despite all the obstacles created by the company being stupid. A junior dev can follow clear requirements, but gets stuck and needs help at every ambiguity (or worse, doesn't get stuck and just solves some arbitrary problem).

And I'm certainly not a manager. Tried that once - my ability to anticipate people problems before they happened were sorely lacking. But managers should be focused on the people first, and the technology only enough to tell when a developer is BSing (or just wrong) about the difficulty of some task. Making decisions about how to staff competing projects so that the best work gets done, morale stays high, and devs grow their skill set - that's hard work. Preventing personality clashes, recruiting, firing people who aren't making the cut, that's all hard work. That why there are senior devs - to provide technical leadership so that the managers can get on with the people leadership.

Re:10x Productivity

[unitron]

If the agent is good at hooking up companies with good talent, you'll be calling them.

Re:10x Productivity

[david_thornley]

If you can't write maintainable code, you're not a good programmer. Somebody who is great at making obscure multi-threaded code that works does have some value, but somebody who can write understandable multi-threaded code that works is far more valuable.

Re:10x Productivity

[phantomfive]

Indeed. But junior developers, almost by definition, aren't good at this.

That's where job training comes in. As a senior developer, you can ask the junior developer to do it, then shadow him through the process, catching him when he falls.

Then as soon as he learns you can get back to programming which is more enjoyable anyway. :)

Re:10x Productivity

[lgw]

Indeed. Being a top-notch developer is about making your team great.

Superstar we are not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Never trust anyone who calls a programmer "Superstar", "Rockstar", "Codeninja", "Gurus" or any other retarded ass term.

We're Programmers, we're Engineers, we're Coders. Anything else is insulting.

(Hackers is debatable, personally I hate being called "Hacker" because hacks are typically shitty code cobbled together to make something work. I take more pride in my work....)

Re:Superstar we are not.

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously haven't met Layne Cobain yet http://developers.slashdot.org...

Re:Superstar we are not.

[russotto]

I worked with a rockstar once. Well, he played in a moderately successful cover band anyway.

Re:Superstar we are not.

[lgw]

Was about to post the same: worked with a programmer once who was in a reasonably successful second-tier rock band (they were big enough in Japan to tour there each year with their vacation time).

Re:Superstar we are not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh look guys, a .NET "rockstar".

How cute.

Re:Superstar we are not.

[jcr]

We're Programmers, we're Engineers, we're Coders. Anything else is insulting.

I don't feel insulted by terms like "expert", "graybeard" or "guru".

I do think that "rockstar" is bullshit, though.

-jcr

Re:Superstar we are not.

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked with a rockstar once. Well, he played in a moderately successful cover band anyway.

Would you believe... he had the high score in Rock Band after four complete tunes?

Re:Superstar we are not.

[freeze128]

I agree with that. RockStars are musicians or artists. The best ones are freekin wacked right out of their skulls. Axl Rose is a good example. Sure, he is a great songwriter, but his offstage antics are an abomination, and you're lucky if you can even GET him to go onstage and complete a set.

Programmers are asked to be consistently reliable. If they EVER, and I mean EVER, pulled any of the shit that rockstars do, they would be fired in seconds.

Re:Superstar we are not.

[Anonymous Coward]

"graybeard" comments on sex, age, and hygiene. You should see it as an insulting term.

Re:Superstar we are not.

[Cederic]

As long as 'guru' is used in a gently deprecating way. Especially when referring to self.

Although I do like working in environments where the question, "Anybody know anything about.." risks the answer, "Yeah, he wrote the book on it" without sarcasm being involved.

Those people do tend to skip past mere labels though.

Re:Superstar we are not.

[jcr]

You should see it as an insulting term.

Why? I'm not embarrassed at all by having gray in my beard.

-jcr

Don't most uniquely successful people have agents?

[swb]

Even if they call them "advisors" or "lawyers" or "business managers" or something else?

I would mostly assume many uniquely successful people have somebody that advises or negotiates for them and may help steer business to them or filter out offers.

Even many high level corporate types will sometimes rely on somebody to help them negotiate a salary package even if the position is a "normal" full time job.

I don't think it makes you a "rock star" though.

Egomaniacs

[Anonymous Coward]

And people wonder why the image of the arrogant elitist programmer exists...

Re:Egomaniacs

[Anonymous Coward]

And people wonder why the image of the arrogant elitist programmer exists...

I worked with someone who thought and acted as though he was rockstar. In reality he couldn't write easy-to-maintain code, he was disruptive in meetings and always claiming anything someone else said to be wrong and then proceeded to tell us the "right answer." The manager just sat there allowing the behaviour week after week. He nearly caused a major project to fail until another person had the work dumped on their desk.

They already have an agent...

[QuietLagoon]

It's called a head hunter. A good head hunter acts like an agent. Good luck finding a good head hunter, though.

Re:They already have an agent...

[clf8]

I would have called it a lawyer.

Based strictly on the premise that a "rock star" isn't looking for a job. They have their own company/app/startup. They want to protect their IP, or get bought out, or frankly run their business the old fashioned way and (presumably) make money. A headhunter won't help you with this, but a lawyer would be critical.

Re:They already have an agent...

[Cederic]

They have their own company/app/startup.

Not everybody wants that. While emotionally the idea of being my own boss, having my own company, building a startup into a valuable organisation is appealling to me, I also know that I'd either go bankrupt or kill myself if I tried.

I can help you deliver your vision. I can influence and set direction for your company. I can add value several multiples beyond my own salary (and do, each year). I can't do that for myself, for a number of reasons.

Agent 99?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agent 86?

Agent Orange?

Argent?

Russ Ballard?

Kaye Ballard?

Mallard duck?

Disco duck?

Disco sucks?

A recruiter by other name...

[bobmajdakjr]

... is still someone I'll yell at if they call me at work. Or at home. or at any time.

Re:A recruiter by other name...

[Harlequin80]

Why?

So someone calls you to find out if you would be interested in something that could benefit you, at no cost to you and you decide to yell at them. Couldn't you just be polite and say thanks, but no thanks?

Re:A recruiter by other name...

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone calls you to find out if you would be interested in something the same someone thinks could benefit you. The cost part is irrelevant, it is the caller that is being impolite in the first place. (im assuming cold-calls here, if they hired you as an agent it is ofcourse a different matter, but until then it is merely phone-spam)

Re:A recruiter by other name...

[iluvcapra]

I work in film sound, really my only gig for last 15 years. I have never been a professional software developer, I have no such work on my resume, I have a BA in film, I didn't even take an engineering course in school.

However, every 6 months or so, I get called by some recruiter somewhere to ask if I'd like to "make a move" and start doing iOS development at some shop he's working with. The only reason I get these calls, that I can figure, is because I have a Github account and a few public repos with Objective-C code. It's a nuisance and these people are total flakes. The most irritating thing is the utterly phony conceit of "trying to find me a better fit" or "develop my career": They don't know fuck-all about me, all I am for them is a possible lead conversion.

I don't know what's so fucked up with software development that cold-calling random people basically out of the phone book is considered a workable strategy. You guys need a union or something...

Re:A recruiter by other name...

[Harlequin80]

Recruiters don't just work in IT. No idea why you would be getting calls like that if you aren't in the IT industry. That seems really really odd to me.

But I am also sure that there will be recruiters that work in film and some of them will specialise in sound. I was working on the premise that you were getting a call to talk about your line, not something totally random. Hence not understanding why you would yell at them.

I would hope that if you got a call along the lines of "Hello iluvcapra, My name is Harlequin80 and I specialise in the recruitment of sound specialists in the TV and film industry. Have I got you at a time you could talk? The reason for my call is your name was given to me by, (someone you actually know who has given me your name), or I came across your background on LinkedIn and your experience appears to match what I have been asked to find." You would at least be polite in telling me you weren't interested.

Re:A recruiter by other name...

[iluvcapra]

But I am also sure that there will be recruiters that work in film and some of them will specialise in sound. I was working on the premise that you were getting a call to talk about your line, not something totally random. Hence not understanding why you would yell at them.

Oh no, they were specifically asking me if I wanted to do software development. People in my business have below-the-line agents, there are established firms and players though and they don't recruit this way. A lot of my Github projects are CoreAudio and DSP stuff, and I have a lot of StackOverflow points on audio dev, and I know audio is sortof a black art for even experienced developers, so I assume maybe that had something to do with it to. I never yell, I wait and see what they want and then politely decline.

Hello iluvcapra, My name is Harlequin80 and I specialise in the recruitment of sound specialists in the TV and film industry. Have I got you at a time you could talk?

The term "sound specialist" and "TV and film industry" and even the term "recruitment" are clumsy and inappropriate, and would signal to me that you don't know what I do, what my job is, who my competitors or even who my clients are, and lacking that, you probably wouldn't know how to sell me. I wouldn't engage a rep unless he had 10-15 years in the film industry in some capacity, let alone he got the lingo right. An agent relationship for "specialists" in the "TV and film industry" is a very particular skill set, it implies that you'll be finding me a new job every six months, from among a pool of maybe two dozen people at any one time with hiring authority--people who everyone knows and who you'd better be on ideal speaking terms with (preferably you're talking to them every day selling your other clients).

Obviously this is show business and a lot of people calling themselves "agents" and "business managers" are scammers, you have to be really careful about who you talk to and all business is done face-to-face, with people you've either known personally and worked with for years, or are one degree of separation from these. LinkedIn provides a simulacra of this kind of interaction, but it's really not the same. I'd never engage with someone who found me through "LinkedIn," even if it was through a recommendation, that's a big red flag.

(All of this just FYI.)

Re:A recruiter by other name...

[Harlequin80]

I was trying to give an example. I know absolutely nothing about the film and sound industry, I was basing that off your previous comment. If you wanted to talk about civil infrastructure, drainage, pump stations and land development then I know the industry.

By Rock Star you mean exploited?

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of Rock Stars ended up with nothing thanks to unscrupulous managers and record company staff. You want to hire one of those do you?

Re:By Rock Star you mean exploited?

[Anonymous Coward]

But don't music rockstars make income proportional to record sales? Programming rockstars, on the other hand, make a fixed salary regardless of platinum sales of their products. So who's more exploited?

Old story

[phantomfive]

This company was already covered on Slashdot. In the story here they're talking $150-$250 an hour, which is reachable for the right set of skills (even without an agent). The reason recruiters get paid so much right now is because of the scarcity of programmers. If you get hired through a recruiter, know that they are getting up to 30% of your first year salary in payment, think that could be going to you as a hiring bonus.

I tried signing up with this company last time this story came around, and they weren't very helpful. Said they were working on getting more clients, and had enough programmers already. If they did get me $200 an hour, it would be worth it, but it seems they were having trouble at that time. Maybe things have changed now.

The article itself is a nice portrait of an area of the programming industry. Increased my respect for the writers of the New Yorker.

Re:Old story

[Dunbal]

"know that they are getting up to 30% of your first year salary in payment, think that could be going to you as a hiring bonus."

Assuming you could have gotten the job on your own without the agent. Otherwise 30% of zero is, well...

Re:Old story

[BarbaraHudson]

So it's yet another slashvertisement. The wayback machine says they've been doing this for at least 2-1/2 years, maybe more, and they still have less than 80 clients?

Re:Old story

[phantomfive]

Yeah, doesn't build confidence in their services.

Re:Old story

[Cederic]

I got my current job by applying directly with the company.

I didn't negotiate a signing on bonus, I was glad for the chance to work here. It had several non-financial benefits for me, and they were prepared to wait while I worked notice with my previous employer.

Would they have paid a recruiter a fee for me? I'd hope so :) Did the lack of fee influence them taking me over another candidate? I don't think so, but I haven't ever asked. Did me applying directly to them help demonstrate that I did actually know something about their organisation and want to join it? Yes.

So I got zero of 30%, but I got a job, and no recruiter involved. A win for me, and a win for the company.

Re:gn4a

[Anonymous Coward]

the latest NetcrafT this exploitation, bought the farm... more grandiose

Goddamn botnet C&C posts...

About as little as...

[carlhaagen]

...programmers need to be referred to as "engineers" or the currently growing and even more retarded title, "architects".

Re:About as little as...

[iggymanz]

Systems architectects are a real profession and are not software developers. Also, there is a kind of software development that IS engineering, such as the type Linux kernel or BSD or Apache server project team does. That includes design, source control, testing, and QA processes. It is much more than just development.

Re:About as little as...

[Anonymous Coward]

Software development is engineering. High quality and complex software development is extremely sophisticated engineering, rivaling any other technical field. Sr. engineers use jr. engineers to get things done, learn, and level up into experienced engineers. They also employ technicians who may be extremely competent and may even level up, but probably not because they didn't buy DLC pack. programmers are to software devs/engs as technicians are to engineers. A programmer that writes quality code at 10x the pace as is a useful asset.

rock stars do drugs, show boat, and impress with shallow behavior. Sometimes have talent, but talent or competence really is irrelevant. let us not rely on this ridiculous terminology.

-sr mech eng (who can easily be out-coded 50x)

Re:About as little as...

[HeckRuler]

Sure, a lot of programmers don't need to be referred to as engineers. Because they're not engineers. Software engineers, the sort that do less programming and more engineering work (which is, sadly, mostly paperwork) should be refereed to as engineers because that's what they are.

A lot of programmers do a lot of architect work. If it's a big enough code-shop or a project, then there may even be people who don't do much programming anymore and focus on the architecture rather than the codebase. Not that I've ever seen that personally, but it exists in theory. And there are OH GOD SO MANY programmers that cannot be trusted to perform any architecture work, and generally have trouble building things from scratch.

DevOps are programmers that also answer the phone and generally know the IT side.

Testers are trained monkeys while test engineers are an entirely different beast who specialize not in writing code, but in breaking it. Some of those people are called SWQA, but they're not to be confused with the sort that only file DO-178 audits.

It'd be awfully nice if everyone could agree on these terms, and be more or less consistent, but sadly the entire field isn't a century old and there are plenty of growing pains.

Best part of the article

[phantomfive]

The best part of the article was a link to this blog, Shit Recruiters Say.

somewhat diffrent

[davydagger]

rockstars aren't "more talented" per se, but they are more valuable, because they have a name that attracts people based on name recognition.

Rockstars are their own corporate "brand" per se. They sell things via their image more than their music. Taylor Swift is a good example. As a musician she is mediocre at best, but right now, she's the top seller.

Scoff at my cyncism? Then explain when she accidently released 28 seconds of noise in head of her hit platnium album, on iTunes, that it hit the top of the charts. What drives that proccess? People buying music on Swift's "Brand Recognition".

No programmer, with mabey the exception of Linus Torvalds, mabey Bruce Schiener, or formerly Ken Thompson or Dennis Ritchie have that sort of "brand" name recognition.

Furthermore, I think its dangerous to let this mentality seep into the programming world. What consists of musical talent is entirely subjective, and at the end, affects nothing. Bad music everywhere is a mere annoyance.

Now imagine if programmers were overpaid, undertalented, super inflated egos, where glaring faults in code could be patched over with a public relations campaign?

Imagine the mayhem, and things that would break, if we had talentless coders working on the most sensative programming tasks based on name, not quality recognition? Imagine if no how bad they fucked up, they could cover it up with public relations?

actually, you know what, go ahead and do it. I think thats what we need right now. Things are going to go back to the way they were pre-google. We'll have a giant hacker underground with the talented, but unpopular hackers, and it will be a return of the "suits", fucking talentless "proffessional" class MCSE button pushers, that the slashdot of the 1990s was oh-so-found of reporting about thier incompetence.

Re:somewhat diffrent

[Will_Malverson]

Now imagine if programmers were overpaid undertalented, super inflated egos, where glaring faults in code could be patched over with a public relations campaign?

You had me at 'overpaid'.

Re:somewhat diffrent

[BarbaraHudson]

Imagine the mayhem, and things that would break, if we had talentless coders working on the most sensative programming tasks based on name, not quality recognition? Imagine if no how bad they fucked up, they could cover it up with public relations?

Here, let me fix that for you ...

Imagine the mayhem, and things that would break, if we had talentless managers working on the most sensative programming tasks based on name, not quality recognition? Imagine if no how bad they fucked up, they could cover it up with public relations?

Worked for Microsoft for decades. Patch Tuesday, anyone?

Re:somewhat diffrent

[zippthorne]

Pre-orders? Orders without listening first? Maybe Apple's charts aren't 100% based on apple's own sales data?

Re:somewhat diffrent

[narcc]

Now imagine if programmers were overpaid, undertalented, super inflated egos, where glaring faults in code could be patched over with a public relations campaign?

Imagine?

Re:somewhat diffrent

[__aaltlg1547]

Nice rant, but,

"Furthermore, I think its dangerous to let this mentality seep into the programming world. What consists of musical talent is entirely subjective, and at the end, affects nothing. Bad music everywhere is a mere annoyance.
"Now imagine if programmers were overpaid, undertalented, super inflated egos, where [b]glaring faults in code could be patched over with a public relations campaign?[/b]"

I don't have to imagine it. I see it. Only the names are brands like Microsoft, Apple, Linux, Snapchat..., not the names of programmers (with rare exceptions).

They're a high end contract agency

[chromaexcursion]

I'm a contract programmer. I got my current position through an agency. They got the contract, do the negotiating, and take a cut. Where I work there's no way in without going through an agency. It's part of the business, and the cost of doing business.
I've looked into 10x. This isn't the first / post about them. They were swamped for a year from the last one. Likely to happen again.
They manage to stay in the press. Free advertizing can't hurt.
Not a bad business model to have more business than you can handle, and do as much as you can.

SHUT THE FUCK UP

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no such thing as a god damn fucking "rock star" programmer. fuck off.

Re:SHUT THE FUCK UP

[gnupun]

there's no such thing as a god damn fucking "rock star" programmer. fuck off.

Okay, let's replace Linus with a good programmer from some corp. Let's also stop using C/Java (created by rockstar programmers) and use some a language created by yet another good programmer from some corp. Let's see how long your company survives without rockstar programmers.

Bullcrap

[Anonymous Coward]

Meet the man, the myth, the legend: Layne Cobain http://developers.slashdot.org...

Re:Bullcrap

[BarbaraHudson]

For those who don't get it, Layne Cobain.

'cuz there's no rockstar like a dead rockstar.

Mr. Anderson!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice to see you again.

budget

[Anonymous Coward]

Programs and applications just need to work. Companies don't care about who writes the code. Neither will they pay more for a name of a person. Movies make more at the box office due to a star being in the film.. That doesn't work for coding. There is no extra revenue for having a star code in 3 weeks, what the average does in 6....

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

...they are an outsourcing firm who will markup what the people they pimp out make.

nothing new here.

Bill

[michaelmalak]

If Bill Murray doesn't need an agent, why do I?

On a serious note, this makes little sense for full-time employment, which usually comes with golden handcuffs. It's not like FTEs are hopping from gig to gig, and with the number of transitions low (as in substantially fewer than one per year), I think rockstar programmers can handle their own agency.

For contractors, it seems like an agent could feed qualified leads to some of them, especially if they're just starting out. But is that really agency? There are already localized medium-sized consulting firms that contractors can associate themselves with.

Fools...Money...

[Anonymous Coward]

...you know the deal.

Salesperson again

[manu0601]

This is just the salesperson re-branded as agent. But perhaps as an agent the salesperson will stop selling impossible things?

Not a bad idea

[quantaman]

Not necessarily even for gurus. At my last job my manager literally told me, unprompted, that when he saw how little I was making he was embarrassed. Why should my compensation have been so undercut by my crappy negotiating skills?

And then when I look for jobs, am I looking at all the right sites? Am aiming for the right opportunities? How long do I wait before giving an answer? There's a lot of tricks to job hunting and negotiating that don't have much to do with my actual job skills.

Why shouldn't someone like an agent work by specializing in the local job market and matching people with the best jobs. The employees make more since they've got a decent negotiator who will ensure they don't get shortchanged and the companies will do better because there will be a better match with the skillset, seems like an all around benefit.

already works that way.

[Anonymous Coward]

Like many consulting programming guys, the company essentially is an agent for me.

I do zero "in-company" projects. What the company salesmen do is they work as an agent and I have some say in what to do.

except of course that the salary is monthly and not dependent on what is being done in the month - but that's basically it.

Everybody's special.

[__aaltlg1547]

Seriously, every programmer that believes there are 10X programmers also believes he's one of them.

Re:Everybody's special.

[danknight48]

Seriously, every programmer that believes there are 10X programmers also believes he's one of them.

//ProgrammingSkill *= 10 / 0;

A good programmer will know iam having some fun. A bad one will tell me i've done something wrong.

Re:Everybody's special.

[BlackHawk-666]

I think even the terrible ones will notice the line comment at the start.

Re:Everybody's special.

[DavidCBillen]

Seriously, every programmer that believes there are 10X programmers also believes he's one of them.

Firstly I think "10X" was intended like when one says "a gazillion". Secondly I think we need to also profile people who don't believe some programmers are more productive than others.

It's not a zero sum game

[Taco Cowboy]

... Most likely outcome: the agent, whose entire compensation is based on separating me from as much cash as possible, manages to take more than that difference and I get screwed while thinking I got a good deal ...

If you are of the top 1% talent you wouldn't be feeling so butthurt over how much that "agent" skims over what you take

Look, I've been in the industry even before Al Gore started his "information superhighway" stump

I worked as a grunt in research labs, buried deep within the big corporate behemoths, I started my own joints, one after the other (they were not known as "startups" back then), sold some, re-invest the $$ by help funding other startups, and so on ... and along the ways I got acquainted with many legendary talents, some still with me, some parted ways, but I never stop searching for talents

Back then there were no "agencies". Heck! Back then there was no linkedin or anything like that, but when we needed talents we went crowdsourcing (no, that phrase wasn't invented either) and via our network of friends and/or acquaintances we got what we want

And yes, I do pay those who helped find me the talent I need, and no, I do not count the money I paid to those (so-called) agents as part of the money I am willing to pay the talent

What we have are business opportunities. What we want is to make money. And to make money we are willing to hire the right person to do the job, and we are willing to pay.

If you are really good, you will be paid what you are worth. Whatever those "agent" skims from you will not eat into your worth

This ain't a zero sum game, man !

Re:It's not a zero sum game

[BVis]

If you are really good, you will be paid what you are worth. Whatever those "agent" skims from you will not eat into your worth

That seems to imply that if you're merely "good" or "competent" you won't be paid what you're worth (as in, less than the rock stars, but market rates). Not everyone is a rock star, and they need to eat too. They can still bring value to your organization greater than what you pay them.

Yes, we are in a tech bubble

[Required Snark]

Otherwise this wouldn't even come up.

They never had the chance ...

[Taco Cowboy]

I hate managing with "rockstar" developers because they're always too arrogant and full of themselves. They detract from the team, argue and refuse to listen to others

Those aren't rock-star developers. As another poster said, you likely have never worked with a rock-star developer. They are great at what they do, *and* they make the team better. They are rare, but it's awesome when you see somebody that inspires others around them by what they can do

This, and 10^9999999999 this !!

It is so sad to read comments by the know-nothings who think that they knew everything

They never get any chance to meet with the real top notch talents and the arrogant, disruptive PITAs that they claim to be "rock star developers" do not even come close to the real stuff

I have have the fortune to work with several of the legendary programmers and when I use the word "legendary" I really mean it

They are legendary not only because of their programming skills, not only because of their extra-ordinary ability to conceptualize and implement and produce things that had never exist before, but also because of their willingness to share, to motivate the team, to lead the team to go with them on the most wonderful journey of power achievements

Re:They never had the chance ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys are arguing about semantics. There are two different ways to understand the "rockstar" designation: the "10x productivity" rockstar and the "insane value add" rockstar.

Re:They never had the chance ...

[lgw]

Rock Star == Prima Donna == show off glory hound. You need a new word for what you're talking about. Legendary maybe isn't it either, unless there's a Prose Edda of coder adventures I haven't read yet. What you describe is what, without title inflation, gets called a Principal Engineer or Fellow. Most big companies treasure them, and they certainly don't need agents.

Makes sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like a logical step for a profession whose practicioners have famously terrible social skills.

do they get 10x pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Notwithstanding that the original study was comparing productivity of people ranging from no experience to lots of experience, some in assembler, some in high level languages.

The real question is whether companies are actually paying those "rockstar programmers" $1M/yr, compared to the more average (in Silicon Valley) $100k/yr.

I'm not talking here about "compensation" where you get RSUs or options or bonuses that are dependent on company valuation or performance, I'm talking about a *salary* of 1M/yr for a rock-star who is 10x as productive.

I thought not...

I can see your value, but..

[s.petry]

While surely there is value in someone marketing your skills, the problem with IT is that it's damn near impossible to tell if someone is bullshitting or not without talking to them. Even then, it's possible for someone to bullshit quite a bit, basing their interview on lots of scripts and not lots of knowledge. (Unfortunately there are companies out there that teach people to bullshit through interviews).

An "agent" for IT people is often seen as the enemy to other IT people (headhunters and recruiters). Their job is to add to the bullshit to make the candidate a better sell, not cut through the crap and get a person who's skill set matches the needs.

Re:I can see your value, but..

[Harlequin80]

It's one of the reasons I didn't stay in IT recruitment. It is almost impossible to judge the skills of a candidate.

At least in engineering, if you were a Structural Engineer on the Gateway upgrade I know that you have at least some skills. And what's more I know the manager on that job so I can ask them what they thought of you.

Re: I can see your value, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

and why didn't you take the time to know the managers in the IT fields? I smell a bunch of BS coming from you.

What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

A good programmer can always write their own agents. :)

Tags doesn't do justice

[Taco Cowboy]

... Rock Star == Prima Donna == show off glory hound ...

The tag "Rock Star" isn't the tag the TRUE rock stars use for themselves

It was used by the OTHERS to describe those who are so good, so productive that an entire roomful of code monkeys can't even begin to hold a candle to them

And when I mean "productive" I do not mean in code volume alone. They are productive not only in the volume of the quality code that they produce, but also the innovative, the inventive aspects (for the lack of a better word, English ain't my mother tongue, btw) that their code brings

Plus, they are PRODUCTIVE, as I have mentioned above, in up-lifting the people around them, bring people to new heights that they never imagine they could attain

As I have mentioned above, I have have the fortune to work with several of those legendary programmers, and I benefited greatly from the experiences, and I am forever in debt !

Agents work for the long term

[petes_PoV]

Most likely outcome: the agent, whose entire compensation is based on separating me from as much cash as possible, manages to take more than that difference and I get screwed while thinking I got a good deal

A good agent will be in it for the long term. Working in a mutually beneficial arrangement.

So there won't be any "screwing" as they will have a reputation to uphold amongst yourself and their other clients. If people feel they are worse off, they will fire their agent and word will spread.

As a freelancer, I've had an agent since the mid 90s. The real problem is that I am only one of many clients, so as long as things are going well, they tend to get complacent and lazy - just rolling over the contracts and taking their commission. What the software world needs are MORE agents and better contracts with their clients: which at present seem to be rather one-sided, since the agents are responsible for getting all the work, they are the ones with all the IT business contacts.

maybe a rock star programmer

[Rashdot]

I have 5 years experience in programming rock stars.

Re:maybe a rock star programmer

[DaveTaylor8308]

Do you work for a cult?

Rock star?

[jandersen]

Rock star programmers? Seriously? When I was a teenager, some 40 years ago, computer programming was considered incredibly awesome, something on par with Einstein, but nowadays programmers are seen more like accountants, and rightly so: You have to know the sometimes very intricate rules, and you have to be the sort of person who likes to keep prodding at a problem until you get it right - and accountant, IOW. How many Rock Star Accountants do we know of?

Having an "agent" -- job jumper

[gatkinso]

Do Not Hire.

You are not an agent for the employee

[sjbe]

I am an agent. Though I would argue there is no difference between an agent and a recruiter or a headhunter.

There is a huge difference depending on who you represent and who pays your commissions. An agent works on behalf of someone typically for a talented individual. A recruiter or headhunter typically works for a company though they are an agent of a sort but not in the usual use of the word. An agent for Lebron James represent's Lebron, is hired by Lebron, and their sole goal is to get as good a deal for Lebron (and thereby themselves) as possible. The needs of the company only matter so far as they affect the negotiation. Recruiters (usually) are hired by the company and are a middle man who is hired to find talent the company might otherwise be unable to locate. Their financial interest is to get as high a salary as possible for whoever the company hires but they have no obligation to represent the interests of any particular individual seeking employment.

The IT industry in particular sees that as me taking a cut of your wages, but I don't negotiate with you about my rate. I negotiate with the company about what they are going to pay me for my finders service.

That means you are NOT an agent (for the employee) because you do not represent interests of the person seeking employment. If you represented the talent the company would have no involvement whatsoever in the negotiations regarding your pay rate. That would be entirely between you and the individuals you represent. Yes it is in your interest to negotiate as high a percentage for the employee as possible but they aren't who you work for. If Person A doesn't fit with BigCorp then you can move to Person B. That means you aren't an agent for Person A or Person B.

But for most of us this job is thankless with companies telling us to go jump and candidates thinking we are ripping them off

Welcome to sales. That's the life of any salesman. And you are right that not everyone can do it well.

Re:You are not an agent for the employee

[Harlequin80]

Yes and no. While it is true that the company is the person who pays the bills it is often the candidate that is more valuable to you. Your example of swapping Person B for Person A is often the opposite in high skilled industries. It tends to be Person A has to choose between Company A,B or C. So though I am technically being paid by the company it is the candidate that means I will earn money. I will be the one who has represented that person to all 3 companies. So which person is my client then?

Also the agent description you have described is illegal in Queensland (not in all states of Australia). I completely understand your definition but operating as an agent like that here is prohibited by law because there were lots of scummy companies that charged people to find them a job then did nothing.

Does a pig need leaches?

[pubwvj]

Agents work in the entertainment industry because the talent is switching between gigs frequently so they need someone keeping work lined up for them.

As an employer: In the programming industry a programmer with an agent would be a big "DO NOT HIRE" flag to me because it tells me this programmer is not stable.

As a programmer: I would see an agent as a leach that is siphoning off a percent of my income with no benefit to me. Call it the stupid tax.

Re:Does a pig need leaches?

[4pins]

That is great, however there is a whole set of employers that hire by the project. I personally attempt to avoid this (trying to provide stability for my family), however there is a certain appeal in always being focused on building something new. In this situation, having someone trying to make sure there is a next project to move to, would be nice.

"10x" means avoiding pathological architectures

[PJ6]

and modes of organization. Just like tact, it's not so much what you do, as what you don't.

You don't need to be a "rock star" to wield this idea effectively.

News for Nerds

[idontgno]

Media agent says that a professional community not currently in bondage to ^w^w^w parasitized by ^w^w served by agent representation needs vitally to be served by agent representation, and by a completely unrelated stroke of luck, media agent is available to help.

Thanks. I was afraid I wasn't going to get my daily dose of advertising masquerading as news.

already seen more than enough of "rockstars"

[JustNiz]

All this will do is encourage the so-called "rockstars" that come in and hack the crap out of the code base to throw together some piece of shit that superficially appears to very quickly met some highly visible/urgent management objective, then they always disappear before management get to also experience the fallout from the damage they did, so they leave looking good and the code devastation to everyone else (i.e. the _actually_ good engineers) to pick up the pieces.

Repost

[nazsco]

the article even mentions "after reading about the company on slashdot" when telling how the company was founded.... and again, slashdot post about that company as news...

head eats tail

[Anonymous Coward]

Page goes on and on about what a good programmer is.

Page then has a meta author tag with blank content.

Page describes a person better at 'programming' than the programmer that got paid to maintain this site. Theres a lesson in this : It dosent take a rockstar to get something done, just hard work, consistent work, and attention to detail. Dont buy into the myth of the genius programmer. Thats what these people are pushing, and its falsy.

Different and distinct skills

[NewYork]

Writing software != Selling software

Both need mutually exclusive skills.