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Attention, Rockstar Developers: Get a Talent Agent
ErichTheRed writes OK, we all know that there are a lot of developers and IT people in the field who shouldn't be, and finding really good people and hanging onto them is very difficult. However, I almost fell out of my chair reading this breathless article suggesting that developers hire agents. I grant the authors that recruiters are sometimes the only way to cut through the HR jungle in some companies, but outside of the hot San Francisco startup market, can you imagine a "10x rockstar developer" swaggering into a job interview with his negotiating team? I'm sure our readers can cite plenty of examples of these types who were only 10x in their own minds...
If you're trying to hire an agent, at least in other areas of creative space like acting or writing novels, the agent themselves has to believe you're worth the effort. So if this really does become a thing where a hotshot developer wants to find an agent to represent him, you can be damn sure that agency is going to be a hundred times harsher about testing skills before agreeing to represent the talent than an interviewer would be.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Many developers ARE famous. If you're a dev who created some very popular/well known open source framework, you probably have an army trying to get to you. You're basically a celebrity, and in the extreme case may have to end up dealing with things like one.
My employer has been trying to build a front end team recently, and willing to pay whatever it takes and remote work is fine. But even getting in touch with some of these people to be able to say "Hey, name a number, we'll give you that number" is near impossible, because they shut themselves out with all of the normal recruiters trying to reach them.
Then you have the "not famous, but very good" devs. The average shitty dev still get a seemingly infinite amount of recruiters reaching out to them. The ones that are actually good? Yeah, its crazy. And if they don't want to go to work for a well known company (ie: Google), and actually have to poke around the market to find a good match, it can be more work than a full time job and a half. If you're looking and have an actually useful recruiter under your belt, its helpful, but at the end of the day they don't work for you. Having someone who actually does? Why not.
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/14/11/18/0025237/do-good-programmers-need-agents
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/04/11/2216236/top-coders-tell-agents-show-me-the-money
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
A little less than three years ago, a friend of mine started YourTalentAgents, a Pittsburgh-based talent agency representing professional IT workers of all sorts (sysadmins, software engineers, hardware folks, etc.). In mid 2014, he merged with another company, Student Intuition, to form Imagine Careers. The talent agency part of the company still exists and has been profitable pretty much since the start. IIRC they've placed something like 85% of the candidates they've worked with, and many of those candidates are referring others to the talent agency. It's flipping the model in favor of excellent technologists looking for a good company, instead of a gaggle of quota-driven headhunters competing to fill a seat with a warm body.
Disclosure: I'm a friend of the CTO of Imagine Careers, who founded YTA, and a currently uncompensated advisor to the company.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Never trust anyone who calls Programmers "Rockstars, Code Ninjas, Gurus" or any other derogatory dumb ass hipster name. Being a "Programmer", "Developer", "Hacker", or a "Coder" is awesome enough. There is no need to attach prepubescence boy names to the job. You're not a "Teenage Multiplatform Ninja Coder!" Grow up and stop disrespecting the field. Seriously, you don't see Doctors, Lawyers, or Mechanical Engineers using such language to recruit.
(Plus people who call programers "rockstars" probably use Macs an live in San Fran. That alone makes them retarded.)
A lot of performers may appear extroverted on stage, but confess to actually being very introverted. That's not an assert when looking for work.
Plus, when the norm is short-term gigs, that means that a lot of time has to be spent looking for work. If the job can be outsourced to an agent, that means that the performer (or whoever) can spend more time actually working and practicing.
Developers, of course, don't fit that mold. We're all team players who are just eager to meet and deal with as many people as we can as much as possible and we'd never want to pass up social time just to do geeky code things.
can you imagine a "10x rockstar developer" swaggering into a job interview with his negotiating team?
Stop. please. just stop. lets take the pretend train to imaginary town and derail it for a minute:
1. the people who sincerely think coders need agents are the people who contribute nothing to the coding process. these are parasites running out of options in a dwindling music and video talent market.
2. the kinds of coders who think they need a talent agent are the kinds of sycophantic cocksuckers that harass employees, alienate managers, fracture teams, and haul companies into sexual harassment lawsuits. they might be bombshell coders, but the truth is even with james bond, 7 martinis and an aston martin makes you a stumbling insurance liability with a gun.
3. we already have a huge problem with recruiting. I cleared 37 voicemail messages from recuiting mills that dont even source their call centers in the US. most of this was for 3 month contract or 6 month contract work, shit that is beneath anyone but that corporations feel like theyre fucking entitled to. I routinely roll out of bed for calls from these shitlords at 2 AM because someone didnt set the callcenter ntp server in india properly.
4. Corporations are another side of the problem. Apply for imgur, facebook, or any other rewarding employment position and you'll be waterboarded with masturbatory inquisition like 'what makes you such a great fit?' and 'what do you looooove about our company?' Motherfuckers I want a job, your work is interesting, and the pay is commensurate. beyond that im still human capital remember?
so for anyone thinking rockstars pornstars or coked up overweight perl jockeys with poor attendance and a penchant for lashing out at coworkers in a 10 am alcohol fueled rage are in need of some kind of dedicated legion of cocksuckers to treat them like a special snowflake, get bent.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Being worth the effort is about being marketable, that's all. Talent has very little if anything to do with it.
As for developers, I would think if you're in Silicon Valley and working for Google or facebook, a lot of other companies are gonna want to poach you - not because you are great, but because they want to steal the technology.
I heard this VP of "engineering" at a social media firm *coughmeebocough* bitch about she couldn't get "qualified" people because the only people who were capable of doing what they need worked at Google and Facebook. Ah no. What she really wanted was to steal Google and facebook's tech without having to do her own R&D.
THAT is what is meant by qualifications. They ended up selling to Google anyway.
and finding really good people and hanging onto them is very difficult.
I thought that last bit is missing. Anyone agree?
Guys when you send your resume in and they demand it be in an editable form such as MS Word be prepared to deal with the consequences of a bit of resume padding or stripping by people that do not quite understand what the words in the resume mean or who have a more sinister agenda.
I went to one interview and found that a few years of relevant experience was cut and pasted from my resume onto someone else's applying for the same job via the same agency. I'd brought copies of my resume to hand out at the interview and the interviewers got a bit of a shock comparing it to the ones they had been supplied with. They didn't use that recruiter again.
What if you're not working on the next Grand Theft Auto?
I'm the submitter -- this one just had to get out there for comment.
I have worked with a few real 10x-ers -- in the systems field, not development. None of them had agents, nor were they particularly flashy people. These are the kind of people who go from contract to contract getting reliable, interesting work. The reason they can do this is because they actually know enough to be a 10x-er. Most of the really talented people are in some sort of IT services role, either an independent consultant or a highly valued veteran employee of a big services shop if they choose not to jump around. People in this category are the kind who can jump in and rip apart a problem until the _real_ root cause is found, no matter how insanely difficult it is to locate. In the systems side of the house, that requires a mix of expert-level talent, troubleshooting skills and enough experience in different environments. Yet, nearly every one of these people has been a pleasure to work with -- they don't treat you like idiots, and if you show an interest, you learn something from them. I imagine any web framework du jour rockstar that felt they needed an agent would not be as nice to work with.
Honestly, I'm not sure what planet the author is living on. Granted, I don't live in Silicon Valley -- my experience is in "boring" industries like airlines, banking and insurance. I know now that hiring is a huge pain in the butt simply because the market is flooded with under-qualified people. It's a mix of dumb luck and leveraging your connections to get a good job. And yes, going into an interview cold with no one on staff who knows you is like playing the lottery...50 people are applying for the same spot sometimes. Beyond the typical recruiter slimeweasels, I can't imagine dealing with someone's agent when hiring for a position.
Maybe the market for phone app developers really is so hot now that people are jumping jobs for 20% raises the way they did in Dotcom Boom #1. I don't know. But on my boring side of the fence, where stuff needs to work reliably all the time, and there's always pressure on costs, the market is a little different. There's constant wage pressure from outsourcers and H1-B shops, and management really needs to be cajoled into spending anything to keep IT running. Enlightened companies keep a few senior, truly good people on staff, but the overall trend is down, both age-wise and salary-wise. The thing that they don't get is that to get to that 10x level, you need to have the experience to see what went wrong the last 20 times you've seen something implemented. Whatever - I don't see myself telling potential employers that they'll need to speak to my agent...
"I'm not a rockstar. I'm a professional. My job isn't to write the greatest code ever. My job is to turn out software that works, that does what you need done, on time and without bugs or maintenance nightmares down the road."
Why do actors have them, why do athletes have them, why do writers have literary agents. I have been saying this for years. Since the last dot com boom, actually, when tech talent was just as scarce. Why not tech talent, too, I make way more than average actor, athlete, and writer.
There are three reasons I can think of, right off the top of my head to have an agent.
1. Screen all the recruiter calls.
Everyday I get calls from at least 10 recruiters. Most are offering positions and salaries that I would not consider and they would know this if they read my resume instead of just doing a keyword search. Yes, I am talking to you, Mr recruiter, that wants to offer me a web development position in San Francisco for 3 months at $40/hr and no expenses paid. Try hiring someone local. No they done want your crappy position either.
2. Be on the constant lookout for my perfect job.
Hey I am working full time so I don't have a lot of time to devote to finding my perfect job.
3. Negotiate a better salary.
Now I have gotten pretty good at this over the years but it would be nice to have the latest industry figures when we did enter that phase.
I will get off my soapbox now.
I've met John C a number of times, he is indeed a guru.
My longtime friend Mike Abrash is also a guru, but according to him, not in the same league as Mr Carmack.
Personally I'm a very competent programmer who've just had some small episodes of greatness: I know I'm not as bright as John or able to work for years at a single task like Mike can do, but I've still had a lot of fun over the last 35-40 years! :-)
Today I declined an offer to become CTO of a 20 year old international sw company, I'm having a pretty good time where I am now.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
I don't know how other people code, but I put in the most hours and do my best work on MY pet projects, not someone else's. For the mundane stuff you do at a typical job I'm just "good". The code works and is on time but that is what any competent programmer should be able to do.
So if someone is truly a "rockstar", I have to ask why are they working for work? Shouldn't they be writing their own software, running their own company, living off of the royalties? If I hire a "rockstar" to work on MY project, which might not be exciting, will the "rockstar" do his best ever work? Or will he do no more than someone who's good, a team player, but hasn't aspired to write books or go on a talk circuit to get that "rockstar" reputation? Or worse, will the "rockstar" break things, throw out existing code, piss off coworkers, because he knows he's right and everyone else is an idiot?
I've been contacted by recruiters out of the blue on LinkedIn, gone through the interview process for the fabulous job they were peddling, and then not do well enough in the interview to get the job. The recruiter was warm and encouraging and friendly throughout the process... until I didn't get the job. Some dick behavior along with a "They found a substantially more qualified candidate" message. Wtf? Would it not be sufficient to just say "Unfortunately they have decided to move forward with another candidate." Was it really necessary to kick me while I was already down, disappointed I didn't get the job? Word to the wise: a recruiter finds you on Linkedin and is all friendly, it's not going to last. Like used car salesmen these people. Once you're no longer useful to you they'll discard you like you're trash.
I feel that any developer who calls themselves a "rockstar developer" is probably suffering a severe case of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
All the really competent developers I've ever known have had anything but "rockstar" like qualities. They generally don't boast, they are generally frugal, they are generally the exact opposite of a rockstar.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
'“Our background is the music industry, where we represented American musicians for 20 years,” says Michael Solomon'
If you know anything about the music industry and sleaze therein, then you have probably heard about (or even experienced) how artists and musicians are constantly being taken advantage of and ripped off by the music industry. From Led Zeppelin, to Michael Jackson.
More info:
Courtney Love
Michael Jackson
Ok, perhaps they are not the most morally sound individuals - but their points are true nonetheless.
While I can understand what the article is getting at, I'll stick to handing out my own resumes, thank you.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.