Category: Programming

This post ends with a list of questions for you, pictured here.

Time Spent

There are a few professions that are “backend” (software industry term..) in the sense that their core skills are mostly agnostic to the domain in which they are being applied. A couple of examples are software engineering (SWE) and accounting.

In these professions, you spend a ton of time upfront becoming competent at the core skills, but then they are transferrable between domains. As you progress, you spend more time on the problem domains.

In the SWE example, early in your career, you probably spend around 80% of your time learning core concepts. You’re mostly learning how to write software, studying math/algorithms, and experimenting with various tooling/languages/frameworks [1]. Even once out of school, you’re waddling along and figuring out how to apply all that trigonometric calculus you learned to how to ₐₜₜₐcₕ ₐ ₚₒₗᵢcy i̶̤̳̤͓̥͈̫̍ṉ̴̱͐̄̃̈̆̍̿ ̵̛͎̗̝̀̔̾I̷̟͇͈̐́̓̚À̶͍͔͎̘̘̱̯̻̏͜M̴̲̫̬̝̭̿ͅ

Later in your career though, as you become more experienced, the portion of your time spent on business logic increases; in your 30s/40s, you might be spending 50% of your time on the business logic, already having hardened your engineering skills. At this point you realize that writing payroll software is more than setting up the database tables – but now you have to learn all the intricacies about withholding taxes and all of the wonderful California based employee edge cases you’ll need to code in.

At the tail end of your career, say 50/60s [2], you’re too old too wise to keep up with the young kids learning a new JavaScript framework every night, however you are the expert in hunkering down and figuring out what really needs to be solved.

I used the greatest software ever written, MS Paint, to draw the below:

The Allure of Consulting

All of this contrasts to, say, being a logger. If you’re a logger, the “core skills” and “business domain” are all blurred together and inseparable. You cut down trees no matter where you go, and mostly operate the same machinery while doing so. While I’m sure there is some region specific knowledge to learn, like local tree types and terrains, your day to day life isn’t drastically shaped by what tree removal company you work for or what state you work in. What you study is is what you do – if that makes any sense.

If you buy the above, it seems that consulting could be a great way to “rapidly tour” through domains, to spend a lot of time learning about diverse business problems and their solutions [3]. Becoming a full time employee at a company is expensive time-wise, and it’s not something you’re going to do every six months.

How does it work?

I have worked with many consultants, and am somewhat familiar with the industry from the “employer’s view”, but I know little about the consulting industry from the side of the consultant.

So – here is an unranked list of questions I have – drop me an email, or comment below, if you have done this and have insight!

Note: I realize there are benefits to consider, for example, independent consultants may have very expensive healthcare, and may charge a higher rate because of it. I am not really asking about these details [4]

1. Is it better to go out on your own, or work for a consulting agency? I imagine there are pros/cons; I assume if you work for an agency, your cut of the pie is less, but you have less stress/trouble finding clients. I assume this is the same difference as being a lawyer in a large legal firm vs. bolting your name to the door and finding your own cases. I also assume you have less say in which projects you take on and how long their durations are if you work for a consulting agency, but again you have significantly less worry (or maybe none!) about finding clients.
   
   (NOTE: the rest of my questions basically only pertain to the “going out on your own” route. I am assuming that working for an agency isn’t really that much different than being employed at a company with respect to the rest of the questions, because it would be on the agency to deal with these issues)
   
2. How do you “start your brand”? Let’s say you are an amazing SWE but you haven’t written any famous software that’s made you a household name, how do get started in conveying to the world “hey I’m really good at what I do, you will be happy if you hire me for your project”? I say “get started” because I assume there is a snowball effect; if you please your first client, you’ll showcase their testimonial while pitching to the next, and so on, and eventually you have a large list of wonderful recommendations. But how do you make the first snowball?
3. Related to 2 but a little different is, how do you find potential clients? Forming your brand is making yourself appealing/marketable, but you still need to find projects/domains that you want to work on, hopefully for money.
4. What percentage of the year do you aim to fill? 50? 80? 100? What do you do during the off periods? Is it a full time job.. between jobs.. to find the next job?
5. Which brings me to; do you determine your own rates? How do you determine if they are “based”? Do the kinds of companies that hire consultants already have a good idea of what they should pay? I assume this only applies to independent consultants (i.e., if you work for a firm, they are negotiating those contracts)
6. What is the average length/tenure of any given consulting agreement? Is it a fixed set of time, or fixed “to a project” i.e., “you work on this until it’s done and we might scope creep it as we go” so the total amount of time is not known at the beginning?
7. How do you save for retirement without a 401k/401k match? I know you can put money into IRAs, but as far as I know (could be wrong!) IRAs have much lower yearly contribution limits (6kish) compared to 401ks (20k ish + match on top of that)
8. Anything else you’re dying to point out that I completely forgot to ask?

Footnotes

[1] And like, hundreds of hours fine-tuning your .vimrc

[2] It is the author’s goal to not be working for money in their 60s. That said, they live in America, so who knows.

[3] As opposed to a thrilling career in studying Category theory. Which is great, if that’s what you enjoy!

[4] mostly because in our household I am not even the healthcare provider. If the situation were different, I’m sure this list size would double with questions about benefits tradeoffs.