heh. Consultants are the people who couldn’t meet our hiring bar, so we pay them twice as much to avoid any long-term responsibility for outcomes. They are useful at making sure our devs have asked the right questions and considered the right options. But the actual analysis and decision starts and ends on the team (and management) that’s going to actually run the system and deal with the consequences.
Not everywhere, and not as completely sane as I’m stating it—there’s a lot of truth in Dilbert. But if it’s too bad where you are, go elsewhere. There are good software teams and they’re hiring.
Do you have a reliable way to distinguish good teams from bad ones, before you sign the paperwork and put in your notice?
I’ve stayed in jobs I wanted to leave a couple of times now, because my team was a reasonably good team and I was afraid that elsewhere I would end up with Dilbert’s boss.
More importantly, the overall software dev market is such that you can change 3-4 times in one year without really limiting your prospects, as long as you can explain what you’re looking for and why you think the next one is it. You probably can’t do that two years in a row, but trying a new job isn’t a life sentence, it’s an exploration.
heh. Consultants are the people who couldn’t meet our hiring bar, so we pay them twice as much to avoid any long-term responsibility for outcomes. They are useful at making sure our devs have asked the right questions and considered the right options. But the actual analysis and decision starts and ends on the team (and management) that’s going to actually run the system and deal with the consequences.
Not everywhere, and not as completely sane as I’m stating it—there’s a lot of truth in Dilbert. But if it’s too bad where you are, go elsewhere. There are good software teams and they’re hiring.
Do you have a reliable way to distinguish good teams from bad ones, before you sign the paperwork and put in your notice?
I’ve stayed in jobs I wanted to leave a couple of times now, because my team was a reasonably good team and I was afraid that elsewhere I would end up with Dilbert’s boss.
Not terribly reliable, but you can get a start by asking Joel’s questions (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-steps-to-better-code/) and Kate Mats ones (http://katemats.com/questions-for-candidates-to-ask-in-an-interview/).
More importantly, the overall software dev market is such that you can change 3-4 times in one year without really limiting your prospects, as long as you can explain what you’re looking for and why you think the next one is it. You probably can’t do that two years in a row, but trying a new job isn’t a life sentence, it’s an exploration.