Sign of the times?
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Yippie! I could move home and earn much less in a part of the world that costs twice as much. I'm all over that one, thanks for the tip :D I trust you, your beau and your livers survived ACCU?
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MidwestLimey wrote:
Yippie! I could move home and earn much less in a part of the world that costs twice as much. I'm all over that one, thanks for the tip
Yep, that's the UK. At least here in Bournemouth we have a plentyful supply of ice cream, though!
MidwestLimey wrote:
I trust you, your beau and your livers survived ACCU?
We did indeed...after being Lakosed last year I was relatively careful when I made an appearance in the bar, and managed to avoid the worst of it. :) The Conference was great as ever - I must get around to writing up my notes! :-O
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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If this is your first indicator that these times have signs (and I know it isn't) then wow. :-D What this is to me is a sign in the development of or maybe the refinement of classes within "developers". If you see that sign you will laugh, keep walking to the cafe', wip out your notepad and work casually on your project before your 2:00 meeting. If I see that it's because I'm on my way to the climbing gym to practice "maintenance" of a different kind. However, Beasley that 18 year old kid down the street that learned HTML while tuning his MySpace page is going to think "Wow! A real programming job!" He will go inside. The company on the inside will talk with him for 3 minutes and say, "Wow a real programmer." He'll get the job working for that non-profit recycle newspaper read by 5000 bored people who eat lunch at those quick-eats places and his job will be setting up the advertisers list online for visitors to the free newspapers site who want to advertise. He'll love it. The company will love him and the rest of us will use that paper to pad the items we are shipping to various parts of the world. It's no more a sign of the times than it ever has been. It's simply a cheap net, designed to catch a cheap fish that will get deep-fried in 4,000,000 grams of fat oil and sit under a heat lamp for 2 hours before it is served to the college student getting a major in political science in that urban town of 4,000 people. The rest of us will never find jobs that way and probably never have. Word of mouth will get out and land us work with talented companies and talented people. If after 6 months we discover the company is neither talented or viable and the same is said of it's "people" we'll move on in the same manner in which we arrived. It won't take us long to land a gig that will line our wallets for 8 to N years and the food chain is maintained and maybe even better for the "Administrative C# Developer". When I see stuff like that my first thought is, "I wonder if I can get fries with that." Not because I like fries but because if the rest of menu sucks and I need food they are at least pretty hard to screw up. There are signs and there are times but rarely are the multiples of each other. Obama or whoever else you follow is a sign of the times. Like him or hate him he is more a sign of the times than a job description will be at least for the next 3.8 years.
code-frog wrote:
If this is your first indicator that these times have signs (and I know it isn't) then wow.
Of course not. We have the kangeroo circus (which is unusually entertaining this week) in the House of Commons for that!
code-frog wrote:
However, Beasley that 18 year old kid down the street that learned HTML while tuning his MySpace page is going to think "Wow! A real programming job!" He will go inside.
I thought that at first, but the salary indicates they are looking for someone with experience (it's what I was earning 10 years ago as a senior dev, having moved from my previous company for a 50% rise - you get the idea) - so I doubt an inexperienced walk-in would get an interview. More likely they are looking for someone with 2-5 years experience and a degree. I don't take signs too literally BTW* - it was just the first post title I could think of last night (I was working until 11pm, so the thread here was my wind-down). I just thought it was interesting, and wondered what others would think of it. * especially the ones that say "No Entry". I mean, really! ;P
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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Henry Minute wrote:
Hi Anna, long time no hear.
I've been buried in paperwork (last year's accounts - ugh!) and the ACCU Conference recently, but I'm back now (just in time to go on holiday next week. Yay!)
Henry Minute wrote:
The thing is, we might be in the Admin Pool, but are we angels?
I try not to be. Angels don't generally carry throwing daggers. ;)
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:
I've been buried in paperwork (last year's accounts - ugh!)
I hear you on that one. It's filing time at the end of next month for us, and I've been wading through treacle getting it all finalised.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:
Angels don't generally carry throwing daggers
No, but when they do, they have a tremendous element of surprise!!
Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!! Booger Mobile - Camp Quality esCarpade 2010
LOL very true!
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:
I've been buried in paperwork (last year's accounts - ugh!)
I hear you on that one. It's filing time at the end of next month for us, and I've been wading through treacle getting it all finalised.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
Ours are about to go off - I'm just glad to get it out of the way. :)
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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Very good. But I doubt anyone knowingly writes crap code.
Nah I think a lot do. Either due to time pressure / threats of being fired if something isn't rushed through or in some cases people intentionally making their code hard for someone else to take over and maintain.
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Ours are about to go off - I'm just glad to get it out of the way. :)
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:
Ours are about to go off
Accounnts with blue touchpaper - cool! :laugh: My b/f is on an explosives course next month but I can't go along :^)
Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.
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Thanks, I was about to start a new thread for the following, but now I may as well highjack yours. :-D I was just talking with a recruiter who seems to be under the impression that if you do C# you do ASP.net, and that if you do WinForms you do VB.net -- it seems he's never seen a listing for WinForms with C#. Granted, I don't see many, but I had assumed that it was because there are so few WinForms opportunites to begin with.
In my last office I was tech lead on the web app team and we moved from VBScript/Javascript to C# in 2002; the desktop app team used VB and would have moved to VB.Net (in 2008!) if we hadn't moved to C# years earlier. I think that management see winforms as being a VB or VB.Net thing - and if you have a team on VB, management will surely assume that upgrading from VB6 to VB.Net, say, is not much more than the move from VB5 to VB6, say. I think that you'll find that the guys that went down the web route 10/15 years ago will not have willingly have gone down the VB.Net route later (have you ever used VBScript?) - but sometimes tech is dictated by management. Logically: c/c++ or web --> c# vb --> vb.net
"If you reward everyone, there will not be enough to go around, so you offer a reward to one in order to encourage everyone." Mei Yaochen in the 'Doing Battle' section of Sun Tzu's: Art of War. .
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Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:
Ours are about to go off
Accounnts with blue touchpaper - cool! :laugh: My b/f is on an explosives course next month but I can't go along :^)
Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.
"Big ba-ba-boom!" (or is that an exploding sheep...?)
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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Saw the same thing in London in 2001, senior dev for 10 pound an hour. Bottom feeding, scum sucking, rotten mongrel agencies trying it on every time....
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH
The £10 ph or equivalent : 1 Someone trying to justify a work permit (no we can't get anyone in this country at the market rate for these skills) 2 A company trying to justify outsourcing (ditto) 3 A company genuinely trying to get something for nothing on the basis that there's bound to be someone willing to work for that money. TBH not sure that an agency would benefit from such an advert, it won't skim many CVs and it won't get anyone unless they are desperate and/or useless. It's more likely to be low-rent employers looking to take advantage IMHO.
"If you reward everyone, there will not be enough to go around, so you offer a reward to one in order to encourage everyone." Mei Yaochen in the 'Doing Battle' section of Sun Tzu's: Art of War. .
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I was wondering into town this lunchtime and spotted a sign outside "Office Angels" (a high street recruitment agency) saying "C# Programmers Wanted" (if anybody cares, the location was Bournemouth and the salary £35k pa). So now we're in the admin pool, it seems. I must get me a new typewriter... X|
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:
salary £35k pa
Another sign of the times is that this is the most commonly quoted salary for a senior dev in the UK and it's been unchanged for at least the past decade - hence falling real income... :(
Kevin
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When my previous company decided to shrink up and close it's center here, I had applied for some admin positions. Ended up being reinvited for an interview and found out it was for a compnay I had worked for 4 years previous. same position, lower pay. I quickly walked away from that one. I do agree, it is the sign of the times however. I also think this goes along with our previous convo about the good and bad of headhunters. At the same time one would have to ask " "do I need the exp? do I need the money?" Once saw an ad for a " junior programmer" and the requirments needed were that of a Senior level. To me that says they want to keep costs low and not pay the tech alot, or the agency does not know their tech well. :/
Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:
I was wondering into town this lunchtime and spotted a sign outside "Office Angels" (a high street recruitment agency) saying "C# Programmers Wanted" (if anybody cares, the location was Bournemouth and the salary £35k pa). So now we're in the admin pool, it seems. I must get me a new typewriter...
///////////////// Groucho Marx Those are my principals, if you don't like them… I have others.
NightJammer wrote:
When my previous company decided to shrink up and close it's center here, I had applied for some admin positions. Ended up being reinvited for an interview and found out it was for a compnay I had worked for 4 years previous. same position, lower pay. I quickly walked away from that one.
Good for you.
NightJammer wrote:
I do agree, it is the sign of the times however. I also think this goes along with our previous convo about the good and bad of headhunters. At the same time one would have to ask " "do I need the exp? do I need the money?" Once saw an ad for a " junior programmer" and the requirments needed were that of a Senior level. To me that says they want to keep costs low and not pay the tech alot, or the agency does not know their tech well.
Its just life, you reckon you're worth x the companies/agencies reckon your worth y. In good times y > x (most of the time) In bad times (2009/10, 2001/2, 1991/2) x > y (most of the time) In 2011 everything will be better - its just the 'getting to 2011' that is the hard part.
"If you reward everyone, there will not be enough to go around, so you offer a reward to one in order to encourage everyone." Mei Yaochen in the 'Doing Battle' section of Sun Tzu's: Art of War. .
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Perhaps not, but the fact is most code is crap if assessed from a modern perspective (testability, maintainability, complexity, defect count, etc.) At the very least, there are a lot of developers out there who are inadeqately trained, and rely on their employers for training and mentoring (both of which are likely to be out of date and inadequate). It's a real problem - of that I don't think there can be any doubt.
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
Agree entirely - too many people take their own career development for granted. Reckoning that if they work hard and do what their bosses tell them they'll be alright. It creates hasty code and a perceived dumbing down of IT stock ... and for the people in question they suddenly find that their 'skills' no longer have a market worth talking about.
"If you reward everyone, there will not be enough to go around, so you offer a reward to one in order to encourage everyone." Mei Yaochen in the 'Doing Battle' section of Sun Tzu's: Art of War. .
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Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:
salary £35k pa
Another sign of the times is that this is the most commonly quoted salary for a senior dev in the UK and it's been unchanged for at least the past decade - hence falling real income... :(
Kevin
I've noticed. You can actually significantly earn more than that working as a driver for London Underground these days.
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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Agree entirely - too many people take their own career development for granted. Reckoning that if they work hard and do what their bosses tell them they'll be alright. It creates hasty code and a perceived dumbing down of IT stock ... and for the people in question they suddenly find that their 'skills' no longer have a market worth talking about.
"If you reward everyone, there will not be enough to go around, so you offer a reward to one in order to encourage everyone." Mei Yaochen in the 'Doing Battle' section of Sun Tzu's: Art of War. .
Too true. The real problem starts when those devs start mentoring newcomers. In such an environment it is very hard to foster a positive attitude to self-learning and quality improvement.
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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I was wondering into town this lunchtime and spotted a sign outside "Office Angels" (a high street recruitment agency) saying "C# Programmers Wanted" (if anybody cares, the location was Bournemouth and the salary £35k pa). So now we're in the admin pool, it seems. I must get me a new typewriter... X|
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
I have just come back into looking for work (5 years .net experience) and I am seeing a serious decline on the rates, several asp.net web developer roles at £150-200, lots at £200-250 well down on what I was expecting. Also there are quite a few perm jobs advertised at £25-35k which a year or two back would have been £35-45k+ Is this just hiring managers and recruiters putting the squeeze on us because there are more applicants so they can and see who will accept lower rates just to get employed? Or are recruiters (for contract) advertising at lower rates in an attempt to maximise their agency margin?
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I have just come back into looking for work (5 years .net experience) and I am seeing a serious decline on the rates, several asp.net web developer roles at £150-200, lots at £200-250 well down on what I was expecting. Also there are quite a few perm jobs advertised at £25-35k which a year or two back would have been £35-45k+ Is this just hiring managers and recruiters putting the squeeze on us because there are more applicants so they can and see who will accept lower rates just to get employed? Or are recruiters (for contract) advertising at lower rates in an attempt to maximise their agency margin?
m3ntat_ wrote:
Is this just hiring managers and recruiters putting the squeeze on us because there are more applicants so they can and see who will accept lower rates just to get employed? Or are recruiters (for contract) advertising at lower rates in an attempt to maximise their agency margin?
I wouldn't be at all surprised if rates were depressed because the clients are twitchy at the moment (understandable) but I'm not sure to be honest - I've been out of the mainstream when it comes to salary for 5 years now (when you start your own company you can't expect to be able to pay anywhere near market rates for a while) so my perceptions are slightly skewed.
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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124 oz dollars a day? That is woeful.
------------------------------------ "Possessions make you poor, wealth is measurable only in experience." Sun Tzu 621BC
If someone does take that salary, they should be flogged! :mad:
You are here - through no fault of mine!
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code-frog wrote:
If this is your first indicator that these times have signs (and I know it isn't) then wow.
Of course not. We have the kangeroo circus (which is unusually entertaining this week) in the House of Commons for that!
code-frog wrote:
However, Beasley that 18 year old kid down the street that learned HTML while tuning his MySpace page is going to think "Wow! A real programming job!" He will go inside.
I thought that at first, but the salary indicates they are looking for someone with experience (it's what I was earning 10 years ago as a senior dev, having moved from my previous company for a 50% rise - you get the idea) - so I doubt an inexperienced walk-in would get an interview. More likely they are looking for someone with 2-5 years experience and a degree. I don't take signs too literally BTW* - it was just the first post title I could think of last night (I was working until 11pm, so the thread here was my wind-down). I just thought it was interesting, and wondered what others would think of it. * especially the ones that say "No Entry". I mean, really! ;P
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
You might call my reply (or at least I was thinking of it as) some very watery, weak humor. I understood your signs very well and I have to be honest. I don't like the signs I'm seeing.
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To be honest it probably hasn't - after all, how many professional software developers would think of looking at the jobs posted by a temp agency?
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
how about one that got slammed with a surprise lawsuit from the ex wife a month before the youngest child turns 21 and she cannot extract any more money anymore. Suddenly needed a "extra" $2500 to get a decent lawyer. Looked at temp firms even tried some sites like "RentaCoder.com" .. turns out there are a whole lot of people out there, mostly with little experience that will work for less than Starbucks pays in my neck of the woods. To add insult to injury, I had 2 bidders ask me what I;d charge to "fix" the low bidders code ( you get what you pay for)