A380 captain's pay

(Paul Tomblin) wrote:
In a previous article, "Robert M. Gary" said:
The cost is actually a very small factor in overseas hiring in the
software industry. Our two main motivating factors are 1) we want a
large pool to hire from, in the U.S. right now its very much an
employees market, its hard for employeers to find "good" (not the high
school kids that were hired during the internet bubble, real engineers
with real engineering degrees) programmers to pick from and 2) Since a

Bull****. At least 50 percent of the programmers I know are not working
as programmers because their employers fired them and replaced them with
off-shore workers. There are plenty of very good programmers here in the
US who can't get work because employers don't want to pay a living wage.

My experience may or may not be atypical, but I work from home (rural
Oregon) and have so far not had any problems getting as much work as I want
or need. However, I may not be typical because I:

1) Work mostly fixed-bid software development with payment due only if the
customer accepts the final deliverable (i.e. I take on most of the risk). I
do not require nor expect fully fleshed out requirements (one of the few
things 30+ years of experience should have taught me is anticipating the
probably extent that the scope may change).

2) Most of my clients have been acquired through past associations and
referrals. (Much of my work followed me up from the San Fransico bay area
where we moved from. My location puts me in the same time zone, language,
and culture as most of my clients. I also have some idea of the amount of
scope creep they engage in, so maybe I will yet be burned by completely new
clients.)

3) Try to maintain a professional customer service mindset. So, for
example, even though I accept much of the risk, I do not inflate bids to
cover alleged risk (haven't been burned yet by any clients). I also try to
go out of my way to deliver a little extra something to take advantage of
the psychological concept of reciprocity.

4) Maintain the mindset that I am running a business that delivers custom
crafted products, not a coder or employee for hourly hire.

Most of the competition balks at point (1). Not too many programmers are
willing (or can afford) to work months on a project before delivering it
and then wait another month after invoicing to get paid.

Jim Logajan wrote:

Most of the competition balks at point (1). Not too many programmers are
willing (or can afford) to work months on a project before delivering it
and then wait another month after invoicing to get paid.

well, having done it once or twice without ever seeing the color of the
money, I'd say that balking at point (1) is not totally unreasonable :-)

--Sylvain

Sylvain wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote:

Most of the competition balks at point (1). Not too many programmers are
willing (or can afford) to work months on a project before delivering it
and then wait another month after invoicing to get paid.

well, having done it once or twice without ever seeing the color of the
money, I'd say that balking at point (1) is not totally unreasonable :-)

Alas, all too often true. On the other hand, such sad stories is why I
don't worry about much competition from others using that business model.
;-)

In a previous article, Jim Logajan said:
1) Work mostly fixed-bid software development with payment due only if the
customer accepts the final deliverable (i.e. I take on most of the risk). I
do not require nor expect fully fleshed out requirements (one of the few
things 30+ years of experience should have taught me is anticipating the
probably extent that the scope may change).

In my brief experience trying this sort of thing, this is a ticket to
spending the rest of your life following a constantly changing target as
the user is never satisfied and will never sign off until they are
satisfied.

You must have been very lucky to get reasonable customers.

--
Paul Tomblin http://blog.xcski.com/
Frankly, your argument wouldn't float were the sea composed of
mercury.
-- Biff

(Paul Tomblin) wrote:
In a previous article, Jim Logajan said:
1) Work mostly fixed-bid software development with payment due only if
the customer accepts the final deliverable (i.e. I take on most of the
risk). I do not require nor expect fully fleshed out requirements (one
of the few things 30+ years of experience should have taught me is
anticipating the probably extent that the scope may change).

In my brief experience trying this sort of thing, this is a ticket to
spending the rest of your life following a constantly changing target
as the user is never satisfied and will never sign off until they are
satisfied.

The main reason I think my customers (at least) don't go into endless
target changing is because the projects address realworld problems they are
having that can't be put off indefinitely.

You must have been very lucky to get reasonable customers.

Very probable - but it may also be the nature of the kinds of projects I've
been doing and my client's underlying motivation. I believe in all the
cases so far my clients had prospects themselves who were interested in new
features or had existing customers who had feature enhancement requests. So
they had strong motivation not to dink around. I suppose that gives some
idea of the kind of work that fixed-bid is best used on.

(Generally a client who constantly changes the target will quickly become a
non-client in short order.)

In article ,
Jim Logajan wrote:

(Generally a client who constantly changes the target will quickly become a
non-client in short order.)

Except for the federal government. That is business as normal.

Jim Logajan writes:

Very probable - but it may also be the nature of the kinds of projects I've
been doing and my client's underlying motivation.

If you can restrict yourself to projects suitable for this philosophy, great.
The problem is that there are still a lot of projects that have to be done and
do not conform to this philosophy.

Generally a client who constantly changes the target will quickly become a
non-client in short order.

Not for people billing by the hour. A lot of consulting firms love such
clients.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Jim Logajan writes:

If you can restrict yourself to projects suitable for this philosophy,
great.
The problem is that there are still a lot of projects that have to be done
and
do not conform to this philosophy.


Not for people billing by the hour. A lot of consulting firms love such
clients.

What would an unemployed moron like you know about it.

Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Jim Logajan writes:

Very probable - but it may also be the nature of the kinds of
projects I've been doing and my client's underlying motivation.

If you can restrict yourself to projects suitable for this philosophy,
great. The problem is that there are still a lot of projects that have
to be done and do not conform to this philosophy.

Generally a client who constantly changes the target will quickly
become a non-client in short order.

Not for people billing by the hour. A lot of consulting firms love
such clients.

Good grief, you're not smart enough to use cutlery are you?

bertie