I wonder why the Darwinism principle is not functioning for a corporate environment?! I've seen a lot of small/medium companies built on wrong/old ideas but still surviving. For me it's like a long illness, you won't feel it, everything seems normal, but the aim is totally chaotic and when you are totally out of sync with the economic reality, the company will be crushed.
I'll tell you about my experiences working for a few companies as contractor. In one company, let's name it VoiceX, they struggled to come on the market with a stable product for almost 4-5 years. A lot of people came, understood the business and left the company but a few of them were persistent and stayed through the thin and thick. When I arrived there, there were at least 8, max 12 developers, mostly with at least a few years with the company- oh, the timing was important for the story - was after the IT industry burst (2000-2001) and the beginning of the end of Nortel era in Toronto offices. I'll talk about my interviews in that period.
A lot of people were on the hunt, mostly from dot com companies and caught in transition from previous glitzy e-commerce/VB/ASP shops - damn, they were everywhere ! - to unflattering jobs. I even knew about a waiter getting a job in a Java shop. One other comment, Canada is totally different than USA job market!
One of my job hunting tricks for a new contract job is to find companies in the same business/market I worked in. Coming, at that time, from a Nortel stunt, I googled for telecom/voip/call center companies in Toronto. I got an interview with a few of them, some partially successful, some not. VoiceX was a perfect match for my skills, and I pitched them with my resume months before I landed the contract. After three/four attempts I got a call asking me to come over and speak with them. We talked almost two hours, got a test with some code to write and tested my social skills.
After a few days they called me again to see their CEO and speak with some other VP guys.
After a short dance we agreed on the contractual terms with the condition I would consider a full-time offer at the end of the period. Why on earth would you like a contract than a full-time, would you ask? I suspected they have a skeleton buried somewhere in CVS/SVN/Visual Source Safe and needed a new rat-lab to develop on their ideas. This was true, but with a cynical twist, though.
The project VoiceX wanted to finish was a valiant attempt to crack into some Microsoft technology in which the guys from Redmond discouraged everyone to step into. Discouraging in ways like:
VoiceX had at least two brains cracking the nut, with a semi-failure. I don't know about you, but my life as a contractor was to get a piece of code, not documents, no people around and asked to make it work.
After three month I had something semi-stable and in the range of functionality. After six months, that piece of software was almost done - 90% of their requirements were filled. Suddenly during my beta testing they switch the platform (from 9X to MS Server 2003 ) and a lot of the APIs failed to comply with my code. I had to cover the new platform in the same agreed period. My previous achievements were forgotten and trashed, of course. I had to undone/redone what was their Gordian knot. When the sky cleared for that product we restarted the full-time/contract dance. I told them the truth- they hired me as a next bet for a failed project. Why not continuing as it was? Because the leverage was gone, they had the product, was expensive but at least presentable to the customer. I left for the next contract with a bruised ego but more aware of the business reasons you are brought in as a contractor.
I'll tell you about my experiences working for a few companies as contractor. In one company, let's name it VoiceX, they struggled to come on the market with a stable product for almost 4-5 years. A lot of people came, understood the business and left the company but a few of them were persistent and stayed through the thin and thick. When I arrived there, there were at least 8, max 12 developers, mostly with at least a few years with the company- oh, the timing was important for the story - was after the IT industry burst (2000-2001) and the beginning of the end of Nortel era in Toronto offices. I'll talk about my interviews in that period.
A lot of people were on the hunt, mostly from dot com companies and caught in transition from previous glitzy e-commerce/VB/ASP shops - damn, they were everywhere ! - to unflattering jobs. I even knew about a waiter getting a job in a Java shop. One other comment, Canada is totally different than USA job market!
One of my job hunting tricks for a new contract job is to find companies in the same business/market I worked in. Coming, at that time, from a Nortel stunt, I googled for telecom/voip/call center companies in Toronto. I got an interview with a few of them, some partially successful, some not. VoiceX was a perfect match for my skills, and I pitched them with my resume months before I landed the contract. After three/four attempts I got a call asking me to come over and speak with them. We talked almost two hours, got a test with some code to write and tested my social skills.
After a few days they called me again to see their CEO and speak with some other VP guys.
After a short dance we agreed on the contractual terms with the condition I would consider a full-time offer at the end of the period. Why on earth would you like a contract than a full-time, would you ask? I suspected they have a skeleton buried somewhere in CVS/SVN/Visual Source Safe and needed a new rat-lab to develop on their ideas. This was true, but with a cynical twist, though.
The project VoiceX wanted to finish was a valiant attempt to crack into some Microsoft technology in which the guys from Redmond discouraged everyone to step into. Discouraging in ways like:
- not enough documentation or samples
- few people knew for sure the whole functionality
- cracking that project, could have opened the market of piggy backing a MS product (you see all the accessories for iPhones or iPads right now)
- twisted and foggy ways to get information when is not available (tools to explore APIs and flow of the calls ..)
VoiceX had at least two brains cracking the nut, with a semi-failure. I don't know about you, but my life as a contractor was to get a piece of code, not documents, no people around and asked to make it work.
After three month I had something semi-stable and in the range of functionality. After six months, that piece of software was almost done - 90% of their requirements were filled. Suddenly during my beta testing they switch the platform (from 9X to MS Server 2003 ) and a lot of the APIs failed to comply with my code. I had to cover the new platform in the same agreed period. My previous achievements were forgotten and trashed, of course. I had to undone/redone what was their Gordian knot. When the sky cleared for that product we restarted the full-time/contract dance. I told them the truth- they hired me as a next bet for a failed project. Why not continuing as it was? Because the leverage was gone, they had the product, was expensive but at least presentable to the customer. I left for the next contract with a bruised ego but more aware of the business reasons you are brought in as a contractor.
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