Promote Yourself to Manager so that You Can Keep Writing Code

A while back, I announced some changes to DaedTech with idea of moving toward a passive income model. In the time between then and now, I’ve spent a good bit of time learning about techniques for earning passive income, and I’ve learned that I’m really, really bad at it.

For example, I’m often asked for recommendations, and I respond by supplying them, as most decent humans would.

This is, apparently, wrong (tongue slightly in cheek as I say this). What I should do is have a page on my site with all of my recommended and favorite tools and the page should link to them via affiliate links. I provide the same recommendations and earn a bit of money. Win-win.

Well, I’ve been halfheartedly working on this page for a bit. Believe it or not, the most difficult part of this is seeking out and obtaining the affiliate links.

So, my page of recommendations remains a work in progress. And I was making progress tonight, securing affiliate links, when inspiration struck for a blog post about one particular affiliate.

Most of the affiliates that I’ve identified are productivity tools, editors, and other techie goodies, but this one is different. This one represents an entirely different way of thinking for techies.

As a free agent, content creator, and product creator, I have a lot of metaphorical juggling balls in the air, and I’ve had to become hyper-productive and downright ruthless when it comes eliminating unnecessary activities. I don’t watch TV, I don’t go out much, I don’t take any days off of working, even on vacation, and I don’t really even follow the news anymore.

Pretty much every conceivable bit of waste has been excised from my life, and I do a lot of work on an hourly or value basis. This has resulted in a whole new world of ROI calculations appearing before me — it’s worth paying premiums to save myself time so that I can spend that time earning more money than I spend.

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Let’s Put Some Dignity Back into Job Seeking

Alphabet Soup

I’ve seen a lot of resumes of late, so I can’t be sure where I saw this, exactly. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. This one resume really stood out to me, though, because it was perhaps the most self-aware talisman of the ceaseless employment quest that I’d ever seen. Specifically, one part of it was the self-aware part, and that came right at the end, under the simple heading “technologies.”

If you opened the PDF file of the resume, scanned down past heading info, work experience, and education, there was this bolded heading of “technologies,” followed immediately by a colon and then a comma-delimited list of stuff. It had programming languages, frameworks, design patterns, concepts, and acronyms. Oh, there were acronyms as far as the eye could see, I tell ya – the streets were paved with ‘em. (Well, they filled out the rest of the page, anyway).

It practically screamed, “this seems stupid, but someone told me to do this, so here-ya-go.” I’ve seen this before (and even done a version of it myself), but it was always organized somehow into categories or something to make it seem like manicured, useful information. This resume abandoned even that thin pretense.

Obviously, I didn’t look through this section in any great detail. I think neither I nor the resume’s owner would have considered it important to evaluate why he’d hastily typed “UML” in between some of those other things. It didn’t matter to either of us what was in that section, and, truth be told, I’d be surprised if he even knew everything that was in there.

I contemplated this idly for a bit, and then it occurred to me how similar this felt to the obligatory job description where a company lists 25 technologies under “requirements” and then another 15 under “nice to have.” UML is probably nice for everyone to have. Both job seeker and company probably list it and neither one probably knows it, making all parties better off even with a bit of mutual fibbing.

Applicants list things they don’t know because companies claim needs that they don’t have, and, in the end, the only one who profits from this artificially large surface area is the recruitment industry as a whole. The more turnover and churn, the more placements and paydays. The way the whole thing works is actually pretty reminiscent of a low quality dating website. Everyone on it lists every one of their virtues in excruciating detail, omits every one of their weaknesses, and exudes ludicrous pickiness in what they seek. Matches are only made when lies are told, and disappointment is inevitable. When people inevitably get tired of failure and settle for a mate, it’s random rather than directed.

Gah.  How depressing.  Let’s not do that anymore.  Let’s look for mutual fit instead of blind prospect maximizing on both sides.  We don’t want hundreds of potential employers or candidates.  We want a single one that’s well suited.

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My Candidate Description

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, I’m treating you to a strange post. Consider this experimental art of a fashion, I suppose. Odd as it sounds, this isn’t addressed to you, though I encourage you to read it, hope that you enjoy it, and suggest that you consider doing a version of it yourself. You’ll see why shortly.

If you’re a recruiter, you’re reading this because I sent you this link in response to an email, a message through social media, a message through SO Careers, or something else similar. Let me first say that I thank you for coming here and taking the time to read this. I mean this sincerely; as a blogger who pays attention to various forms of analytics, I’m aware of how many people drop off from a call to action, so I’ve already lost a good chunk of people to whom this is sent. The fact that you’re here and reading means that you aren’t dialing for dollars in volume the way so many of your colleagues with an “URGENT REQUIREMENT FOR A JAVA DEVELOPER IN TEST” seem to do.

Now, I realize that what I’m doing here may come off as a bit flippant or cocky, but I assure you earnestly that this is NOT my intention. As you are no doubt aware, I receive a nearly endless stream of contacts from people looking for software developers, software architects, dev managers, etc. This post, for me, is mainly about time savings. But it’s also a polite but insistent suggestion that we stop playing by old rules that no longer make sense. Gone are the days of a company putting out a job description and waiting for the “lucky” applicants to prove that they’re good enough. You know it, and I know you know it because I’ve spent a lot of time in your situation over the last few years, desperately trying to hire developers in an economy that saw all promising candidates disappear in the two days between a phone screen and a “let’s bring them in for a chat.” It’s harder for companies to find developers than vice-versa, no matter how many free cans of soda and ping pong tables your clients or you are offering.

So what I’m posting here is my candidate description that will serve as pre-screening for inquiries about my availability for work. Assuming your company or the company on whose behalf you are searching seems like a good match for my description and meets the must-have requirements, I may be amenable to further discussion over the phone. I say may because I’m quite happy with my current work situation and have almost more contract work than I can handle, so I simply don’t have much spare time.

Candidate Description

I am an experienced programmer, software architect, team leader, CIO, coach, and technologist that enjoys working with a wide variety of programming languages, frameworks, and tools. The majority of my recent development experience has focused on the .NET framework, though over the years I have worked with C++, Java, and a number of other languages. Projects range from low-level driver and kernel module programming all the way up to user interface design. Types of applications run the gamut from home automation to rigorous code analysis to line of business applications. My more recent work focuses more heavily on software craftsmanship coaching aimed at developers and IT management consulting aimed at IT managers and other positions at the periphery of software teams.

My passion for working with technology extends beyond the workplace and into my work under the umbrella of my LLC. I do various types of traditional consulting projects, but I also produce software-related content for public consumption. I create developer training videos for Pluralsight aimed at intermediate to advanced programmers. Beyond that, I am also an author and active technical blogger.

Must-Have Requirements for a Candidate Company

• Must be open to B2B contract work (unless you’re looking for a dev manager or CTO, in which case, I’d prefer a conversation first about why you’re staffing that role and potential alternate solutions)
• Must be open to considering initial arrangements of less than 40 hours per week.
• Must actively practice or encourage clean coding practices (CI, TDD, SOLID, continuous refactoring, etc.) or else want to bring me in with a mandate to get your team doing these things.
• Remote work arrangement possibilities are a non-negotiable necessity for development work, though occasional travel for site visits is fine (for programming, a bit more flexible for coaching).
• I will not consider W2, exempt arrangement for software development.  Not even for a number that you think will make me swoon as if I’ve been told I’m the prettiest belle at the ball.  Contracting a must.
• Provided I give reasonable notice, time off or with other clients must not be an issue for you.
• Position must allow creative control of software work product.
• For interviews, no brain-teaser-oriented interviews or algorithm-centric interviews (see “The Riddler” and the “Knuth Fanatic” from this excellent video about interviewing anti-patterns).  I strongly prefer code reviews and evaluation of my public code samples and am just not interested in discussing why manhole covers are round or in reliving college coursework from 15 years ago.
• Regardless of language and framework, access to the latest bits is critical for me.
• If you’re McDonald’s and you’re hiring me to build you a recipe database, I will sign an NDA agreeing not to distribute your recipe to your competitors.  Anything more strict and/or that restricts my ability to do freelance projects in any way at all is an immediate deal breaker.

Nice-to-Haves

• I enjoy working on .NET technologies and in the connected (mobile or web) spaces.  I’ll happily code away in any language, but C#/.NET is my favorite these days.
• No expense is spared on software development tools, and I can have my favorite text editors, productivity add-ins, etc.
• I have the opportunity to contribute to company blog or public thought leadership in general.
• I’d love working for a developer tools company or one that specializes in software development and surrounding expertise. If there’s developer evangelism in-role, even better.

Thanks Again

If you’re still reading, thanks again for taking the time and paying attention all the way through.  I know this seems strange, but I appreciate you humoring me, and I believe that this will save a lot of time in the long run for me and for you.  As I often tell people that I’m coaching, “it’s almost always better to fail fast and obviously,” so better you shake your head and move on to the next candidate rather than have you, me, and a phone screener all waste time only to have it come out after an hour of conversation that I’m not interested in signing an NDA and starting a W2 gig.

Readers, to address you once again, I suggest you do something like this as well.  Don’t settle; the market is too good.  And don’t let people on the hiring side convince you that you should be lucky to have a job.  I’ve tried hiring people who do what you do, offering generous salaries and a score of 10 or 11 on the Joel Test, and it was really, really hard.  Don’t settle for the first thing that comes along. Make your list, be patient, and be picky.  It will pay off.