From: jgd@dixie.com (John De Armond)
Subject: Re: Hiring, specialization, and so on (was: Software as PE)
Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 23:43:41 GMT
Organization: Dixie Communications Public Access.  The Mouth of the South.
Distribution: na

claird@NeoSoft.com (Cameron Laird) writes:

>1.  is there something inherent in software
>    work that makes the contractor/high
>    turnover/narrow specialization/inade-
>    quate training/... constellation more
>    probable/profitable/desirable than
>    obtains in other engineering domains?

Yes.  I'll be addressing the business environment only.  Academics/research
is not addressed.

There are several things.  One is the invasion of business by the MBAs
and the chaos that has resulted.  National Columnist Mike Royko wrote
an article on this last week that addresses the issue better than I 
could.  The bottom line is the corporate environment in the typically
non-high-technology company is intolerable to the creative types who
are good programmers.  Dress codes, the demand for abject comformity,
office politics, the technological illiterates, salesmen, all these
are the anathema of the creative programmer.  Over the last 5 to 10 
years I've observed the mechanism work to distill the corporate computing
staff down to those who are incompentent and simply want to draw a paycheck
and those who are temporarily stuck in some place they don't want to be.
As a contractor, I know that my stay in a given company is short, I know
I don't have to become immersed in the corporate culture and the money
I charge makes up for my having to be in the corporate office.  Plus
I can do things as a contractor, such as work out of my office, that
direct employees (mushrooms) cannot do.

I don't see this confined to just software.  Back when the hot chip of
the day was the new Z80, I worked for M&M Mars as a staff engineer.
I was a duck out of water and lasted barely 2 years.  Mars more or less
explicitly admitted that contractors were the way to go by farming out
almost all design and engineering to contractors.  Staff engineers
were supposed to do nothing more than administer the contracts and 
consult to maintenance.

Another consideration is that the truly creative people who make the 
best programmers get bored and are seldom challenged enough to keep
their attention.  Contractors, on the other hand, can change jobs
as often as they desire.

Finally  there is the ever-increasing interference of government in 
employer-employee relations.  Anti-discrimination laws, OSHA, Americans 
with Disabilities Act, the coming mandatory leave law, unemployment and
workman's comp and all the other bullshit the government dishes out
supposedly to benefit employees is making it increasingly more
attractive to use contractors.  As an employer, I will do everything I
can to keep my staff size below the trigger points of the various laws.
Contractors let me do that.  The contractor also benefits because part of
the money I'd have to spend on mandated employee "benefits" can be paid
as compensation.

>2.  has the answer to 1. changed in the
>    last ten years?  How will it change in
>    the next ten?

Oh absolutely.  Downsizing and the continuing movement of job opportunities
from the corporate monoliths to small enterpreneuring enterprises means
fewer and fewer businesses can afford to keep the deadwood on staff.
Small companies just flat don't have enough work to keep a staff of 
engineers or programmers busy full time.

What we're seeing is proof that several hundred thousand smart businessmen
can always outsmart a few hundred congresslime and bureaucrats.  We'll
figure out how to make money regardless of what Congress tries to do
to us.

John
-- 
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