I'd like to ask about the traditional technology consulting industry. Is it worth venturing into as a relatively inexperienced developer who wouldn't mind being a product manager?

There's a clear divide between the traditional IT services provider and the tech startup. Often (especially in secondary hubs like my country) the IT services players view developers as commodity labour to be hired as grunts or simply outsourced, while tech startups are often developer-centric and offer a much better experience and paycheck. What seems to matter is the orientation of the top management of the company; the traditional firms are often not run by software engineers or compsci people, but instead by general business folks.

Has any recent startup managed to become a significant player in tech consulting while retaining a developer-centric company culture? I'm interested in the idea of developers collaborating with sales/bizdev people to offer tech consulting services with a different spin. I don't know if the gung-ho hacker spirit meshes very well with the more, um, stodgy business types who'll make up the clientele, though. Anyone have successful examples?

It seems like the current tech consulting model undervalues developers and development, and I'd like to see that shaken up, especially in an industry as profitable as that. Or is it really all about marketing presentations and sales relationships in the end?

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Here's a good post on the topic by Paul Gallagher:

MNC's with a strong R&D focus, or the very successful software companies already do technical career planning quite well (I've worked in a corporate research lab that had a technical career ladder all the way up to chief scientist - who could actually be more senior and with better benefits than the CEO, depending on the incumbent).

However, in the "real world"(!), the IT industry is predominantly sales, service and agency focused. i.e. businesses that are either selling/integrating existing products, or selling people/time/projects. There are very different dynamics at work than in R&D/PD:

- For consulting firms and agencies, it is usually the case that the best revenue contributors (the cash cows) are the mid-level technical staff (3-5 years experience). Beyond that, their margin % often drops, and it is also harder to sell full utilisation.

- The pressure to be than just a pure technical contributor ratchets up pretty quickly: you are expected to take on pre-sales, delivery management, and even business development the higher you go

- Despite many of the larger firms operating locally (Oracle, NCS, Accenture, IBM etc) having a focus on technical career development, you learn pretty quickly that it is not the way to earn the big bucks. If you have the aptitude, get into sales. Pre-sales is the best bet if you want to remain largely technical, but also earn more and do less (although my friends in pre-sales would probably argue that last point!)

- The net result is that there's a general expectation that you will grow into other responsibilities pretty early in your career and leave hard-core development behind (for the next batch of grads). It is not just a local problem, but it does vary in degree:

- My own experience is that it does vary from country to country, but not by much. On the whole by the time you get to late 20's/early 30's you better be moving on up or there's trouble!

- And there can be cultural idiosyncrasies in some countries - like older generations who want to judge your "success" by the number of people working for you.

It is in places where the services sector dwarfs the product development sector that this becomes the dominant industry practice (i.e. most of the world outside of Mountain View, Redmond, Silicon Valley).

from https://groups.google.com/d/msg/singapore-rb/QsaJ-K5mQu4/61c...