I wanted to share some thoughts on having been a contractor for the last few years and how what I've seen ties into how we as an industry recruit developers and how we can do better.
I started my career as a contractor and was basically treated like a meat grinder. Not a lot of training and not a lot of cushion if you screw up. very little mentorship. No job security whatsoever, so if they don't like you or whatever, you can be out on your ass with no recourse. I wish I hadn't started out that way because of how difficult it was to learn good habits later.
It definitely exacerbated my latent PTSD from adolescence.
Had to take prevacid every day to deal with anxiety induced heartburn.
Companies should be clearer about recruiting candidates.
Companies should be willing to train people.
It isn't hard.
We're smart people.
We just need a positive environment to grow in,
like plants.
I hope this is useful to someone.
Because the way we recruit people right now doesn't work for companies or devs.
I've been left to flounder and it's the worst feeling as a professional.
No one should be made to feel that way by their bosses.
We all have a responsibility to do better as an industry.
Top comments (2)
youre not alone buddy. not even gonna go into my first job. but microsoft TRICKING me into becoming a contractor aka v-dash was the worst event in my life (and I had cancer). also share ptsd epispodea stemming from it.
fuck
Ultimately I found for myself that most of the stress and work hours and constraints we put on quality come from ourself.
There people at work that work 30hours a week if you don't count breaks. Some others take no break and also work for 60hours a week or more. Some take care of the quality, some other do not care at all.
As long as you provide a minimum level of productivity people will accept you as you are. There more demand for developpers than there are developpers anyway.
For me you should try it. Restrict the number of hours you put into you job to something reasonable, inside theses hours, include some time to train yourself. Improve your code quality, you knowledge of frameworks, whatever that would help you grow. If asked to size task, be sure to take decent margins and be sure to count somebody working at a normal pace... And when you are late, communicate it instead of just trying to work overtime.
Spending quality time with your colleagues and bosses would also help tremandously.
And there on last key thing. Again there more jobs than there worker in that industry. There are nice companies and bosses and project and terrible companies and bosses and projects. Some would hire you after 6 months or 1 year as a constractor, some other will never do it even if you have the productivity of 100 average developpers. Don't waste time to work for such companies/bosses/project. Switch to another team, to another project, to another company. And before doing so, take the time the ask other what that other boss, that other project or company look like. What are the work condition are people happy there?
It is terrible to think there terrible job position out there, sure, and you can't expect other to do it for you. You boss to suddenly change his heart, your company to suddenly care of its employees, put them on training or a wonderful project to materialize overnight for you to work on... It is your life, nobody else will stand for you.
The good thing is that if you try and do it, you'll find that not difficult at all. You can train, you can get liked by your colleagues and boss and ultimately hired. You can avoid being over worked... It mostly your decision and if you do it in a bit senssible way, nobody will have issue with that. If anything they'll respect you more for it.