The Eric Wroolie Blog

Overpass Experiences

Software Development Skills like Currency – And the value is always falling

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I can remember a few years ago having an argument with a junior developer about how long he was taking on a simple task. At the time, I was a contractor working at one of the major investment banks (Very highly paid, I might add). I had given an overseas developer a task he spent more than a week on (with a daily “Where is this?” from me— and many more people chasing me from higher up). Eventually, the developer and I started up a screen share session and I completed the task in less than an hour while he watched me do it. This happened a lot but this case was extreme – one hour versus one week plus (he was still a “deer in the headlights” and paralysed with inaction). I asked him why I could figure it out quickly and he spent days hemming and hawing over it. I mean, he had enough time to try hundreds of possible solutions but spent the days Googling for the perfect solution. He said something very funny to me:

“Well, you have 12 years experience in IT. I only have 5 years.”

It was such a strange thing to hear. I didn’t know what to say. I wondered how many times he told himself this. I also started to see why people were coming to me when they were stuck expecting me to fix everything for them when they had all the same resources I did. I didn’t have anyone to go to so I figured out everything out on my own. But they all had me. In fact, I had been in many meetings with senior managers where it was explained that a project was held up because a junior developer was waiting for my time to help with an issue he couldn’t figure out.

I had 12 years experience, the junior developer had said back then. He only had 5. Let me tell you why this was so ridiculous.

At the time, we were working with C# (a programming language). I had been working with it for 2 years. I read a few books and did a lot of projects on my own. Before that, I was working on ASP with VB Script almost exclusively. This is all way before I started with apps. But the experience kept changing and was rarely transferrable. In fact, I worried that someone who was working with C# longer than I was would do better than me. Strangely, that’s never the case.

This is one of the big problems in IT. We quantify the wrong things.

I’m a big believer in experience. Experience is the reason I get paid what I do. But, despite what it may look like to outsiders, it’s very difficult to accumulate skill over a long period of time. Technology changes so much, that’s it’s very hard to keep up with it all.

I like to compare IT Skills with money. The more you learn, the more you earn. The problem is the currency keeps changing. You start to realise that the currency you’re earning starts to drop in value over time and you need to start earning a new currency (and learn new technologies) before you go broke. I’ve met many developers who just complain (“No one is looking for VB developers at the moment.”) but the good ones start on something new. They also, to a large extent, move into an area where they know as much as the guy who just comes into the field from university.

This is scary, believe me. When your livelihood is with VB and you decide to move into C# (way back when), you go from knowing how to do everything to knowing how to do very little. Some things are transferrable, but surprisingly little. I’ve been through this a lot. Most recently, it’s with apps. I go from being the guy who knows how to do almost anything to being on par with the guy just getting into IT.

This is why the guy comparing our years of experience was so comical to me. In a way, he had far more experience than I did. What I had was confidence and no one to turn to.

It’s the same reason I give little credence to recruiters who try to sell me on a developer with X years of experience. It’s the reason I am never impressed with a developer who says “I’ve been with this company for x years and blah blah blah”.

Someone once told me that if you redistribute all wealth so everyone had an even share, in 10 years the distribution would be back to where it is now. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it sounds like it could be. Those who know how to make money can do it again and again.

I believe the same is true with software development skills. Once you know how to learn a software language and are confident that you have what it takes to learn it, it does matter how the value of your software knowledge drops— because you know you can always move into the next skill.

Delegating and Giving up Control

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So, 2016 has started and we are already a week into it. It’s already going too fast.

I get easily frustrated with how slowly things change. It usually takes other people to remind me how far I’ve come.

At the beginning of 2015, I had a small team and no work. I was so worried and struggling to keep my head above water.

At the beginning of 2016, I have too much work. Too many clients. The problem is that I have not been very good at delegating. I am up in the crazy hours of the morning and late at night doing work for clients.

The problem is with me. I don’t feel comfortable giving up control. I can do it faster and better, so “just let me do it”. This is my big mistake.

I have a teenager who is learning to drive. As I sit in the passenger seat with no control, I feel terrified. I want to just pull over and take over the wheel. But, if I do that, he doesn’t get better. So, I have to get used to having no control.

The same is true for delegating. I need to get used to giving up control. I’ve been bad about that this past year. Overpass won’t grow if I can’t relinquish control.

That is what I’m going to try to do better this year.

Talent alone is not enough

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If there is one thing I always want my kids to know, it’s that talent alone is not enough to do well in this world. Even the most talented people in the world can’t make it unless they put in the hard work necessary to make that talent count.

I recently had to let go of a member of my team. It’s a difficult thing to do as it increases my workload, but it was necessary. This seems to be a routine thing and I guess I should start getting used it.

I have a team member who started so strong and quickly became indispensable. She was talented and I felt so lucky to have her on board.  I mean, I could not believe my luck!  But, in recent months work started to get very slow and, being an online worker, I rarely saw her online in order to chat on Slack. Tasks that should have taken hours were taking over a week. But, I loved her work (the work she did) … so I let it continue but expressed my concerns. This is always a mistake. I’ve made this mistake before.

A few days ago, I found she had several online profiles for looking for full-time work with different names.  Who knows how many “full-time” jobs she has besides working for me.  I’ve been here before too.

I have to say, her talent tempted me to overlook this too.  I mean, she did great work when it was done.  But, in the end, I had to let her go. This is a problem with online workers paid based on time rather than projects— you never know how much time you are actually paying for. I need to start re-thinking my strategy here. When you pay a full-time person based on time, you can train them and help them grow— but you are also paying for a lot of what you don’t need and putting a lot of trust into the process.

A few years ago, I had hired a super-talented designer. I felt so lucky to have him working for me. I loved his work and our clients loved his work.  He worked for me for over a year. But, he was incredibly unreliable. He would go missing for days or weeks and cause me a lot of stress with clients. His talented kept him on longer than it should have, but in the end I could not continue. Same situation as now.  Talk about not learning from your mistakes.

I myself know better than to fall into this trap when I work for others. My talents (or previous hard work learning new things) are what get me jobs and contracts. My hard work is what keeps them.

Talent will give you an edge and it may even help the small stuff go un-noticed. But in the end, it is not enough.

Now, that 2016 has started, I intend to re-evaluate how I’ve been working. This is healthy and reinvention comes every couple of years anyway. With Overpass, we’re going to reduce the amount of client work we do and put more effort into our own products. Every day, I learn more and more.