I need to restore coolness to my life (by alaric)
Once upon a time, I worked for Internet Vision. I started as a programmer, then towards the end of my time there, I was their chief technical architect also looked after the internal library (which I found incredibly satisfying). The technical architect thing meant I was involved in nearly every project, working on the design of the software and troubleshooting problems that the developers hit as they coded.
I still wrote code; some bits of technical architecture, I found, were easier to express in code than in UML and prose; and the library and architecture work couldn't use up all my time.
This was fun, but alas, the pay sucked and the company was going through growing pains at the time, causing managerial problems, so I moved on to Frontwire. Again I started as a programmer, but since the company seemed to be thriving, I hoped to once more rise up to a more elevated position as the company grew. However, instead, the company shrank - but, interestingly, it shrank above me sooner than it shrank beneath, so I ended up being appointed Head of Technology, with a small department in charge of developing the software and maintaining the servers. And again, I was happy; and this time, better paid. But the company kept shrinking, and before long, it was just a small team of four of us; an MD/salesperson, a guy who did the HTML and light scripting work for clients, somebody who did bookkeeping and general admin, and me maintaining all the servers and developing the software, at reduced pay to keep the company afloat. I struggled through this, hoping for the company's fourtunes to improve so I could have my department back.
The company managed to turn itself around; money started to become more plentiful again. The reduced pay returned to full pay, and the back pay was repaid. However, in our industry, prices kept dropping; the company was making its money from value-adding projects instead, and they had a ridiculously long sales cycle (sometimes in years). I really needed more money (I wasn't sharing a flat any more, which was expensive, and was planning a wedding). So I went part time and started freelancing, bringing in much more cash.
But then we ended up moving house right at the end of a very difficult pregnancy; Sarah was in and out of hospital for the last few months, so I ended up taking liberties with the help of our friends and family to get the move done, and had to spend a lot of time looking after Sarah after the birth, so I was struggling to get my Frontwire time in, let alone do any freelancing. Benevolent clients paid me anyway for work I'd not finished, so as time began to free up towards the end of last year, I was working to finish things I'd already been paid for before I could take on new work to raise more money. Times were hard, and still are as we slowly get things out of the way and spend more time on real paying work, although I'm having to be very careful to balance what work I do when in order to keep the cashflow going. I can do work for Frontwire and be paid by the hour at the end of the next month, which is the quickest way of turning time into cash, so I've been focussing on that rather than contracts, even though the rate is much higher on contract work.
But it doesn't look like I'm destined to get my old job back. There's little interest in the company in having me do technical architecture and/or managing a department; they just want me to be a general technical dogsbody, single-handedly.
What I really want to do is to put enough money aside so that I can start to hire my own underlings. Perhaps even with an office to work with them in, although remote working via phone and instant messaging is OK as long as we can get together for meetings - I just really really miss running a programming team. I loved the atmosphere at Internet Vision, which was a place full of tecchies doing contract work in groups. Perhaps I can recreate it myself, and start getting rich again, so I can finance my personal projects once more, rather than just spending every available moment programming...
Mon 22nd May 2006 8:17 am 
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By Charlee, Mon 22nd May 2006 @ 4:13 pm
£10 per hour + and I'll program for you! You may of course have to teach me how 😉