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>In other words, even though I agree that some developers are so highly skilled that they are essentially invaluable, if you walked into a company with an agent they'd simply put your resume aside and find someone else. I don't think we are talking about W2, full time lifetime employment here. (If we are, I agree with you) If we are talking about short-run gigs, it is completely normal for consulting houses (body shops, whatever you want to call them.) to have salespeople. Hell, I've played this roll myself. I mean, I was not very good at it, and at this time, I don't really want to reprise that role, but I could. Setting yourself up as an employer isn't hard. Getting on prefered vendor lists can be, but you can work for smaller companies without doing that part. The problem is that usually? in that role the sales person is seen as being more powerful than the worker. And in the employers eyes, this is required. That's not the problem; the problem is that everyone that does this acts like they in fact have more power than the programmer. (Oh yeah, the role here? the body shop. I've worked for body shops that had one guy, a salesguy, essentially, and then a bunch of contract workers like me. I remember this one guy; best body shop I worked for- he always paid on time. But he didn't keep anyone on staff. When one of his customers wanted a body, he'd put an email out to his contacts, or failing that, an ad on craigslist.) so how do you restructure this relationship so that the programmer has more power? I dono. Difficult, as by definition, the salesguy is a better negotiatior. |