Real Offers

These days the well known online job board pages are often loading slowly because of the unusually high traffic. Among others LinkedIn is listing many office workers open to work, from junior graduates to senior engineers.

My unpopular opinion is that in the EU the recession is here to stay, and in the USA it will end after they manage to reshape the current salary expectations. As always, the bubbles burst and the companies surviving the hard times are going to offer new work opportunities.

In a rapidly changing economic environment innovation and experimentation are essential. Even the most established companies need to adopt the startup iteration approach for some of their projects, because we are facing new problems which cannot be resolved by adjusting the solutions elaborated for old problems.

It's very possible that the purchasing power and the nature of our income sources will change significantly in the near future, but the projects will always have at least three elements: a requirement list, a budget, and a timeframe. Who has a real offer for you will always tell you about these three elements, otherwise he or she is just enjoying a business trip meant to identify opportunities.

Of course there are countless tactics and strategies out there for finding out your "last price" or tricking you, but fair treatment is a nice to have, and the negative experiences are as necessary as the positive ones. One never get too old for growing as a person. 

Fake Offers

They are part of the reality surrounding us. It takes us many years of learning and experiences to make a difference between real and fake service offers, and there is no bulletproof method for identifying all the scammers. 

The fake job offers are even more complicated, because they can appear in multiple contexts. Two formulas I've read recently on LinkedIn are about keeping a list of vacancies in order to polish the company's image in front of the shareholders, and respectively to have a pool of candidates in case a specialist leaves the organization unexpectedly.

The games of the corporate world might affect the freelance job listings as well. Ultimately the companies backing those listings have a market share, a reputation, and more often than not they have a stock market quotation. In other words they have to demonstrate stability in their activity and income flows despite of the impacts of the technology, economics, and geopolitics on the job market.

The daily count of new offers on a concrete job listing is publicly obtainable, but the daily count of contracts actually concluded and their values are trade secrets. About 10-15 years ago the market of freelancer platforms was not yet saturated, and it was possible to grow such a business despite of committing errors in a row. 

At present specialized job marketplaces are concurring for a reduced number of buyers (project owners), and a suddenly increased number of sellers (workers hired during the epidemy and then fired). In my opinion some of these platforms will probably be sold, and until that we cannot expect major changes in their policies.

The fact is that a freelancer looking systematically for projects needs to get trained for filtering out a huge volume of suspicious offers and increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes. 

When being between two bigger projects I'm taking up smaller ones, and over the years I've learned to avoid several types of offers, but following carefully selected conversations on social media is priceless, it keeps me informed about the newest tricks exploiting the flaws of this or that platform.

Go Real!

Several months ago I revisited a couple of online job listings, and at first it's been funny to read a new  requirement: "we ignore applications created by generative AI". 

Then I've stumbled upon the flip side of the coin: the job descriptions copy pasted from chatbots. And it feels more like a tendency than a couple of isolated cases. 

Think about a company led by an owner willing to make money by riding the generative AI wave. He or she is hiring rapidly some assistants good at prompting, so to acquire projects and temporary workers meant to complete the projects. Obviously the temporary task force also needs to be great at prompting, because that's the core value of the business.

In such a company all the personnel is sucked into a bubble, where the lack of technical expertise is okay, and low quality is not a problem while there is sufficient market demand for their product or service. In my opinion the basic use case of chatbots will contribute to the retooling of the companies producing for the soho market.

Recently I've started to use an online service for checking the job offers, and to filter out those authored by a chatbot. It's risky to argue with a client eventually outsmarted by an assistant tasked to publish a project-based job, which looks a good fit to my expertise, but down the road it turns into an unexpected challenge for both of us.

The companies offering text analyzers for identifying contents authored by generative AI are serving the needs of the middle market. Stopping people from doing all kind of experimentations with chatbots is not a good idea, but preventing the improper usage of generated contents is a matter of common sense.

Everything Is For Sale

I'm living in a zone, that had experienced tough times during the WW2, from deportations, shelling, and hunger to hyperinflation. In 1944 in public places you could see people selling artwork, rare books, or even household objects, because there were no jobs.

Major natural disasters, civil unrests, or devastating wars are reshaping the local society. Depending on the cultural and educational backgrounds of the community members, the spontaneously emerging market-based relationships may degrade into command-and-control based relationships, or continuous warfare between rival groups.

Either way, the market continues to operate, and in zones with electricity and Internet coverage the online market will connect people. 

In the 90's the former COMECON countries went through major economic restructurings, and in certain former Soviet states the barter was the king, many factory workers received products instead of payment. In addition to supplying their friends and families with goods received as salaries, people were placing announcements into free advertising brochures - the predecessors of the online marketplaces.

The proliferation of the Internet has brought with him the more and more specialized marketplaces, complementing the web-shops, and local advertising websites. 

It's not a new thesis, that the structure of a given population's supply and demand is characteristic to the state of their local economy, but the job market looks to me even more interesting, because it says a lot about how people controlling significant resources are thinking about the future of their industries and/or geographic zones.

As a long term telecommuter I've seen the rise, consolidation and restructuring of various freelancer marketplaces. After 2015 the numerous junior and middle level programmer job offers have been replaced gradually by a reduced number of offers for senior level specialists in development, QA, and cloud infrastructure. 

Currently there is high demand for marketing wizards, sellers, and managers expected to run smaller companies or teams. It looks like business people aren't into investing in jobs, they are mostly after cash. Since less jobs does mean less purchasing power, the "everything is for sale" psychosis looks like a signal of upcoming changes in the macroeconomic landscape.

Domain Knowledge First

 Since the appearance of computer software there have been ongoing debates about software development approaches.

When I started to use MS Visual Studio, the product has already offered support both for  the "database first" and the "code first" approaches. 

The proliferation of websites, web applications, and then the mobile apps have created demand for rapid software development tools, and have contributed to the acceptance of the "UI first" software development approach.

While the "database first" approach is still relevant to industries with slowly changing technological and business processes, the "UI first" approach is the best bet for agile teams.

Interviewing users, keeping in touch with the aim of refining the user interfaces, and then getting the client's approval require both soft skills and specific domain knowledge. 

When I was collaborating with an agency specializing in bespoke software, I was encouraged to ask questions about the business logic, in order to uncover possible gaps in the UI drafts and flows.

Missing a task, a parameter, or a criterion from the user's processes leads to issues during software design and implementation. Catching and resolving those issues as early as possible is important, fixing them later in time requires more resources (waste), and produces frictions between developers and users.

"Domain knowledge first" is about preventing the mentioned waste and frictions. Whatever software a team is going to develop, at least one of the team members needs to take up the business analyst's role, to learn about the business processes, to stay in loop with users, and to review the UI drafts and flows.

10-15 years ago the high demand for websites and apps have produced high demand for front-end developers, and in short time a diversified market offer of education in the field of front-end development. Up to a point, the newly certified or graduate task force has been absorbed by the job market. 

Then the second generation cloud technologies have contributed to the proliferation of the SaaS products. Due to the competing offers of cloud-based office tools, visual designers, and other utilities, these products have become affordable to most companies. 

Consequently, these days a front-end developer needs to diversify his/her skills to stay employed, and learning more about the company's processes (domain knowledge) might be a perfect starting point.

Dream Big?

Most business, career, or personal development books are encouraging the reader to dream big, and the authors do exemplify their advice with presenting the histories of well-known people, who achieved their dreams against all odds.

Those presentations rarely depict the numerous failures interwoven with lessons learned and changes applied, and the years of "stand up and fight" exercises teaching us that success is a by-product, gathering and keeping nearby the right team is the biggest value we can be proud of. 

Last year, in a podcast a freelance reporter stated that in his opinion there are two types of community cultures: "mantis" (searching for resources, and using up everything found), and "cautious" (capping the consumption, so to assure the renewal of resources for future needs).

I think the same mentalities are driving one's actions when we are working on finding our way in life, transforming our dreams in projects, and shaping our human relationships.

Mantis individuals are easygoing when it comes to using, learning from, and stepping over their colleagues and partners. They aren't necessarily greedy or malicious, just all their trips are business trips, and you need to have a developed sense of humor to enjoy their company on the long run.

Cautious individuals are slow in building relationships, and the other party is usually feeling enriched by some useful know-how, an achievement, or a nice friendship resulting from their interactions.

The history is showing that both mantis and cautious people may become well-known professionals, influencers, company leaders, or even presidents. The difference is in how they've touched the lives of others.

The cautious versus mantis mentality may decide the fate of a relationship, a startup, a business, or even a country. Dreaming big is great, changing our own mindset, attitude, and priorities is hard.

OODA Is the New Agile

 As a student in a communist country I was not taught about budgeting - the mysteries of resource management were reserved for a reduced number of people tasked by political leaders with the elaboration of the famous five-year plans.

Even the director boards of the biggest companies were receiving fixed funds, fixed salary levels, and strict limits on import goods. The lead economist of each entity was sending periodically a budget plan to the appropriate ministry or local authority, but he/she received approval only for the amounts of resources considered necessary by the "higher forums".

This enormously long and slow decision loop has created the false perception of economic stability in simple people, and the illusion of infallibility in the dominant class. And the regime was disintegrating slowly but surely, each bad decision contributing to the process.

The poverty produced and/or maintained by inadequate governances is affecting numerous countries, which have never experienced a communist dictatorship. So a low standard of living per se does not seem to lead to the replacement of this particular social contract, rather the incapability of the decision process to operate adaptations to the changing environment.

The agile way of managing resources is giving adequate results in the realm of a globalized market dominated by rapid technical and economical changes. While self-management, and regularly hunting for  temporary contracts is a pill hard to swallow for many people grown in a country offering generous financial aids, for billions agile is not a new lifestyle, and in most private companies the manager's role comes together with a money fund for hiring/firing people and purchasing goods, and a calendar with goals to achieve and milestones to add in.

In a fast-paced world the director board is great for defining strategic goals, but excessively controlling the other decision makers would hinder people from adding value to the company's product. It's not a coincidence, that soft skills like team work and good communication are highly appreciated in agile companies, that's the way how they work.

Last but not least, the army for a society is like the immune system for the human body, a necessary evil operating with the best possible technology. That's why OODA was developed by an air force colonel, and it was borrowed by the IT&C industry. When a small team of flying units are patrolling half of Europe, then their mutual respect and trust are making history.

Free Lunch

 The latest happenings in the realms of the crypto business and social media giants are confirming the thesis that "the free market will always regulate itself". The IT&C people with some business acumen or analytical skills were aware that changes were around the corner in both noisy domains.

In my opinion using crypto does make sense for exchanging currencies in certain unusual situations, but neither for regular shopping nor for savings. In general, supporting a cult of tricky guys at the expense of creative and hardworking people is leading to a non-resilient society.

In contrast to the web3 projects absorbing numerous juniors, the big social media companies were trying to attract seasoned workforce and retaining top talents. The novelty of digital marketing technologies and user tracking produced a hype around the AI algorithms developed and maintained by social media giants, and it generated a big number of jobs.

The data collected by user tracking can be used for showing personalized content to the user, for market analysis, and various predictions. As most people won't pay a membership fee for using social media, these companies are making money with adverts.

Over the years Facebook reinvented itself as the main global facilitator of local businesses, but Twitter was trying to keep an acceptable balance between offering a great experience to their unique mesh of communities and showing targeted adverts. 

While Facebook has been growing an algorithm focused on precisely targeted adverts and content of the user's liking, Twitter was building an algorithm meant to bring together people interested in similar ideas, activities, or projects. In this respect Twitter's algorithm was offering a unique social value - at least until the company's recent acquisition.

In 2016 LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft and repurposed as a hiring & carrier building site. I consider that for the time being their social media features are not really relevant. 

In 2019 the free tier of Google+ was shut down. They concluded that they got too many challenges for the existing user base. In other words, running an average social media site needs paying subscribers. In order to get the economies of scale necessary for supporting a freemium package (free lunch) the minimum number of unique users could be around 200 million - that would explain E.M.s great interest in counting the bots.

Enterprise vs Commercial Apps

 From the user's point of view there is no clear difference between them. The marketing narrative has always been that an app used in various big companies is a safe choice for small-medium businesses. You know.. if this or that cool-looking app is used in X company by thousands of executives, then it must be great for your shop.

From the developer's point of view the landscape has changed drastically during the last decades. In the 80s the hardware and software were not too sophisticated, it was possible to draft a compiler in a couple of weeks. Nowadays in a couple of weeks we may get ready the first demo of an app based on existing frameworks, third-party components, and services.

Over the years the software development tools have grown in complexity, have gone through differentiation and specialization processes in order to serve a rapidly growing number of domains and use cases.

As a result an IT&C student willing to work at an enterprise needs to acquire experience in specific ERP or CRM software. Configuring and administering standardized cloud-based solutions, and creating workflows with their designer extensions require a significant learning curve.

In case our IT&C student is willing to work in a software shop, he or she needs to acquire experience in  scripting languages, tools, and procedures came into existence for growing and maintaining commercial apps. Mastering all that also needs much time and dedication.

A specialist in enterprise software needs professional reconversion and years of experience to become specialist in commercial software, and vice versa, because both domains are evolving and changing rapidly.

And who is the winner? The infrastructure guys. Always. We all need a well functioning network infrastructure. That's why the software giants are investing in data centers, submarine cables, satellites, and security.

Relativization

Two years ago many millions of jobs have disappeared practically overnight, and people facing eviction or living on welfare were pushed to start shifting towards a new economic structure.

At present my zone is covered by half a dozen of delivery networks, and some of their agents are using  handhelds with great software - so where there is a will, there is a way.

The employees required to work from home have faced a more or less tough accommodation period. While telecommuting is not a new invention, it's an entirely different story if you've chosen that lifestyle as a good fit for your personality, or you were required to stay at home against your wish.

The protagonists of the big resignation are people with sufficient financial reserves to carry out successfully a professional reconversion, or their skillsets are currently in high demand. These guys have  experienced the pros and cons of their work environments, and have decided that they have enough.

The big quit is not a phenomenon in the Silicon Walley but a general tendency, including my country. People facing the passing away of a loved one are experiencing high stress levels, even if not entirely consciously. In most cases this process is determining them to reconsider their goals, plans, and priorities.

Working from home is great while we can meet in person whenever we want, because those water cooler conversations have always been the best quality food for our brains. The undesired isolation made us understood that we are social beings, we need each other to become our best selves.

The too frequent and too  long virtual meetings have triggered debates about how good or bad is agile,  Jira, and many other productivity tools. Is the wire or software the culprit for someone loving to listen his/her own voice, or not ready to organize his/her ideas, or pushing for nonsense processes? 

Quitting is about following our own calling without hurting others. The pandemic taught us to relativize the importance of money in our lives, and to value people more than processes.