Home > Articles > Programming

The Nomadic Developer: Surviving and Thriving in the World of Technology Consulting

This chapter from Aaron Erickson's book, The Nomadic Developer, provides specific strategies for keeping your position as a technology consultant, even when times are bad.
This chapter is from the book
  • Keep your sanity and avoid living in fear when tough economic times inevitably occur.

Like clockwork, the economy will go through boom and bust cycles. Many people fondly remember the dot-com bubble—and not so fondly remember the dot-com bust that followed it. In Silicon Valley, you even see bumper stickers such as, “Pray for Another Bubble.” Hope is well and good, but it isn’t the best career strategy if you want to have some semblance of sanity when the news media is pounding fear into your head via dreary economic prognostication headlines day in and day out.

This chapter provides specific strategies for keeping your position as a technology consultant, even when times are bad. Although there are no guarantees in life—you could perfectly apply all these techniques and still be laid off—it does not hurt to do everything you can to maximize your chances of getting through the downturn with your job and career intact.

Reality Check: Avoid Fear and Greed

There will be times in your career—particularly as a highly coveted technology professional—when you feel invincible. When times are good, recruiters are calling you every week, and it feels as though the wind is at your back. It is easy to assume the good times will last forever. For a time, in the late 1990s and the first three months of 2000, such thoughts were helped by numerous magazines telling us that there was a new economy, centered on the Internet, created by software developers. This “new economy” would be impervious to the economic cycle, and the world had changed forever.

  • In 2000, we went from a wild sense of enthusiasm in the first three months of the year, until the dot-com bubble crashed, at which point the enthusiasm quickly turned into a sense of doom (see Figure 6-1).
Figure 6-1

Figure 6-1 From boom to bust in six months.

If you let your sense of how the world was doing be controlled by the cover stories in the business press, you went from a sense of wild enthusiasm—a world where software people would be hailed as masters of the universe—to a sense of total doom—where it would be hard for competent software developers to find work flipping burgers. For most people, the story all seems very overblown, in both directions, thinking about it in hindsight. The world of technology did not become a utopia during the boom, nor did the sun stop coming up in the morning during the bust.

We humans have a tendency to romanticize the good times in the past and demonize the bad times that, as we read from the business press, will occur in the future. The sober reality is that the truth is neither: The good times are probably not as good as we remember, and the bad times will almost certainly not be as bad as we fear.

Surviving in the technology consulting business requires making good career decisions. If you assume that every upcoming bump in the road is going to be the ruin of the company you work for, you will likely put yourself in a worse position by possibly jumping ship and leaving perfectly good consulting companies for jobs that might appear to be stable but really are no more secure, and often substantially less secure, than jobs in consulting. Making good career decisions depends on not overreacting to the news and getting jittery when headlines are making it seem as if the world is in imminent danger of ending. It means not succumbing to the fear and greed that recruiters and others will try to use to take advantage of you.

  • Survival Strategy #1: Avoid making decisions from a place of fear or greed. You really do have nothing to fear but fear itself.

The consequences of fear, in particular, go beyond leaving a company too early. When software developers are operating from a place of fear, they cease to communicate bad news to the project manager, thinking that being the bearer of bad news will lead to being removed from an engagement. This leads to project managers, who might be operating from fear themselves, not communicating bad news to the project sponsor. This leads to the sponsor miscommunicating to his or her board, or worse, to his or her customers. This, of course, leads to something worth fearing: a client potentially failing because of fear. It should not be a surprise that fear—and the poor decision making that results from fear—kills more technology consulting companies than recessions do.

In this respect, surviving means using your head, not your heart, to evaluate your current and future prospects. When times are good, it means moderating your prospects and being realistic with yourself. And when times are bad, it means working hard and doing things to increase your marketability, but still continuing to think of both the short-term and long-term implications of your actions.

InformIT Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites, develop new products and services, conduct educational research and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by InformIT. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.informit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020