IT Consulting - Anyone do / done it?

numnutz · 25 Jun 2012 at 17:50

Hello all,

Bit of a general post, looking for general responses and know there will be some people on here! I've just been offered a consulting role at a large IT consultancy, and I'm a little hesitant to accept and leave my current role as a engineering manager / snr developer for a small company where I've been 18 months. Key motivatin for leavign is lack of career development, and false promises of getting hands of the code, and more into bigger picture. I can code, I'm just not enjoying it so much anymore. Consultancy has defined career path, better benefits, but will most likely be a lot more stressful / hours / oh and probably a suit everyday.

What's the pluses / minuses? Money is pretty much what I'm on now + commuting costs, as I'll be travelling into London from Basingstoke everyday (currently have 20min commute across town).

Thanks!

- Ross

Trifid · 25 Jun 2012 at 17:51

Unless the money was significantly better, I wouldn't bother.

Will Gill · 25 Jun 2012 at 18:04

I did it for ages, very profitbale but very insecure, so much so I was out of work for nearly 6 months, I used to contract in mayfair for 6 months then go skiing for 6 months, worked great till the recession, now I'm much more cautious and realising I'm not peter pan anymore so a full time job with security suits me much more even if it's boring

Vtec9k · 25 Jun 2012 at 18:28

Sounds like he means working for a consultancy rather than contracting.

To be honest you're experience sounds just like any other small company, you're never going to get totally hands off or do a full time project manager/architect type role because of the size.

If you think the new job will give you the career development you want then it's a no brainer.

Haircut · 25 Jun 2012 at 19:06

It all depends what you want to do with your career.

I worked for a consultancy for a while and it didn't really agree with me. There was always a push to get more involved with the pre-sales side of things, doing pitches etc. and that's not really me.
It sounds as though you want to move away from the day to day coding work, so if that's the sort of appeals then go for it.

I was always more keen on delivering good solutions once the sale had been done, and they wanted that to all be done off shore with the on shore guys focussing on doing the sales jobs.

YMMV, but that's my experience. In the end I stuck to doing what I enjoy and went contracting, which is working our pretty nicely so far.