Matt Johnson

Hard agree. Having waded through thousands of email, documents and other data I firmly believe there’s no way this could, or should, be fully automated. For example lots of times I’ve had to host calls to discuss whether to disclose particular data. A machine cannot make any subjective judgement like that. What automation can do however is help with the searches and narrow the parameters so that there can be a lot less noise.

3

The best start-up advice is often the simplest: - Do things which don't scale - Solve your own problems - Speak to users more What else would you add? Let me know in the comments 👇 -- 🎬 Clip from podcast with Avin Rabheru MBE 🔔 Follow Alfie Whattam for more like this

198

25 Comments

Why I don’t care about hacker culture - and you don’t have to either. I’m not interested in reading hacker news 🤷‍♂️ It’s the go to place for tech folks to see the latest news; any halfway decent techie *should* find it interesting. But the stuff that gets upvoted just does not interest me. It’s exhausting pretending that it does. 🛠 My first instinct when handed a shiny new tool is not to try to break it. I didn’t grow up taking apart clocks or VHS players - which seems to be the origin story of every great technologist I hear about. 🥰 And when I’m not working, I want to spend my time out with friends - not making a compiler for an obscure programming language 5% faster. What I want to remind people of, is that it’s only for a recent stretch of time that hacker culture has been the prevailing narrative of what being a techie looks like. 🍎 Previously it was the well off and well educated - considered cerebral (which included queer people and women - see Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace) 🚀 Then it was women ‘calculators’ - largely African American women - doing the work to win the space race (see the book/film Hidden Figures) 🖥 Only really when people got their own home computers did the hacker culture come about and dominate the narrative of what it is to be a coder/techie. And a lot of great things come from hacker culture - bug bounties, lowering the barrier to entry of very well paid jobs, the championing of progress over perfection. But the point I want to make is that if you don’t resonate with it, or it straight up bores you, there’s still a place in Tech for you - and your disinterest in it doesn’t bear any weight on how good a technologist you are. 🌟Go find what does interest you and become great at it. It’s out there. Just maybe not on HackerNews…

24

7 Comments

IR35 PENALISES OUR MOST AGILE WORKFORCE 🚨 𝗜𝘀 𝗜𝗥𝟯𝟱 𝗮 𝗧𝗮𝘅 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗲 𝗼𝗿 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗔𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗕𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝘀? 👀 Think IR35 was meant to level the playing field? Most of us will disagree: it's just playing more games. Lets face it: IR35 is the well meaning relative that buys you socks for Christmas every year. Except, you've got socks. Plenty of them. What you really wanted was a tiny desk hoover or a fidget spinner. 👀 ❌ Nice thought, poor execution! ❌ IR35 taxes contractors as if they were enjoying the cozy benefits buffet of permanent employment—healthcare, pensions, paid vacations— except, they’re not entitled to the benefits. Some stats to help you along - 1️⃣ Currently, 1 in 10 contractors are being kept out of work, as a result of IR335 reform. 2️⃣ 53% of contractors have walked away from opportunities that were inside IR35 in the past 12+ months 3️⃣ Three in five contractors vow to not work inside IR35 again 𝗪𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗗𝗼𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗜𝗥𝟯𝟱 𝗦𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸 𝗦𝗽𝗼𝘁𝘀: ✅ Check Your Contract Like It’s a Used Car: Regularly meet with a tax pro to keep your IR35 compliance and earnings on the smooth road. ✅ Umbrella Companies: Know exactly what shelter they offer and at what cost. ✅ Knowledge is Power, and Power Keeps the Lights On: Stay updated on IR35’s ever-evolving saga. Are you letting IR35 play puppet master with your career? Pull up a seat at our free event to unravel these knots together. https://lnkd.in/eN_V9gT6 #ProjectManagement #opentowork #outsideIR35 #contractor

20

4 Comments

🔥Exciting developments in the developer tools sector this week! From significant funding wins to groundbreaking new launches, there's a lot to catch up on. 🔗to full DevNewsletter: https://lnkd.in/ex5hunrE 🏆 Funding Wins Recall.ai Secures $10M Series A to Simplify Video Conferencing Integration Codesphere Raises €16.5 Million to Streamline Cloud Development and Slash Costs QA.tech Snags €3 Million Seed Round to Automate Away Testing Tedium Kotzilla Claws in $2M Seed Funding to Round to Simplify Mobile App Lifecycle Footprint Strides Forward with $13M Series A to Combat Online Fraud Vercel Goes Big with $250 Million Series E, Valuing Company at $3.25 Billion 🚀 Lots of Lovely Launches Keploy 🐰 Launches 'Keploy Cloud'; AI-Powered API Testing Platform Graphite Stacks the Deck for Developer Productivity with New Features and Free Plan fal Introduces Wizper: A Leap in Real-Time Audio Transcription Statsig Adds Session Replays to its Experimentation Platform LlamaIndex Presents Azure Code Interpreter for Secure Code Execution AssemblyAI Unveils Universal-1: A Multilingual Speech Recognition Powerhouse 🔦 DevTools of the Week Airbyte: Open-Source Data Integration, Your Way Codeium: Your AI-Powered Coding Sidekick 🗞️ In Other DevTools News Replit Announces Layoffs Amidst Generative AI Focus SmartBear Introduces HaloAI to Revolutionize Software Testing GitHub Copilot Gets Even More Powerful with Extensions #Develocity #DevTools #DeveloperTools #DevNews #DevNewsletter #DeveloperProductivity #DeveloperExperience #TechRecruitment

38

3 Comments

It’s not news that the tech engineering market in the USA feels... off. ✅ More Engineers and Engineering Leaders are open to work than usual. ✅ More are out of work than we’ve seen in recent times. ✅ Job adverts are getting record-breaking responses in record time. And yet, when I speak with Founders, CEOs, and CTOs of SMB-sized startups, I'm not hearing that they are finding hiring easy. In this market, it feels like it should be. So, what’s the difference between those who are struggling and those who are succeeding in hiring right now? Processes. The startups that are thriving have nailed two critical things: 1️⃣ They’ve created processes to proactively approach the right Talent. 2️⃣ They guide candidates through a seamless, engaging journey once they’ve found them. In the attached video, I share insights into why this matters more than ever to have a nailed on attraction process.

32

What's going on in many SaaS companies? 1. Redundancies 2. Failed capital raises 3. Targets missed 4. Hiring 5. Successful raises and high demand from investors 6. Targets being exceeded (new targets being created!) It’s a mixed bag of failure and success. Which group would you rather be working in? We are hiring a number of AEs exclusively for a growing SaaS company, with huge interest from multiple investors. They’ve already raised $8million and are about to close a significant Series A round. We are also recruiting within sales leadership for one of the UK’s fastest growing SaaS sales teams. Want to be part of something great and accelerate your earnings?  If you’re already within the top 10% of your sales team and considering a move, get in touch. Maybe it’s time to stop blaming the market as a whole? Hire from the sector’s top 10% of sales talent and get the best results for your firm.

17

It's surprising how many companies missed the memo on the recent IR35 changes... or aren't savvy enough to change their recruitment strategy. Mainstay Consulting predict that companies that persist with a blanket inside IR35 strategy will find it increasingly difficult to attract the best contract resource or pay 30%+ more for their contracting bill. Schedule a call to see how you can reduce costs and attract the best talent: https://lnkd.in/eqPJqFZu

20

1 Comment

Another big tech company shooting themselves in the foot by making blanket policies. 🤯🔫 The same big companies have rules against outside IR35 hiring of contractors. - We won’t tax our flexible workforce properly - We won’t give you properly secure permie jobs either - We won’t offer WFH incentives So what, exactly, big tech… are you… offering? 🤔 anyone with an ounce of talent is going to have plenty of options, permanent or contract, despite the job market being somewhat volatile. A blanket policy is a blunt force tool and uses the same mantra as punishment drills in sport: to catch the odd one or two bad actors, the whole team has to do something gruelling. And this is the best that the ‘leaders’ of these massive corps can come up with? Good news is, if you’re a smaller, more agile and more sensible business who likes working with likeminded talented people.. you’ll no doubt have the right policies in place, will let people WFH, engage with contractors properly, and you’re gonna be just fine 👍

7

13 Comments

What you should do Feel free to contact us to: - Review your digital marketing and data handling practices to ensure compliance with new standards - Stay informed about interoperability opportunities to enhance flexibility in their tech stack - Consider the competitive landscape and how the Bill could improve their market position relative to larger competitors In summary, the DMCC Bill is designed to foster fair competition, enhance consumer protections and regulate big tech’s dominance, which could benefit your business or charity by opening up opportunities and reducing barriers imposed by larger platforms.

2

2024 is a great year for start-ups and scale-ups that usually struggle to compete for talent against the tech giants. Here's why... Tech leaders are at breaking point. Hamstringed by cutbacks, unable to hire the quality of people they require, and massively open to joining other companies. Their top staff are feeling this and are jaded. We are in a client-driven market. What does this mean? Very occasionally in the tech world, we get a switch from a candidate-driven market, to a client-driven one. In a nutshell, it's about where the power lies. Tech companies need AI/ML, but they need people to create it. As with anything, there are a top 0.1% of people that are 100X more valuable than others, and the battle for their signature is fierce. Usually, the biggest companies attract these people. When there are far less open roles than people to fill them, we get a switch, where the companies gain the power. This mixed with mass layoffs over 2023 has created an unusually large chasm. I track 1000s of top-tier data science professionals. Senior Managers, patent holders, those that wrote the most impactful papers, and those that improved the state-of-the-art across all areas of machine learning. These people are hardly ever "open to new opportunities". Why? They don't need to be. The world is generally their oyster. Now, almost all of the best people I know would listen to offers. The few that won't are at companies that are still doing extremely well. There are far fewer of these than normal. A major frustration is hiring. Of course, I get an insider view of this. As an external partner, I get the complete and honest version. So here it is... Hiring Managers are tired of working with under-resourced teams. They're encouraged to work with growing internal recruitment teams that are ill-equipped to headhunt for the most specialist roles. (There are wonderful internal recruiters, but none can ever do it all). They must work within reduced budgets. They're asked to push the boundaries of the SOTA with unproven technologies seen by C-suite as magic bullets. Overall, this makes it so easy for head-hunters like me to attract the best people. But I'd still rather it wasn't. Why? Because it's still better when we have a competitive overall market, giving chances to the up-and-comers. Keep this up, and there won't be any seniors or ground-breakers. (There will, it always turns around in the end 😉 ) Hiring Managers - keep pushing back. Grads - keep going, it will happen for you in the end. Start-ups/Scale-ups - make hay whilst the sun shines (and give me a call).

12

1 Comment

IR35 / OPW: Update after all the Political Manifestos All the Political Manifestos came out this week. Here's my take on the IR35/Status position: [1] Labour: Rather silent on the whole worker status thing and rights thing. Nothing on IR35. The only way IR35 will change is when Labour do a review into the whole worker status aspect. The reports in the press where Labour plan to have a Single Worker Status are admirable, but it will require (yet another) consultation. Every time there has been a consultation on status, the report has been put in the politically too hard draw and left alone. The last one (I think), took years before a Government response, and after careful consideration, the Government decided to do nothing. Unravelling status the issue in the UK is like trying to refurbish a dilapidated Victorian house - too much to unpick, much better off with a rebuild. That said, it is highly likely Labour will be launching an independent review into the Loan Charge, which is linked to IR35 - IR35 being one of the main catalysts for the dodgy schemes entering the market. [2] Conservatives: Nothing interesting. No apology for what they have done. Too late to kiss and make up with the flexible workforce. A lame attempt by claiming they will abolish class 4 NICs for sole traders, but that misses the point. [3] Lib Dems: They get it. Ed Davey gets it. They understand the value of the flexible workforce. If they become the official opposition, as rumoured, they could have an influence. [4] Reform UK: They will abolish IR35. Yay. Reform UK are making great statements about the self-employed and small business. But, with few seats expected, not sure they will have much influence. The website Electoral Calculus may be helpful for you if you have not decided yet: https://lnkd.in/eJvwZWzF Whatever happens, let's all be kind to each other. Just remember, there's over half a million civil servants actually running the country, and whichever party gets it's hands on the wheel to the civil service tankership isn't going to turn it around in a hurry. #ir35

197

80 Comments

MONEY SPENT ON PRODUCT TALENT = GREATER LEVELS OF OUTCOMES? I missed the ProductTank where David Cox spoke but have read his blog post on Mind The Product website on the same subject Organisations starving on a diet of low-hanging fruit (link to post in comments) It's really interesting and the crux of the article focuses on the idea of marginal gains and the concept doesn't really apply in Product Because people can waste too much time on marginal improvements in areas that don't have much of an impact The piece discusses the marginal gains culture at British Cycling that led to improves Medal hauls at major championships That yes, it was part of the story, but the biggest factor was increase financial investment Which ties into a question I posed a Product leader last week........ Regardless of the Product itself, the most successful Product teams: are they successful because they are paying the best, so attract the best leaders and the best talent? My reasoning was that the best leaders and the best talent ask the difficult questions, know how to say 'no' and recognise that commercial outcomes are fundamentally linked to every task that you are committing to sprint-to-sprint. As such, that Product talent develop better track records and command better money. It's a lot like Dave's British British Cycling analogy or a Football Team: those that spend the most on talent, achieve the better outcomes. Except Manchester United of course 😂 But thinking locally to the better paying firms that invest not only in good wage levels to attract & retain, but also in their wider culture. They think about how to refine their hiring processes to weed out the mediocre talent that is invariably attracted by the money, rather the broader opportunity. Those businesses tend to perform really well, even if they weren't the first Product of their type, to go to market Cheaping out on talent rarely ends in outstanding outcomes!

9

2 Comments

Software Developers - 2023 was rubbish wasn't it? However the market is really improving with many more jobs opening up compared to last year. But - there are now a lot of engineers active in the market too.. So some advice.. ⬇ A common complaint now is that you are not hearing back after sending your CV for roles you know/think you are good for. Here are some small pointers from my own recent observations to get you in the door to start with. ✅ You are competing now... your first mistake is having an unattractive, un-readable CV. Think - if you were the hiring manager, would you like this CV? ✅ This is incredibly important for Frontend focused developers.. ⬆ ✅ Less is more... focus on roles you are good for, don't use the spray technique if you know deep down you are not suitable. It's not good for your mental health either to get unnecessary rejections. ✅ Focus on your application properly - If you are applying for a Frontend / React/FS engineer, don't have PHP or Java as a visual focus point as soon as the CV is opened... this applies to all tech roles... ✅ Follow up after a few days - don't sit back and think Linkedin will do it's magic for you once you have clicked submit. ✅ Read the job adverts carefully until the end.. there is usually important information about the working style / location / criteria. Again, saves disappointment and your own time later on. ✅ Attitude - be pleasant and positive throughout. It doesn't matter if you are nervous or maybe you think your english isn't the best, people hire people they want to work with regardless of previous achievements. Finally - interviewing. ✅ Practice and prepare for your interviews well. It might seem a given but know your current stack in-side and out, and any current trends in your area of tech/expertise. ✅ Ask your recruiter or ask the internal HR/talent if there is anything you need to prep/research on. ✅ And of course, have a list of interesting / relevant questions for each opening, and not always the same formulaic ones. ✅ Practice the commons ones - why did you leave the last role, what is clean code for you, what are some projects you failed on / were successful at. Why. ✅ ✅ Please don't give up.

24

1 Comment

THE TIMES - IR35: Taxman should stop dragging freelancers through court [Paywall] Where small businesses are involved, including individual contractors, the argument is, given the complexity of IR35, that if the individual wins at the first-tier tax tribunal, that should be the end of it. But, as we have seen, HMRC are pursuing every IR35 case to the (company)death, using unlimited access to the public purse, so they can win at all costs. Of the last seven IR35 cases won by taxpayers, HMRC has appealed 6 of them. HMRC are always using barristers at first-tier now, against individuals trying to defend themselves. In Kaye's case, it went to four hearings, until HMRC gave up. HMRC paid for (with taxpayers money) for three barristers at the final FTT hearing. That's not fair. That's David v Goliath territory. Looks a bit post-officey. #ir35 #offpayroll

469

29 Comments

HM Revenue & Customs STOP WASTING TAX PAYER MONEY. This HAS to stop! If the Government won't modify this utter shambles of tax legislation, to obtain the goal that was supposedly intended (greater tax revenue) the last thing they should be doing is dragging small Company Directors through a court system that only benefits barristers and solicitors Not only is it incredibly costly for small businesses and risks litigating them into insolvency, it's incredibly stressful (destroys people's mental health) AND it's an utter waste of tax payer money HMRC are simply trying to bully small businesses into submission even when HMRC fail at first tier. It's a strategy straight out of Donald Trumps' arsenal - litigate small businesses into oblivion to 'win' at all costs But HMRC aren't Trump, they're supposed to be protecting & supporting the Country & its Citizens, via unbiased & fair activities, yet they allow large international corporates like Amazon to pay Zero tax whilst spanking tax payers taxes on witch hunts that don't stand up in court. Their actions demonstrate a clear agenda: - Enable large scale tax evasion from international corporates - Bully & kill small UK business The resources are far better placed on increasing HMRC staff numbers so citizens aren't waiting 6 month for tax rebates Typical Tory bullying #IR35

27

20 Comments

Our NEW Software Engineering Salary Guide (for Startups & Scaleups) is HERE! Lots and lots of movement to be discussed, so if you're hiring or thinking about hiring, you'll want to have a read or risk being completely left behind. Here are some key takeaways over the past 6 months: - Mid-Senior End salaries pushing ~$160K+Super! - Senior Eng salaries up by close to $30K - Staff Eng salaries up by $20K-$30K - 10-20% bonuses on top of increased bases are becoming far more common And perhaps most importantly, new ALL TIME HIGH salary levels for top performers across most experience levels in Australia! Like I said - this one is DEFINITELY worth a read! Link is in the comments below 👇🏻

51

11 Comments