Paul Daley

Quick gauge of opinion - thinking of writing a talk called "Financial Literacy for Engineers" (aka everything you need to know about savings, investments and pensions but never asked for techies) ? I've been doing a whole heap of financial planning stuff recently and I've sharing bits of my plans with colleagues and friends. I get the impression that even for highly technical engineers the level of financial literacy is quite low ? Certainly a common theme of "I put into the work pension and I'll deal with pensions and stuff later coz I got bills to pay". Another common theme I see amongst my peers who are at that point is they wish they had started planning earlier. So do you think some sort of talk at tech meetups about how all this finance stuff works and what you could be doing would be useful ? (I'm not offering financial advise just making people aware of things they "could" be doing). What do you all think ?

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Should employers subsidise public transport for their teams? An interesting read from City AM today (🔗 in comments) focusing on new research from the ONS highlighting the slowdown in London's productivity growth since the financial crisis. The data suggests a correlation with low productivity and office attendance (🥱...nothing new there!). Its a sensitive issue but irrespective of your opinion on productivity at home vs in the office it appears average days per week in the office in London lags behind many other international cities. One of the suggested improvements for this is subsidising travel costs for employees. “London’s workers are by far more likely to cite that travel costs are a barrier to getting back to work than workers elsewhere,” What grabbed my attention is an interesting comparison with our French neighbours. The French labor code requires employers to cover a minimum of 50% of commuting costs, many cover the entire cost. This feels like an interesting concept that could help with the cost of living and encourage people to spend more time together. The UK has the most expensive public transport costs in Europe. British employees can spend up to 20% of their salary on commuting, whist in France data I've seen indicates this to be nearer 6%. In 2023 the average change in regulated fares in the UK was 5.9% the highest since 2012. Its not getting cheaper either! Average gross salaries in France are also higher than the UK, which perhaps reinforces the squeeze that UK commuters feel. Lots to digest but in my experience I'm increasingly feeling people do want to get together more often for purposeful and personal connections. My gut feel is that subsidised transport would help support this. But from a business perspective the potentially significant increase in organisation labour costs is a hard swallow. Additionally it's considered a taxable benefit currently. What do you all think? - Are there examples of companies in the UK paying for employee public transport to the office - do those that do see higher office attendance? and would you be happier going to an office if your travel was paid for?

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Really not my style, but I’m going to stand up for the IT world here, much like a friend of mine does in the pharma world and I’m calling out “bullshit” … (apologies) Let’s be really really careful here as the news reporting has been so bad today… and I absolutely feel for any of my industry peers that have been affected and would offer any kind of help that myself or my team could do to help you out. Yes, there have been unprecedented issues today throughout a variety of companies impacting transport, hospitals, etc but it’s not caused by Microsoft unlike many non-IT people are led to believe! I work for a company that has a very large number of Microsoft Windows 11 instances that have had no problem today as we don’t use the third-party anti-virus product from Crowdstrike. Due to clearly extremely poor release management controls, Crowdstrike have somehow managed to deploy a patch which has then blatted all Microsoft Windows devices receiving this. It strikes me that due to a lack of controls, and/or human intervention breaking these processes, that this has somehow got deployed. How Crowdstrike’s share price has only dropped 10% today is amazing, but I suspect the long term affect will be far reaching as the trust in the company is now lost. On the flip side of everything that has happened in the last 24 hours, it just further re-enforces why we’re committing so much of our time (in line with regulatory commitments ahead of March 2025) to put in place solutions that will be able to deal with situations like happened today, which was certainly not done maliciously but also set us up to respond for situations which are less friendly. Give me a shout if you want to hear about the huge amount of work we’re doing on the Cyber Resiliency regulatory effort as it’s pretty awesome Cheers Dave

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I met up with Dave a couple of months ago in Leeds to show him the latest bit of magic I created. It's just some creative use of Terraform, DevOps and some out of the box usage of existing Python libraries, but Dave thinks this stuff is otherworldly! So we're staring into my cauldron, skimming through my book of magic, and he says something to me like, and I'm paraphrasing here... "How do you handle being so unbelievably clever and having this much knowledge and capability?" To which I replied... "You know I'm only operating at about 20% in this job right?!" Which in hindsight is a ridiculously arrogant thing to say, I didn't mean it like that. And of course, folks out there would gasp "Oh only 20% effort, pay him less!!" but my point is that most days I don't even have to try. Even when I push myself to learn something new or do something in a different, more efficient way, working in tech just isn't that difficult. For me. And I still churn output that would make most folks in tech envious. I've been trying to think about why since that day. I still don't have an answer. All I know is that I absolutely love working in this field. I love working with tech, making computers go boop boop beep beep, solving business problems, wowing people every day without much effort. Although I still don't think I'm even close to a 10x developer, those guys...wow! But it's not all sunshine and roses, believe me! Often I find being efficient and highly impactive has a downside. Business people expect more. Too much. Imagine a task takes 8 hours and I do it in 1. The next task takes 12 hours and the business complains when it's not in done in 1. This is a regular occurrence for me. Even though for someone else it might take anywhere between 4 and 16 hours to complete, because I take 2 I get grief for the delay. I try to take it as compliment that people just don't like me if they just think I'm smug, arrogant, too clever, a girly swot etc. I wouldn't have it any other way, and I think at 43 I'm finally starting to accept that and stopping dumbing myself down just to be liked.

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Want to save some time like me...? Valto are running a Copilot Call Out Day today 🤳, offering our FREE Readiness Assessments and FREE AI Bootcamps in both the north and south. See links in the comments for more information 🔗 . If this is of interest then please drop me a message 📨 and we can discuss. #Microsoft365 #Copilot #AI

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Contracting has cratered the careers and damaged the earning potential of so many Software Engineers in Europe, especially the UK. When I first arrived in Europe, Software Engineers were becoming contractors instead of employees because "the pay is better" and they "liked the flexibility". The warning I gave to these engineers was that in the medium-long term contracting would harm their careers, and this is exactly what has happened in the years since. Why? 🤷‍♂️ No brand equity Long-term contractors have CVs that are littered with 3-6 month stints at companies no one has ever heard of. Now that the contractor market has shrunk, these engineers are competing with those that have had long-term roles with high growth startups, proven product teams and renowned engineering teams. It's very hard to compete in an employer-friendly market on tech skills alone. 👻 Greenfield ghosts Short-term contractors build greenfield projects and/or features and then move on to the next contract without having to support the last. It's not difficult to see how this incentivises poor engineering practices, and it leaves hiring managers wondering if you're worth the risk vs engineers who've built and supported their own deliverables. ⏳ Role longevity Any engineer who claims that their CV being filled with short-term contracts won't impact their employability is either lying to themselves and/or never been responsible for hiring engineers. Hiring is a time-consuming and distracting process, so your prospective employer wants to do it once and do it well. If you leave the hiring manager with substantial doubt as to whether you'll stay beyond a few weeks then they're unlike to want to take the risk on you. 🤝 Misaligned incentives Contractors are engaged much like external service providers like accountants and lawyers. You provide a service to me for as long as I want it, and I pay you for this service. There is little to no incentive for the company to develop your skills through training, mentoring and promotion, and there is little to no incentive for the contractor to do their best work as they won't be around long enough to support it and don't benefit financially from the company growing. So..... Do I think contracting is "bad"? No. Contracting is great for both parties if you have a highly specialised skillset built over many years where you can solve a discrete problem for a company and then move on. However, for most generalist Software Engineers especially those early in their careers it is a one-way ticket to professional obscurity. Invest in your long-term career equity over short-term financial gains.

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Progress Update 🏥 As promised, I'm sharing our progress with West London NHS. After conducting a discovery, here's what we've uncovered: The Situation: - 📈 Typical NHS setup: Large team of analysts covering various areas - 🚧 Small engineering team (just 5 people!) supplying the data platform - 📺 Engineers also handle visualisation workload The Opportunity: - Analysts are keen to take on dashboard development - a positive sign! Quick Fix? - Moving reporting workload from engineers to analysts seems like an easy solution. The Consulting Company Trap: - What would a typical consultancy do? Push everything to the cloud, claiming it'll magically solve all problems! 🤦‍♂️ Our Approach: - 💡 Laying new tarmac doesn't fix a bottleneck. Removing the constraint does! I'm thrilled to be working on this challenge! 🧠 More updates to come as we progress. #NHSAnalytics #ProcessBottleneck #HealthcareTech #WestLondonNHS

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A few highlights from my two days at #CTOCraftCon: - Matej Pfajfar taught me that having clear principles really aid you when making decisions, and that this was key to the success behind Monzo's proprietary tech stack. - David Mackey led a great panel discussion about top-to-bottom value adding, where a big talking point was how we should translate between product/finance's language and our own. Think "Value", "Cost of not doing", "Risk". - In the same panel, Oge Opara-Nadi really stood out, among other great insights was that "once you [as tech leader] step into the room, the conversation changes". - Holly Donohue gave a great overview of how to introduce probability and statistics into forecasting, to move away from static/binary target/release dates. - Meri Williams delivered an extraordinary sales pitch for Skiller Whale, which her organisation had used recently. She also hammered home the point that the "unconsciously competent" are bad teachers. - Laura Tacho delivered my highlight of CTO Craft - a compelling case for how to get developer metrics right. It's all about empowering developers to drive the goals by asking them what matters and where the pain is. Also: "No secret missions". Thanks, Laura (that one hurt 😀) - Sarah Persov brought the most passionate message that sadly cannot be said enough: All is not well with women in tech. I promise to keep this always on my mind and to reflect on this. - Dan Lake introduced great concepts around trust. My favourite is the "Trust Battery". I'm charging mine as I type 🔋 - Charity Majors opened Day 2 with a stand-up worthy performance encouraging us to move towards "Observability 2.0". Did she really say "We all test in production. Only some of us admit it". 👀 Her point is that fast feedback loops that don't cost the world is where we need to go. - Andrew Phillips delivered some great points about "build vs buy". It comes down to "Build your niche, buy your commodity". Now to agree what our niche really is (I'm working on that one!) - Mark Durrand as one of the final speakers did the devil's advocate presentation suggesting we don't need a tech strategy (of course, he was joking). One wonderful insight was that when you introduce technical change, then "don't make it a thing". It will only ever be seen as a negative and the cause of problems/delays. Proper food for thought. There were many more lessons learnt, I could go on for a long time. This really was an uplifting event - and I look forward to staying in touch with all of my new connections until we meet again in person 🤗

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Software Engineering F&*K Up Behind Passport eGate failure in all UK Airports. David Farley, who is an authority in Software Engineering and an award winning author, questions how a critical system like eGates in all UK Air ports can go down for more than 4 hours due to a WiFi failure. 😳 Then he explains the possible real root cause behind this failure. A case study for anyone interested in or developing software for critical systems https://bit.ly/4aIHKTg

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What will a new government mean for the UK tech sector? The last year has been a tricky time for many in tech 😞 Although no votes have been cast it's looking likely that Labour will form a government on Friday. If they do, what can we expect? 1. Some Certainty? - A stable political environment typically boosts investor confidence, so a new government with a clear majority should be good news 2. The new government needs to grow the economy (many of Labours spending plans rely on them doing so), so they'll be looking to boost innovation and promote startup funding. There may even be tax breaks and more grants to try and catalyse investment and growth 3. Sector specific opportunities - Green / sustainability tech, Healthcare tech, Education tech, should all benefit going by Labours manifesto. AI will continue to thrive. 4. R&D - we may well see increases in research grants and initiatives to promote university and industry collaboration What do you think? What have I missed?

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"Why don't you explain [the budget surplus] to me like I'm an 8-year old." As the year-end budget decisions approach, I can’t help but think of The Office episode “The Surplus.” It's the one where Michael has to decide on using the budget surplus to buy new chairs or replace the old copy machine. Somehow, he’s got everyone lobbying like it’s an episode of 𝘚𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘰𝘳. Pam: “Our current chairs are horrible, and we sit on them every day. Not everyone uses the copier everyday.” Oscar: “We are a 𝘱𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘳 company. How can we take pride in our jobs with this wretched copier machine?” IT budgeting can feel a lot like this. But instead of choosing between upgrades, IT should be driving priorities based on the company’s business strategy. Is the focus on scaling? Innovation? Streamlining operations? Every budget decision should support that direction. That’s why it’s so important for IT leaders to be part of strategic discussions early on. With insight into the company’s direction, IT can make proactive recommendations on the technology investments needed and the costs to do it right. Because without a strategy, budgets just go to the squeaky chairs and the noisy, broken copiers! So, this budget season, let’s leave the drama to TV and focus on what really drives business growth! #ITbudgeting #ITstrategy #StrategicPlanning #TheOffice   --- I’m Andre Siregar. I help startups and mid-sized companies grow with smart IT strategies and stronger cybersecurity. Follow me for practical tips on optimizing IT and making technology work better for you.

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Do what you love. It’s not just a saying—it’s a way of life. I started with ColdFusion in 2005, diving into ColdFusion 5 and MX 6.1. Before that, I was into PHP. Before that, ASP 3.0. But ColdFusion? It’s where I found my true passion. What about you? Have you found that one thing that truly excites you? In 2015, I delivered my first ColdFusion lecture at ITU Lahore. Those learners —some of whom are now successful ColdFusion programmers —are proof that pursuing your passion pays off. Today, 80% of our projects—in-house or outsourced—are built in ColdFusion. It’s what I love. It’s what I’m best at. ColdFusion is more than just a programming language. It’s a love. It’s a journey. It’s a career. It’s what shapes my days and drives my success. So, what are you waiting for? Do what you love. Embrace your passion. Let it guide you. When you follow your passion, everything else falls into place. Want to dive into ColdFusion? DM me for more details! Creation Next is offering a comprehensive course to get you started with ColdFusion programming. Whether you’re a beginner or looking to sharpen your skills, this is your chance to learn from the best. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to enhance your career with ColdFusion! #DoWhatYouLove #ColdFusion #PassionInTech #TechJourney #CreationNext #Mentorship

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THE AVERAGE TENURE FOR A SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER IN THE UK IS AROUND 18 MONTHS 😲 This is a crazy stat but I'm not surprised Software Engineers are in high demand Technology is still booming globally The opportunities Software Engineers have today far outweigh those other professionals have Causing a war for talent Causing Software Engineers to become 'job hoppers' Or so it might seem... Once upon a time, there was no chance I'd send your CV to my client if your profile had multiple positions less than 2 years These days, it's inevitable The average tenure of a Software Engineer 5 years ago was 3-5 years Times have changed The challenge? Companies still want to see longevity But todays market is different and doesn't allow for the same longevity as 5 years ago We recently placed an Engineer whose last 3 roles all fell under 2 years. 1 even fell under 1 year Is she a job hopper? No! She had genuine and logical reasons for each move and each move made sense She was able to fully portray this to our client, was offered and accepted The solution? Work with a recruiter who can see beyond 'job hopping' but is skilled enough to qualify a candidates application taking into consideration their drivers and motivations #beuneek

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So, at lunch today, I was asked how I run my dev team, given that it's 100% remote and fractional. The honest answer is that I don't run them. We set priorities and standards, and they liaise amongst themselves and the tester to ensure the work is done and the code is reviewed and tested. Each week, we check in on chat with a status update on what is done and what is next. Everything is offline, done via chat and email for a good reason. We have people in the UK, Vietnam, Australia and NZ. The image below is from last night's meeting at 8 p.m., our first real-time meeting in months, to accommodate the time zones. It explains why I don't want to have meetings. Not because the person was late but because they should be spending time reading their kid a book rather than working.  Now, in reality, no one in the meeting cared. There were three of us there: two dads and one soon-to-be dad. The first 10 minutes were spent talking about our first kids. After 20 minutes, the background on the next piece of work was explained, tasks were set, and the meeting was over. #Leadership #RemoteWork #WorkLifeBalance #TechTeams

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Proposed UK Exit Tax is ludicrous and less likely to affect the wealthy and more likely to affect middle England. This is simply because the more wealthy individual's fortunes are made of assets which are difficult to tax. For instance unrealised assets generally go untaxed, but this doesn't stop them being used to make purchases. Extremely wealthy individuals, also have access to a number of lawyers, accountants and financial services which will advise them on how to minimus their taxes legally. We have also seen taxes on the wealthy before, which was then shifted to the middle-class and working classes over time. This tax would simply be a forced reduction on freedom and choice, and I fear used to penalise those who need those freedoms most. The biggest issue at the moment in the UK is taxes. Taxes are too high, and the benefits seen for those taxes are too low. When people decide that they cannot work, because taxes are too high and wages are too low, then you have a sinking ship for a country. It leads to some very unproductive behaviours, where people resort to living on state benefits. Which further increases the drag on government finances. But more worrying than this, it changes people approach to life. Causing systemic issues within society. I would love to have a real debate regarding UK taxes, and the outcomes of such a high tax burden on families, and individuals. I would particularly like to discuss how the level of tax is becoming counter productive. Please comment and lets kick-off a debate on how taxes and it usage could be improved in the UK, to actually benefit the country. As many other countries have much lower taxes than the UK, and higher standards of living.

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COMPUTER WEEKLY: Outside IR35: What the Autumn Budget’s Employers’ NI changes mean for IT contractors Great piece by Caroline Donnelly on the impact of NICs changes on the contractors. There are many pressures on firms that lead to restructuring their resources, of which tax is only one. In my view, the Employment Rights Bill is likely to have a larger effect than NICs changes, bolstering increased moves by firms to hire off-payroll rather than hire employees. The market for employees is shrinking for many reasons - one massive one being AI. Firms who aren't using AI as digitial assistants are less productive than ones who are. The productivity gains are huge, enabling firms to either expand without hiring more workers, or shrink headcounts whilst satisfying workload. Labours intent with the ERB is admirable, but IMHO, all it will lead to is more automation, job losses, and less hiring, as firms move to alternative models of working. And, where humans are needed, packaging up work as deliverables and outsourcing to contractors is attractive. The case law on tax status is settled (PGMOL - Sep 2024 - Supreme Court). Firms can engage off-payroll now, but they need to adapt to models that minimise the risk of interference from HMRC. #ir35 #budget2024 #offpayroll #employerNICs.

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So my thoughts on remote working. I've seen a lot in the media recently about people getting back to the office. This is probably fine for a lot of people, but for those in my industry a day a week or fortnight is probably optimal. As long as there are the following things in place: 1. There are meetings actually booked with a definite agenda and expected outcomes also in a meeting room with a white board. 2. Someone is actually taking note of the inputs and outcomes of that meeting and action is seen to be taken. From a Team building point of view I think it's essential that the team come together occasionally. However, I have worked in places where the team came in for meetings that ended up with everyone at their desks for the meeting because a room had not been available, exactly like a remote meeting except more distractions as there's background noise from the rest of the office, after which no one talked, unless needed, because we all knew what we were doing and got on with it. People in my industry, in my opinion, work better remotely or let me know if I'm wrong and why :)

Last week I had some really interesting conversations with my network and it seems many Tech Leaders are facing the same challenges: ❌Capability Gaps Lack of internal capability delaying projects ❌Technical Debt Balancing immediate project needs with long-term maintainability and scalability ❌Tech innovation Staying at the forefront of technology innovation Interested to hear from my wider network, do these issues resonate at all? #projectdelivery #techdebt #capabilityasaservice

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PlatformCon 2024 5 key takeaways from Colin Humphreys' presentation. 1) Employ a "Product Mindset" 2) Find The Right Abstractions For Your Organisation 3) Democratise Your Platform 4) Everywhere is Brownfield, Everything is Complex 5) Day One is Easy, Day Two Thousand is Hard https://lnkd.in/gTaVE7KP

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