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Comment by punnerud | Hacker News Reader

This is why I love to be a consultant in a large corporation, because I can talk with a lot of people without the feeling that I have to obey the hierarchy. When I figure out the best common goal I can follow the hierarchy to get approval.

Maybe this only works in Norway..?

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As a consultant I found that you don't even have to follow the hierarchy. You know you won't be at a company forever so just ignore those who are likely to obstruct and skip the hierarchy. And once you have backing from higher up there is little lower levels can do to obstruct your invoices.

But my experience is from Sweden so maybe it only works in Scandinavia.

Oh, I got kicked out big time a couple times for that... I guess I was hired to sweat at the keyboard, not to think.

I think the difference is that you’d then be an outside consultant, meaning they are consulting you to get your professional recommendations on what they should do to serve their interests best. So inherently they already want your advice and are willing to put it in action.

Whereas an employee of any kind is not usually hired for their outside the box recommendations, but only to put into action decisions already made for them. Thus when one has an innovative idea, the company feels it is in their best interest to doubt your idea and conservatively err on the side of caution, since it’s not what they hired you for and they can’t trust your competence in innovating like that.

In other words, employees are hired to keep the status quo and consultants are hired to decide what the status quo should be for the company’s best interests.

At least, this is the best explanation I can come up with based on what people have said and mingling philosophy. I’ve never worked at a huge corporation so I could be all wrong.

Consultants are often also just hired to work on projects. Big organisations often have issues finding competent people to work on projects, and those they have are often overworked already. In such cases consultants are very useful. At the end of the projects, they are often let off. Of course, this presents other issues, and capable consultants are often kept around for far longer than the project they initially got onboard for.

I’ve gathered that this is basically the primary value of consulting.

The risk is being just one more step removed from the solution. It's hard for a consultant to punch though political problems because they are outsiders. So you can suggest a solution but the guy who needs to implement it still has to get permission from his boss's boss.

I am often the one implementing as well.

The guys I find I “fight” the most is often from OPS and in-house SW developers.

A lot of fancy terminology, web frameworks and looks beautiful but don’t get the real sh*t done that make the organization more effective or give them more money (compared to all the time used).

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