A developer can definitely produce software independently. I do that as well. But the question is about selling that software to the business users. This is where a good BA/PM comes in again. I have said before that in small setup such as startups etc which produce software as their core business, a developer can possibly wear all hats. But in large corporate settings, developers do not want to go through the pain of people management, bureaucracy, follow ups etc.
Seen many.If you understand business domains, have experience dealing with lines of business, managers, executives, you can freelance. Not everyone needs to (or should) write code.
after almost 50 comments, I say let the developers, BAs,PM, QAs all win. After all, we all want to get the project out of the door, make some money on the way and go home.
"I know they get paid better for doing what i Don't want to do"
You summed it up well. BA/PMs do the dirty work that developers can be shielded from. Dealing with people is always a dirty work but extremely difficult to master. A good BA/PM is one who does this well. If you can tell me that you can get anyone to do anything in a project by your people's skills, power of communication, aggression, I would pay you well and would not want to lose you.
sure. try to be the first point of contact for a massive project for anyone under the sun including fellow developers, business users, IT heads, business heads, internal consultants, external consultants, SMEs etc etc. If you can handle all their queries (email/in-person/phone call/video conference), you certainly sir do not need your BA/PM.
I used to be a programmer who transitioned into BA/PM role lately. I see and understand the pains of both sides. Sometimes, I want to switch into the technical/programmer mode where I want to solve/code the thing myself. The point is that these 3 roles even though not necessarily mutually exclusive, are very difficult to do at the same time especially in large corporate environments.
At a startup, I am not sure if do need a separate BA/PM but when you have to deal with 100s of business users across multiple countries, get everyone to agree on scope/requirements, keep effective communication with all stakeholders etc. etc., you need people who can do all these. This is where a good BA/PM comes in.
The value of a good BA/PM can never be undermined even though it can be argued that a developer usually fills these roles many times in certain circumstances.
To summarize, a good BA/PM is not someone who only is good at business/domain knowledge or a set of tools, but is someone who can deal with people, glue teams together and is not afraid to wear many hats which could include cold calling team members, pestering business users to confirm things etc. etc.
"a good developer should be able to take on all three roles"
I generally would agree with you but it is not that simple. A good BA or PM can do lot of dirty work that the programmers can be shielded from in order to focus on their core value: code/build the product. Some of those dirty tasks are:
1. dealing with difficult business users who keep changing their scope and requirements. Can you imagine if you had to develop the product while the scope keeps changing ? A good BA/PM would negotiate that for you and help stop scope creep.
2. Looking at the bigger picture. This includes ensuring all the connected project members are delivering, communication is in place, people are talking to each other and everyone is on the same page. No one enjoys doing this dirty work but it brings tremendous value to a project.
There are more like these but you get the idea. Yes there are BA/PMs that do not do their task well but incompetence is not retricted to a particular line of work, is it ?
Agreed with multiple versions of Resume. I have always believed that what you know does not matter. What you can offer the prospective employer that they are looking for, matters. Big difference.
"But you would say anyway that it would do more harm then good?"
Not at all. It may not do any harm but it may not do you any good necesarily. Usually, recruiter/managers scan only for 2-3 seconds unless they find specifics that they like.You can keep Page 2 of course. There is no hard and fast rule.
" am a soon to-be new graduate "
I am assuming you do not have any real world experience yet other than internships possibly. In that case, anything over 1 page is overkill in your case.
In general, 2-3 pages is max. that a Resume should have. Anything over that, it is pointless.
I suggest you keep your 1 pager resume and another doc. where you list your projects/experience in detail. If anyone is interested, you can share your detailed doc. in addition to your 1 pager Resume/CV
EDIT: since the OP has clarified his experience, I did not mean to insult his experience earlier. But like i said, for recent graduates, usually 1 pager is good enough in the US at least. It could be different for other countries. For example, I know that in India, people even add their date of birth etc. on their Resume/CV which is actually not required/recommended in the US.
Definitely a good move. The idea is not just that you might get hired. The idea is to get visibility to the outside world of people, share what you know and learn more in the process or just enjoy yourself while you blog. Of course, your chances of being somebody from nobody goes up significantly.
Ok thanks all. So you can possibly get an EIN using an agent. But I am sure that you cannot incorporate certain entities such as S-corp (which I own btw). But good learning otherwise.
Interesting points. Yes there are many parameters that could be application specific but i was wondering if some of them could potentially be provided as libraries ? for example, able to select subdomain style vs. others, set a billing cycle with certain parameters? etc. Or am I already too specific to be a framework ? Just wondered.
One thing to note. The blog writer Girish already had lived in the US before and had a social security number without which I do not think you can get a federal EIN. So if you have never been to the USA, you cannot have a social security number and which means you cannot incorporate? I will stand corrected if someone has better information.
sorry you misunderstood or I did not ask clearly. I am not looking for just a framework. I am alread aware of ROR and Django. I am looking for a framework that can help build Software-as-a-service (SAAS) applications.
"I'm looking for $105k but your company is so awesome that I might just be willing to give up a bit in exchange for $AWESOME_PERK."
Good luck negotiating that unless you are in high demand. Also I don't quite follow your argument. The only disadvantage of disclosing salary could be the fact that the candidate is aware of how high they ca go in a negotiation. But if the job is well priced, that should not matter.
I personally like to know the range because I do not want to waste my time with low ballers or waste the hiring manager's time by expecting something that they cannot match.
Then using this logic, why only ban iPad purchase. Why not laptops, PDA etc. Point is that it is stupid to do what this particular apple store did. They assumed that just because the person spoke foreign, they are foreigners and not US citizens.
If it is really to enforce export laws, why dont they check that at the airport when people are actually leaving the US ? This store should apologize and teach its employees to behave better.
I absolutely agree that salary ranges should be specified. It makes it easier for both the candidates and the hiring manager/recruiter upfront. The idea of a range is that the lower limit is absolutely guaranteed if hired while the differential of upper-lower is negotiable depending on candidates skills, experience and how well they impress the hiring manager. Also, most hiring managers do not have a lot of flexibility over a range since the salary ranges are decided by HR (would you believe:).
The first thing I ask any recruiter is the money part. Yes it is not the only thing when you look for a job but that covers 80% (made up number) of what we all need. Warren buffet once said "money is not everything. but make sure we make enough of it before talking such nonsense"
also FYI. Most people in the US do not have free SMS/text messaging plans like other countries. Text messaging is unfortunately expensive here. That is another reason to add email which is readily available these days with smartphones. I know it is weird but most carriers in US charge you extra on top of minutes and data plan.
I checked it out. If you input is not good (for example, I entered letters in the phone number field), it breaks the app and exposes the entire Django stacktrace since it seems ilke DEBUG is set to True. I guess this is a small side project of course but thought to point it out.
"I can't think of any reason why any of these people would de-friend me."
I am actually on the opposite side. I have so many fb friends that I wonder if they should actually be my friends on fb since I hardly havae any context remaining with them (met them during college etc. but never kept in touch afterwards).Yours is a nice problem to have.
For Expenses, you can http://www.expensify.com. I personally use it and it is awesome. It has the feature to take receipt image from smartphone and upload to your account. Check it out.
For integrated billing and expense, I was thinking of building my own which will integrate freshbooks and expensify along with import/export feature.