Contractors: IR35 & general discussion

[Blown2CV]

eps said:

wombleh said:

"Senior" should be someone with a decent level of experience that can lead a piece of work without support, but it often just means the person has added it themselves to their job title and that they're a bit of a t**t. So a bit like VP, it's pretty meaningless in reality. To be fair what an organisation expects an "architect" to do would vary massively too.

65/450 would not be a great rate for any architect/design role really, but there are adverts up now for roles at those rates. No idea if they'll actually get filled, some of the ads look very familiar from last time I looked a few months back !

This and Architect now as well - when they know less than I do!!! FFS!!!!

You’ve only worked with st architects clearly. However it isn’t uncommon for engineers to be extremely arrogant too.

[wombleh]

Senior manager EA is a fairly different kind of role to your average technical IT architect, so I can believe all the numbers above. More like dealing with business structures, mergers, product oversight etc, rather than working out how to get stuff running in AWS. That'd also be why they don't advertise so much as it's a much smaller pool and in my (admittedly very limited!) experience they often hire folk they know who've done similar jobs elsewhere.

[Blown2CV]

wombleh said:

Senior manager EA is a fairly different kind of role to your average technical IT architect, so I can believe all the numbers above. More like dealing with business structures, mergers, product oversight etc, rather than working out how to get stuff running in AWS. That'd also be why they don't advertise so much as it's a much smaller pool and in my (admittedly very limited!) experience they often hire folk they know who've done similar jobs elsewhere.

sure, architecture is quite a confusing sort of career family. Software architect, technical architect, business architect, solution architect, data architect, enterprise architect... and those are just the sort of basic common names... no two clients use same definition! They tend to overlap with each other a bit, by design.

Many people see left-to-right as some kind of career progression but as an in-demand and very specialist software or technical architect you could easily earn more than all the other types.

I've been in architecture maybe 15+ years now and I am a bit disillusioned with tbh it as so many people in the industry don't really understand it, how to make it deliver value, and in many companies the reputation has suffered too. In many places it's nothing more than a glorified helper or scapegoat for other peoples' stupid decisions.

The misconceptions are rife, and you can see from my previous comment that it pisses me off that people (mostly engineers) just assume that unless an architect knows more than an engineer about the thing the engineer is working on then they are useless. Just such a blinkered and feature-ship obsessed view of tech. Stuff like that that makes me want to can it all off and open a fking wine shop!

[Olivera]

I can possibly see a purpose in a canonical data model IT architect, but in most other cases they are useless bds.

[mikef]

I have had the privilege to work with some genuinely world-class software (and hardware) architects, and they are a rare and valuable breed. In essence, a great architect will make the difference between hundreds of product team members building the right thing the right way or building something non-viable the wrong way. That’s worth a lot - as a CTO, some of my architects earned twice what I did and rightly so

That is a small and rarified community though

Also, all the top architects I have worked with have been hands-on. They will work all night with a soldering iron or developing original code to get something ready to be worked on by teams the next day

[blueg33]

In my work an architect designs buildings. I keep thinking you are all talking about interim jobs sketching fantasies

[mikef]

blueg33 said:

In my work an architect designs buildings. I keep thinking you are all talking about interim jobs sketching fantasies

I’ve worked in that world (design and build) too. An architect (and some of my best mates are very successful in that field) won’t be telling a civil engineer how to make sure that a building stays on its feet, a QS how to cost the materials etc etc. A systems architect will be able to advise every specialism on the team and do their job for them if/when needed

[sleepezy]

blueg33 said:

In my work an architect designs buildings. I keep thinking you are all talking about interim jobs sketching fantasies

Phew, not just me then. Pfft all these IT geeks are turning the World upside down When's an architect not doodling house designs!

[Blown2CV]

sleepezy said:

blueg33 said:

In my work an architect designs buildings. I keep thinking you are all talking about interim jobs sketching fantasies

Phew, not just me then. Pfft all these IT geeks are turning the World upside down When's an architect not doodling house designs!

designing various levels of detail surrounding large technology landscapes that fulfil the vast number of capabilites that businesses need to function, keep pace with and beat the competition, reduce costs, maximise profit, all that st. There are a lot of parallels between built environment architecture and technology environment architecture. If you could visualise apps, services, tools, integration, data, web, mobile, cloud etc in a physical way you could walk through, it might be a bit like a city. Most people only understand what they can see, which is why we always get asked to fix peoples' fking printers

[Gazzab]

Blown2CV said:

Guvernator said:

Olivera said:

£150k for a permie architect role is very toppy.

It isn't. Lloyds pay up to £165k for senior manager EAs, plus bonus. If you want to be a lead then it's £200k sort of base.

Am surprised that LBG pay that. I was an interim director there running a team of 750 people and we did talk perm opportunities…I can’t recall the bandings etc but I don’t recall them paying particularly well for perms unless front office etc

[Blown2CV]

Gazzab said:

Blown2CV said:

Guvernator said:

Olivera said:

£150k for a permie architect role is very toppy.

It isn't. Lloyds pay up to £165k for senior manager EAs, plus bonus. If you want to be a lead then it's £200k sort of base.

Am surprised that LBG pay that. I was an interim director there running a team of 750 people and we did talk perm opportunities…I can’t recall the bandings etc but I don’t recall them paying particularly well for perms unless front office etc

well, i was also surprised, but they do.

Edited by Blown2CV on Tuesday 2nd July 22:14

[Blown2CV]

part of it i think is that when inflation really started to bite 2 years or so ago, different companies reacted in different ways. Most didn't raise salaries at all, but some did. So, as contract rates were dropping due to demand, salaries were in some cases increasing. Might go some way to account for the narrowing gap between perm and contract money.

[CorradoTDI]

Blown2CV said:

Gazzab said:

Blown2CV said:

Guvernator said:

Olivera said:

£150k for a permie architect role is very toppy.

It isn't. Lloyds pay up to £165k for senior manager EAs, plus bonus. If you want to be a lead then it's £200k sort of base.

Am surprised that LBG pay that. I was an interim director there running a team of 750 people and we did talk perm opportunities…I can’t recall the bandings etc but I don’t recall them paying particularly well for perms unless front office etc

well, i was also surprised, but they do.

Edited by Blown2CV on Tuesday 2nd July 22:14

I suspect he meant Lloyds of London (Insurance)

[Gazzab]

CorradoTDI said:

Blown2CV said:

Gazzab said:

Blown2CV said:

Guvernator said:

Olivera said:

£150k for a permie architect role is very toppy.

It isn't. Lloyds pay up to £165k for senior manager EAs, plus bonus. If you want to be a lead then it's £200k sort of base.

Am surprised that LBG pay that. I was an interim director there running a team of 750 people and we did talk perm opportunities…I can’t recall the bandings etc but I don’t recall them paying particularly well for perms unless front office etc

well, i was also surprised, but they do.

Edited by Blown2CV on Tuesday 2nd July 22:14

I suspect he meant Lloyds of London (Insurance)

I think he mentioned it was the bank and not wanting to work for a bank in a previous message?

[eps]

Blown2CV said:

eps said:

wombleh said:

"Senior" should be someone with a decent level of experience that can lead a piece of work without support, but it often just means the person has added it themselves to their job title and that they're a bit of a t**t. So a bit like VP, it's pretty meaningless in reality. To be fair what an organisation expects an "architect" to do would vary massively too.

65/450 would not be a great rate for any architect/design role really, but there are adverts up now for roles at those rates. No idea if they'll actually get filled, some of the ads look very familiar from last time I looked a few months back !

This and Architect now as well - when they know less than I do!!! FFS!!!!

You’ve only worked with st architects clearly. However it isn’t uncommon for engineers to be extremely arrogant too.

Absolutely - well some Architects - it was more around the other comment of people adding it themselves... and as others have stated there are numerous levels of architect.. But when some don't know the basics it makes you wonder...!!!

[blueg33]

sleepezy said:

blueg33 said:

In my work an architect designs buildings. I keep thinking you are all talking about interim jobs sketching fantasies

Phew, not just me then. Pfft all these IT geeks are turning the World upside down When's an architect not doodling house designs!

My Dad was a "Systems Designer" they didn't call them architects back in those days. If you book you holiday via travel agent, he designed the system behind the pretty front screens.

[sleepezy]

Blown2CV said:

Most people only understand what they can see, which is why we always get asked to fix peoples' fking printers

Printers fine thanks, now if you could just reset my password...

Thanks for the helpful description of the IT architect role too.

[Blown2CV]

Gazzab said:

CorradoTDI said:

Blown2CV said:

Gazzab said:

Blown2CV said:

Guvernator said:

Olivera said:

£150k for a permie architect role is very toppy.

It isn't. Lloyds pay up to £165k for senior manager EAs, plus bonus. If you want to be a lead then it's £200k sort of base.

Am surprised that LBG pay that. I was an interim director there running a team of 750 people and we did talk perm opportunities…I can’t recall the bandings etc but I don’t recall them paying particularly well for perms unless front office etc

well, i was also surprised, but they do.

Edited by Blown2CV on Tuesday 2nd July 22:14

I suspect he meant Lloyds of London (Insurance)

I think he mentioned it was the bank and not wanting to work for a bank in a previous message?

yes bank.