Developer to Consultant

How can a software developer make the transition from selling their labor(writing a code) to selling their expertise?

Examples of Developers Turned Consultants

• Reuven Lerner. Link
  • Positioning statement: Teaching Python and Data Science around the world
  • Service offerings: courses, corporate training
  • Expertise: Data science
• Tracy Lee
  • Service offerings: traning
  • Product offerings: swag, courses
  • Expertise: frontend
• Eve Pocello & Alex Banks
  • Company: Moonway
  • Product offerings: books
  • Service offerings: workshops
• Frank Rietta
  • Company: Rietta
  • Expertise: Security, Dev/Ops
  • Service offerings: ALL OF THEM
    • Business Analysis
    • Security Audits
    • Agile Training
    • Scrum Training
    • Staffing Consulting
    • Maintenance and Monitoring

TODO: turn this into a table

TODO: Articles to Read

• https://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2017/10/11/4-tips-to-become-a-consultant-for-your-second-career/
• https://www.cio.com/article/2377724/cios-must-become-technology-consultants.html
• https://daedtech.com/software-consulting/ <— great list for a starting point
• https://daedtech.com/consulting-skills-you-need-without-the-vague-platitudes/ <— another list of skills to develop.
• https://www.9lenses.com/7-consultant-best-practices-client-deliverables/
• https://www.davidafields.com/the-perfect-consulting-deliverable/
• https://www.quora.com/What-deliverables-do-management-consulting-firms-provide-their-clients-with-during-and-at-the-end-of-an-engagement
• https://daedtech.com/what-do-you-know-people-pay/
• https://daedtech.com/my-realizations-about-software-consulting/
• https://daedtech.com/how-to-become-a-management-consultant/
• https://daedtech.com/slice-life-money-works/
• https://searchitchannel.techtarget.com/definition/consultant

Flavors of Technical Consulting

• Source: this comment on Reddit, based on Amazon positions
  • **Account Manager **- coordinate everyone else involved with the account
  • Solutions Architect - Similar to sales people, they are showing customers "the art of the possible" and working with customers to show what can be done. May or may not be hands on.
  • Engagement Managers - similar to scrum masters or project masters
  • Technical Consultants - actually working with customers and developing solutions
  • Technical Account Managers - provides ongoing support. Constantly on call.
  • Fractional CTO - fill the CTO role for a company that doesn't have the resources to hire a full-time one.

Example Service Offerings

• Corporate Training
  • Example: https://lerner.co.il/courses/ - In this example they have a specific course material they walk people through.
• Workshops
• Audits

Example Areas of Expertise

• technologies

  • AWS

• problem areas

  • accessibility
  • security
  • HIPAA
  • scalability

  Notes

  • Idea from the Tom Critchlow discord: use an existing book / framework to try and bootstrap a consulting practice. For example, scrum / agile practices. Quote from the channel:
    • One opportunity that's been mildly helpful for me to do more strategic work is to leverage existing strategy books+frameworks in your domain that you can then apply for your 'client' (be it an actual client or an internal one).
    • By reading & considering a decent business book* somewhat deeply you:
      • Will be 95% ahead of the game where most people have heard the meme but have no idea what the substance is.
      • Have a bunch of thinking done for you -- no need to start from scratch.
      • Can leverage the authority & credibility of the authors behind the book... and cover your ass somewhat if it fails.
      • Can look at existing case studies where [whatever framework] worked/failed and use that community knowledge.
      • Bootstrap your way to your own DIY framework: https://tomcritchlow.com/2019/06/27/frameworks/ :)
      • Use the strategy + implementation as a one-off, test-the-waters project, rather a whole career-level commitment.

• Old thread from Adam Wathan about productized services and value-based pricing. Source: "Value based pricing is absolutely the best approach for work that can be productized, but custom software development is not that type of work."

• Interesting thread on "software as solutions": McKinsey has started buying software and selling solutions to clients, instead of pure strategy. I suppose selling solutions is higher leverage than selling strategy? Maybe the real play is this: solution > strategy > labor. Thread Link

• Found that the Entrepreneurial coder podcast looks like a great resource for learning about independent work and developers-to-consultants types. It appears the most common bridge is training products, and then training services.

Open Questions

• How important is large company experience when it comes to consulting? The Yak Collective seems to think its important enough to include on their brief member directory page. Is it a 'requirement?'
• How can developers work in higher-context and share the problem with stakeholders?
• Who has made the developers to consultants leap, and who has a business like I want? What can I learn from them?