Simon is a hands-on software architect who works within 
[Twitter] simonbrown: @kpseal that might explain why my full 99GB backup took just a few hours!
[Coding the Architecture] I did some technical consulting/due diligence on a large software development project recently where I'd been called in to look at how the project team was dealing with some of the non-functional requirements. I'm not sure exactly how large ...
Contract architects
Why don't we see more?
So, we were in the pub this evening and the subject of contracting (i.e. going independent) came up. Without a doubt, we all agreed the contract market is awash with roles that are focussed on software development. Lots of companies are willing to contract in developers to work on their projects but why not architects? The same applies for business analysts and consultants.
Regular readers will know that I'm a consultant architect. The sort of role that I undertake includes anything from short-term technical due diligence (e.g. technical architecture and development process reviews) through to being *the* technical architect on a project for our clients. Last year, I even worked on a project where I was helping to guide and mentor a team of technical architects that were new to the role.
These are high value and high responsibility roles, yet some (not all) companies are happy to outsource them to consultants. So why don't you hear about companies outsourcing these same types of roles to the contracting market? Okay, so there *are* some contract technical architect roles but they are very few and far between.
Consultant vs contract. Company vs individual. What influences this decision and why aren't there more contract architect roles on the market?
