A team advice
I was recently accepted into a team and will start applying for missions. I'm wondering when you set working hours and join a missions, is the mission team flexible with meeting times? Is most work async? How feasible is it to work a j1 with the same hours as the A.team role?
I know it can be team dependent but trying to get a general sense.
19 Replies
adverse-sapphire•4mo ago
@James Maxwell @totaldev figured i'd make an a.team thread to consolidate advice. Any help is much appreciated.
stormy-gold•4mo ago
Depends on the project. You get a slack channel and 1-2 sync meetings per day per mission. They try to track every hour as closely as possible.
fair-rose•4mo ago
is the mission team flexible with meeting times?Depends on the client, for the most case, yes. But i would make sure you have a collaborative attitude / don't give off any indication that you're going to be a "hands off contractor".
Is most work async?Usually heavy onboarding at the beginning to hit the ground running, then async.
How feasible is it to work a j1 with the same hours as the A.team role?It's only difficult because most of the hours set aside will be hours worked. You should be a seasoned senior to "stretch" goals, but dont make it obvious you're only doing 5 hours of work and billing 20.
stormy-gold•4mo ago
I'm not a fan of a.team because I feel they try to squeeze people to produce as much as possible.
adverse-sapphire•4mo ago
I don't understand how they can squeeze. If i estimate a task to take ~10 hours, will team leads argue that it should take less?
and how are they tracking?
fair-rose•4mo ago
if it's consistently off, they can complain to your account manager
and a lot of the teams already know / can estimate fairly accurately . i've met senior engineers who are pretty on point with their estimates
stormy-gold•4mo ago
The managers are technical. If they think a task should take 5 hours, you can't say it'll take 10, and they expect you to work 5.
fair-rose•4mo ago
yeah, some could be forgiving, but this is one of those "we need to trust you're able to do the work before you can start fudging around hours"
i.e give it a quarter or two lead time to "work hard" whatever you define it to be, and then there's a bit more flex after
stormy-gold•4mo ago
Most missions are pretty short though.
adverse-sapphire•4mo ago
I see. Makes sense for them to skeptical a bit early on.
One other q - any advice on requesting a mission that your skillset matches? Project work should speak for itself, right?
stormy-gold•4mo ago
They usually give you an assessment project for each type of skillset.
adverse-sapphire•4mo ago
unpaid?
stormy-gold•4mo ago
Mine have been paid.
adverse-sapphire•4mo ago
that's good at least
stormy-gold•4mo ago
I know some people have unpaid assessments though.
adverse-sapphire•4mo ago
so many hurdles lol but got it ty
stormy-gold•4mo ago
They can be ok but if I'm stacking I wouldn't bother because the higher comp isn't worth the much higher effort.
adverse-sapphire•4mo ago
what are some better alternative for stacking that you've found? just going for 2nd w2 job? or find j2 and seeing if they'll hire c2c?
stormy-gold•4mo ago
Any of the above. Multiple W2s is the easiest.
Expectations for FTEs are low.