But when I look around I don't see that happening in software. I know some people tried, but I don't think it got anywhere. Instead I still see "consulting companies" that have employees, and "independent contractors" that have to constantly worry about their next gig. For people who want to be independent contractors, but don't want to do the whole networking-for-jobs thing, it seems like Hollywood-style agents would be the perfect solution.
Why isn't the software agent a thing, even a dominant thing, in our industry?
See the 2013 article in The New Yorker that describes the 10X Management model.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/11/24/programmers-pr...
Also written up in many other places. The founders frequently show up on Bloomberg News.
Pre-10X I worked with a few skilled recruiters who acted more like agents (working on my behalf) than the majority of recruiters. They’re out there but hard to find; a lot of tech recruiters don’t take the time to understand the jobs or candidates and make a good match, but some do.
The main difference I can think of is that unlike films, which are discreet projects with hard beginning and end dates, software projects never really end. Maintenance can go on indefinitely and usually the most knowledgeable people to do that maintenance are the people that built the project in the first place. That makes some proportion of people likely to stay with a project for a longer time than it takes to just code up the requirements and generally makes turnover cycles less predictable than they are for people working on films. With less predictable turnover, agents (who generally make money at the time a transaction completes rather than continuously) would have less predictable income streams so they are less incentivized to do it. Also, even in movies, from what I saw, outside of top talent who command large contracts, all the other folks didn't seem to have agents. Thats probably because the transaction amounts for a given contract don't make sense for either party to participate. All the grips, electrical people, PAs, costuming, craft services etc workers were finding work just as a software contractor might -- through connections from friends, colleagues, and people they worked with on previous projects. Many are also part of unions for their respective part of the business so I would expect they get some assistance in finding projects from that as well (e.g. if there is a union production in town they are usually required to hire only people part of the various unions -- so if you're one of the only union members in a region you could get work that way).
I don't think agents are totally incompatible with the software industry, but I do think it would take a somewhat rare combination of highly paid project with a discreet, somewhat consistent term of employment (maybe coding up financial some kind of financial model or data pipeline for a hedge fund would fall under this?) to make it worthwhile for agents to specialize in.
In short, the dynamics in software engineering are stacked against this being viable. The incentives that exist in the movie industry don't exist in software so copying the movie business model and expecting it to work the same in the software industry is a non-starter. There are probably a few more concrete reasons but those are the main differences I could think of off the top of my head.
At my last job, we had a pool of trusted contractors we pulled in for gigs. Clients found our firm through our marketing efforts. We had employed consultants, but staffing needs shrink and grow all the time. When a new client wants 3-4 people parachuted in, we would want to help. So it was great to build relationships with trusted contractors.
Much of the time these contractors had little interest in marketing and sales, but liked being contractors, so it essentially worked out like we were their agent. Almost always we kept them in steady risk and also took on much of the payment risk. (We always paid contractors on time even if the client was slow to pay us).
I think this is a pretty common pattern especially on the smaller and niche ends of the consulting space. The huge consulting firms can just afford to have a huge bench all the time. But for small firms, that’s not a luxury the company can afford.
10% sounds reasonable, it's not much of a thing in the software engineering world and it seems such a good opportunity that no-one has been able to exploit. You find the client, negotiate the rate, deal with them on the admin side or when I need to fire them, I do the work. It'd be such a nice symbiosis, in my opinion. Why isn't that a thing?
Agents that are interested in an arrangement like that, my email is in my profile. (I'm in UK)
I just got my annual call the other week, but had to refuse because I'm not planning on switching yet, but we'll be in touch.
Several times recruiters who I told the same got back to me after a set period. Does this count?
Actors have a guild which acts as a union. Software engineers don't.