Michael (& Altay) continues to do a lot of me to excel in my other life goals. They provide advice, outlets and scheduling (via assistant) for me to take my art and science career ahead just as much as my software. If they weren't interested in my best interest of being happy on my own standards above all else then I wouldn't be with them for ~2yrs now.
I want to also note here that I leverage 10x to do less recruitment for jobs and more with purely figuring out which are the best opportunities to pursue at that time. Personally speaking, I want to spend as little time on the planning / business side of my tech career as possible so I can use that time to focus on my other pursuits. I trust (& they've proven) to be able to make the most advantageous choices for me professionally with long term goals in mind.
> Many contracting firms are taking anywhere from 50-75%
The only firms I know of taking that kind of cut target governments, which carries a lot of risk and is very high-touch. They need a fancy office and a lot of overhead just to stay in the game. Perverse, I know, but the way things are.
The firms in question then charge very high rates to cover all this, and keep a large percentage of it, as you say. The contractors who actually do the work end up seeing about as much as they'd see in private practise (~$800-1000/day from a chargeout of maybe 1800-2200)
Source: friends working for this kind of company in Australia.
The highly branded companies (Accenture, PwC, IBM, etc) do take at least 50-75%. If the owner has a big name or a special in, they can still get 50%. It's a market that's ripe for disruption.
The reason this exists is fear. The project sponsor wants to be able to say, "Well, I hired the best," in case things go south.
yes you would have thought that a real rock star is in the 2/3k per hour range and I do know some one who has done that ex cto of international mobile company
How are these agents any different than other contracting firms, other than their supposed access to the best?