Chat with a former Xero colleague.
He recently started working as a contractor. It’s been about six months. The client is Fonterra, and he mainly works on an app targeted at farm owners. His work status has been going well—he also goes into the City to work every week. He’s also studying how AI can improve work efficiency, and how designers can collaborate with AI. When we talked about this, I realized that in this area I’m already fairly ahead. Many designers likely have similar needs.
He mentioned three things he learned that were especially valuable in that company:
First is communication. The company has had quite serious internal communication issues. As a senior, he’s done a good job on this, which might also be one of the reasons his leadership values him.
Second is building trust. He has built solid trust with the CEO and the technical team.
Third is delivering value.
At the moment, his mindset is still in a contractor mode, but he’s slowly transitioning toward becoming a design consultant. This reminded me that I should meet more people who are actually working as consultants and learn more about it.
One thing that’s quite interesting: the experience of getting this job is very similar to my experience of landing my first client. In both cases, it’s like you don’t really know where the idea came from, and then the universe responds—take a call or meet up, talk for one or two hours, and then the thing gets decided.
He also mentioned that the local market rate for contractors in New Zealand is around just over 100 NZD per hour. Going higher locally is hard to find, so he needs to look outward and expand into the US, the UK, and Australia.
He recently started working as a contractor. It’s been about six months. The client is Fonterra, and he mainly works on an app targeted at farm owners. His work status has been going well—he also goes into the City to work every week. He’s also studying how AI can improve work efficiency, and how designers can collaborate with AI. When we talked about this, I realized that in this area I’m already fairly ahead. Many designers likely have similar needs.
He mentioned three things he learned that were especially valuable in that company:
First is communication. The company has had quite serious internal communication issues. As a senior, he’s done a good job on this, which might also be one of the reasons his leadership values him.
Second is building trust. He has built solid trust with the CEO and the technical team.
Third is delivering value.
At the moment, his mindset is still in a contractor mode, but he’s slowly transitioning toward becoming a design consultant. This reminded me that I should meet more people who are actually working as consultants and learn more about it.
One thing that’s quite interesting: the experience of getting this job is very similar to my experience of landing my first client. In both cases, it’s like you don’t really know where the idea came from, and then the universe responds—take a call or meet up, talk for one or two hours, and then the thing gets decided.
He also mentioned that the local market rate for contractors in New Zealand is around just over 100 NZD per hour. Going higher locally is hard to find, so he needs to look outward and expand into the US, the UK, and Australia.
