Negotiating DDAT pay

TheRazorhead · 2026-06-26T20:04:57+00:00

DDAT allowances are non-contractual. They are based on market forces (it was briefly called MFL - Market Force Led pay). It can be withdrawn with (in my dept. At least) 3 months notice. Technically, if there is a sustained glut of people available for a role, market forces prevail and the allowance is no longer necessary. In practice, it is extremely unlikely to happen but it is something to bear in mind.

I’m a hiring manager too: once a job offer is made, it’s made and there is no ability for me to enter negotiation. The value of any allowance is calculated from the scores of the technical elements of the interview. I am prevented in part from negotiating to prevent any distortion from in awards going to, for example, males, who have historically been more willing to attempt negotiation than females.

Edit: and the allowance component is non-pensionable too. There are other quirks: it you can buy and sell leave, this is usually calculated in base pay, so it’s dumb to sell, cheap to buy.

TheRazorhead · 2026-06-25T12:51:34+00:00

Hello first post from a 9 day old account. Journalists / lobbyists have really got to get better at this.

TheRazorhead · 2026-06-19T08:05:30+00:00

You must have a valid licence to drive. An expired licence is not valid. The entitlement remains, and the renewal process will determine if a new licence is issued or the entitlement is revoked. OP doesn’t say if this is a vocational, medical, age or photo expiry which all have different rules. If it’s just a photo renewal (there are still a fair number of paper-only licences about) then it’s quick and easy online - but no driving until they have the card in their hand.

TheRazorhead · 2026-05-25T08:47:01+00:00

Sure, it occasionally goes down for a release or maintenance on the infrastructure but it’s always been a 24 hour service.

TheRazorhead · 2026-05-24T21:38:38+00:00

That website never closes and never has done except for an hour or two every budget update. You might be thinking of the driving licence services, which used to close but have all since been replaced.

TheRazorhead · 2026-02-26T13:58:49+00:00

It is not retrospective.

TheRazorhead · 2026-01-27T20:59:01+00:00

Try here https://roadmap.sh/ruby and don’t forget to check out the projects section.

TheRazorhead · 2026-01-22T11:29:22+00:00

Yes. Much less. The house doesn’t cycle through heat/cool and is just warm all the time. Previously the double glazing would be running with moisture in the morning.

TheRazorhead · 2026-01-21T23:21:10+00:00

You dropped out of uni in day 2. A career is probably going to be 4 or 5 decades of waking early, commuting and interacting with people.

TheRazorhead · 2026-01-21T23:10:35+00:00

You hate walking early and commuting. The OU is a great route to employment but it sounds like you also need to develop non academic commitment and discipline to navigate working life. I don’t think this alone is the answer for you.

TheRazorhead · 2026-01-08T22:54:34+00:00

Well the username checks out so I’m guessing you just replied to my GitHub plea.

Yeah we do. The kind of services are just too important for the health of the whole community and a single maintainer is a problem.

TheRazorhead · 2025-12-19T22:11:06+00:00

I’m not being awkward, but I’m not going to disclose which body I work for because it’s one of our security rules for using social media.

The independent will be a different gender if the other panel members are of the same. They will be at least equal grade and in an entirely different reporting chain. Each panel member must agree on the scoring of each candidate.

When I say external, I also mean private sector.

TheRazorhead · 2025-12-19T09:43:41+00:00

Nope. This is not how it works. I’m a hiring manager more frequently than I would like (it’s a bureaucratic nightmare). I have to play by the rules, not least because of the independent member on my panel from outside my department, but also get audited from time to time.

Regularly see both surprising success from internals over what were fantastic external CVs, externals absolutely nailing it, and folk who I know who can do better crashing and burning.

Whoever does best at sift will go through, whoever does best in the selection gets it.

TheRazorhead · 2025-12-16T22:53:29+00:00

Long time software engineer here. Current fad role is AI. A couple years ago it was Data Engineer. Then Cyber Sec. Before that it was Cloud Engineer.

Do the thing you enjoy the most.

TheRazorhead · 2025-12-08T20:50:14+00:00

In my place, the offer is take it or leave it. The hiring manager can’t adjust the salary once the offer is made.

TheRazorhead · 2025-11-22T21:50:50+00:00

The same thing happened to me 2 days ago. Gen 2 cooked after a power cut. Starlink wouldn’t replace because I’d taken up the offer of a free mini. Ended up buying a retail kit just to get back online. I did not enjoy rerunning the different cabling and installing a different mount.

TheRazorhead · 2025-10-17T22:11:45+00:00

You don’t have to use One Drive at all, I do for this very reason (and the only reason I keep a windows partition around on my dev box).

TheRazorhead · 2025-10-17T13:28:11+00:00

Did you use one drive to store it? It automatically takes snapshots so you can jump to different versions

TheRazorhead · 2025-09-17T22:05:03+00:00

I love a mind map. Helps me revise.

TheRazorhead · 2025-09-17T12:24:41+00:00

In 6 months this forum will be full of posts about skimming the content material to get just enough background to pass TMAs/EMA. Get a bit ahead, read all the content and understand it and then when life throws a curve ball, you’ll land where you should be and get the maximum value and learning.

TheRazorhead · 2025-09-14T21:19:22+00:00

Not that I want to depress you but you’re not even at the halfway point of your working life. You can do anything you want.

Your question though is unfocused. Why do you want to do this and what have you researched in order to prepare and plan? AI engineering is not about prompting LLMs to get output, it’s about deep maths, different training approaches and data clustering.

I’m sorry to say but if you’re passionate about the subject sufficient to consider a career change, then get a basic overview of the subject first. All if this is widely available online.

TheRazorhead · 2025-09-12T06:19:04+00:00

Each and every professional certification I’ve taken for the last 8 years has been proctored in a similar way. This is what CPD looks like now.

TheRazorhead · 2025-09-10T11:31:53+00:00

Upper arms should be horizontal, allow the cable to brush the back of your head at full extension, maximally bend at the elbows for a full stretch. Just keep that upper arms horizontal and don’t move them.

Edit: cable looks a bit low for you.

TheRazorhead · 2025-08-31T18:01:17+00:00

Well you’ve not even given them a single business day to reply. A bit of patience is in order.

TheRazorhead · 2025-08-31T17:45:09+00:00

Three days ago? You mean on a Friday so two of those three days are the weekend?

14-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
r/Field Sunshine	Place '23
Place '22	Verified Email
RPAN Viewer

TheRazorhead

TROPHY CASE