Sometimes a job description isn’t a job description.
It’s a group chat of unresolved problems.
“We need a Data Migration Lead.”
Then the brief says:
Own the migration strategy. Clean the data. Coordinate SMEs. Manage defects. Own testing. Run cutover. Get business sign-off. Possibly make tea.
Every line on that list is a real problem. So nobody wants to cut one. It feels like saying that problem doesn’t matter.
At that point I’d want to know: which part of this actually needs this person’s capability? And which parts are there because nobody else has the capacity or ownership to pick them up?
Capability: someone who’s done a migration like this before. Capacity: extra hands to clean the data and run the tests. Ownership: someone who can make the call and get sign-off.
One senior contractor can still fail inside a blurry brief. Not because they’re not good enough. Because the list grew one fair request at a time. Nobody asked if one person could carry it all.
And that changes who I’d put forward. Five people can have “data migration” on their CV. I care about something else: have they dealt with the version of the problem you actually have?
A senior contractor is expensive. A month spent finding out the role was three jobs is a month of that rate. It won’t show up anywhere. It just looks like a slow start.
