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by VLM
1635 days ago
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Contract life "Sorry but I'm working with another client right now I will get back to you" You bill more per hour; you bill less than 40 hrs/wk; you get higher pay but have to pay full cost of insurance; it averages out. Then there's the other issue where the pay for some technology positions is so high that even if I only got half pay I'd still be pretty well off in general life ... My long term experience is people say they like working less than 40/wk but in practice everyone seems more happy with work 80 this week and near 0 next week depending on workload. If the company had precisely 40/wk of work to do every week then they'd skip the contract hassle and hire a feudal peon aka full time "long term" W-2 employee, but contractors provide day to day flexibility. At companies that are more successful than median, they don't outsource their core competencies so you won't get contractor positions to do "rockstar" revenue generating stuff, but they still need temps to do conversion projects or expansions or experiments. At companies less successful then median, they will outsource their core competencies so you could contract program at a below average software company. My point is its easy and common to get unusual side background unseen work at great companies, and only be in the middle of things at failing companies, so if you want a different combination, like being a rockstar at the center of a great company, you generally have to be a W-2, sadly. Then again there's a lot of money to be made under the contractor model. |
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a) Dependence on recruiters/headhunters who take a cut (20-50%+ of your 1099 income)
b) A strong, solid network so broad as to always have leads and offers to keep you busy throughout the year, year after year
c) A giant's reputation: you're well-known elite in one of the FAANGs and built something a lot of people use; you've published books or make speeches at conferences. You're the inventor of some open source tool everyone uses.
Since c is out of my range, I attempted b and find I didn't have that type of skill (or energy) to schmooze and booze my way to a vast network. My past connections from previous jobs are OK, but reasonably loose and they tend to hail from large corporations where there's no contract possibility for my skillset anyway.
I was left with A, which meant that I didn't truly feel independent, but also in the last 3 months of my contracts I would be scrambling and not exactly able to take those 3 months or 6 months off to travel the world like I dreamt. Instead there are lease renewal, healthcare (in the U.S.), and other headaches.
I'm happy to be proven wrong or be offered a "d" option.