[malort]

Can you elaborate on "contracting through recruiters"? Did you respond to recruiters who were reaching out to you with full-time positions and say "no thanks, but what about a contract instead?" If so, do you have any particular strategies for getting to a "yes" with that approach?

Or did you mean that you reached out to recruiters and worked out a finder's fee arrangement if they brought you contracts? If so, how did you find recruiters to work with who weren't already engaged with clients and might therefore have a conflict of interest?

[Haydos585x2]

I live in Australia so it might be a bit different in your country. The work started for me as shorter term contracts e.g. a recruiter would say "I'm looking for someone on a 6 month react JS project". I would provide them with a day rate and go work for the client as a standard employee. Overtime this has led to me meeting a lot of people, getting a lot of experience and building a client roster of my own.

[grepfru_it]

I’ve found some recruiters just default to W2 because it’s less headaches (and potentially more money) for them. Sometimes it’s a requirement for the contract. You don’t know unless you ask