[tomduncalf]

I got a job at one of the big tech co’s maybe 5 years into my career, which at the time I thought was a great achievement, but actually I found the job pretty dull and a bit like you say, quite far detached from what made me excited about programming.

I quit after 18 months and went into contracting for startups instead, which seemed like a way to still make reasonably good money (though nowhere near as good as FAANG if you factor in the stock) and actually get to do some fun stuff - startups can be much more fun if you’re from a “hacker” mindset I think as there’s always too much to do and not enough people, and plenty of chances to learn new stuff.

I found not being a permanent employee allowed you to have less of the downsides associated with startups, e.g. you probably feel more comfortable working 9-5 if you’re on a fixed term contract versus being a permanent employee with equity etc. Also leaving a contract after the initial term if it isn’t working out is not a big deal at all, so it’s a great way to experience lots of different environments without the commitment. I’m not sure if contracting is such a big thing where you’re based (I’m in the UK where it’s very common), but I’d definitely recommend looking into it if that sounds appealing.

I was lucky enough to land a contract at a company in a field I’m passionate about which allowed me to extend my skill set from pure web dev to also do some C++ development for an app, which I’ve found is a really interesting niche for me personally, and again I think the lower level of C++ programming appeals to the hacker mindset. I’m now back as a permanent employee in the “medium tech” (lol) world, but my contracting experience was great fun and allowed me to find a niche which I really enjoy and which led to work more aligned with the reasons I got into this as a youngster (companies using C++ and JS together generally aren’t building yet another CRUD app!)

[jrib]

> went into contracting for startups instead

Did you find these opportunities mostly through your personal network? What would you recommend to others looking to find similar opportunities?

[tomduncalf]

Yeah, my first contract came from a friend from a previous job who now worked at the startup. Subsequent ones were word of mouth (from people I’d met at the first one mainly), and one came as a result of seeing a Who is Hiring? post on here looking for permanent employees but I thought I’d ask if they’d consider contractors and they said yes.

However, I have plenty of friends who are contractors and get all their roles through recruiters. Most of them have said it pays to cultivate a good relationship with recruiter(s) you can trust to find you good roles - if they know you’re good (based on feedback from previous clients they placed you with) you’ll likely be the first person they reach out to when there’s a new role that would suit.

One thing to be aware of is that contract roles are often looking for people to start ASAP and are not willing to wait for long notice periods, especially if you’re coming from a permanent role to contracting (I was told this is partially because people sometimes actually end up staying in the perm role e.g. because they get tempted to stay, wasting everyone’s time)… so you might find you need to take a leap of faith and quit without anything lined up, unless you can get an in through someone in your network who’s willing to wait for your notice (this happened for me).

As I say I’m not sure how relevant this advice is in other countries, my impression is contracting in software dev is more common in the UK than many other countries.