5 ms·

"Contractors are generally not the strongest technically" Where does this come from? I actually see a contractor as someone who had experienced way more "war s

by koevet 11y ago

"Contractors are generally not the strongest technically" Where does this come from? I actually see a contractor as someone who had experienced way more "war stories" than the guy who has been sitting in the same chair for 10/20 years. As a contractor, you are exposed to more technologies, more business sectors, different working cultures.

teddyuk 11y ago
It really depends on the people, you get good/bad contractors and good/bad employees - it is just a useless generalization.
TickleSteve 11y ago
I'm biased (being a long-term contractor), but I would agree that this statement is exactly wrong. Breadth of experience counts and you can't get that without having 'been around'. On the other hand, if you're hiring a contractor who has had lots of very short contracts, that should raise a warning flag. Quite simply tho, why would any good contractor want to go permie? the attraction for me is simple... I get paid twice what I would otherwise get in a permie position.
- mdpopescu 11y ago
  Why would it raise a warning flag? I'd move to Australia for a one-week job, but I would hate moving to another town for six months. [I'm in Europe.] I just can't see any drawback to short-term contracts.
  - TickleSteve 11y ago
    Certainly in my experience, all my contracts have been a minimum of 3 months, but averaging around a year and going up to a couple years or even more if you include return contracts. Its not necessarily the length, but the lack of extensions that is a warning sign. Most projects do not last a short time so a lack of extensions indicates a problem.
    - mdpopescu 11y ago
      I worked for a company which extended my contract to two years, but I've been in five or six different projects during that time. All but one (Avon AU which is ongoing) have been completed successfully. I am really biased towards short, "solvable" projects :)
- dkopi 11y ago
  Contractors go back to permanent jobs for lots of reasons. Re-locations, change in family status, social reasons (sure does get lonely working from home), aiming for managerial roles, a more stable income (even though less per hour) being able to focus on programming(without having to hunt for new contracts after each project is finished).
  - TickleSteve 11y ago
    Yeah, was being slightly tongue-in-cheek when I said that. I know many fellow-contractors who have turned permie, but for me personally I've gained so much professionally, experience-wise and of course monetarily that I would never go back to permie-land. I've also been lucky in that I've never been forced to work away from home and have always gone from one contract to the next with no gap.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
libria 11y ago
In the case of Microsoft which is the context, this is generally true because the hiring for contractors is less rigorous (and pays less) than SDE. Most v-dash's I know spring for the opportunity to re-interview and trade up to FTE for benefits/comp and longevity of course.
jamesdutc 11y ago
"Consulting" or "contracting" can refer to different kinds of work arrangements. One of these is what's called "staff augmentation." Large companies with huge teams of full-time employed software programmers will often hire contractors to fill gaps. These contractors are typically contractors-in-name-only: they work under exactly the same conditions as full-time employees but with a worse tax situation, without access to benefits, and without eligibility to receive equity or cash bonuses. They are often contracted through intermediaries who take a large cut. These contractors can be fired more easily than their full-time employed colleagues, and they may often work on time-limited contracts that cannot be renewed. (They often do not count against a manager's allotted "head count.") These contractors are typically in this position, because cannot get hired as full-time employees. They often jump between contracting jobs until someone gives them a chance or until they manage to get a client to "convert" them to full-time. Staffing firms are in on this. If a recruiter sends you to interview for a contract role at some large company, it means they don't think you could get a job as a full-time employee. Hiring managers also know this. If they see you've only ever worked as a contractor, then they will assume you don't have what it takes to get a job as a full-time employee. (This is not right, and this is not fair.)
- vanderhosen 11y ago
  I'm a contractor for a large research facility. The arrangement is almost exactly as you describe, but I am a W2 employee. They hire researchers with phds and such, while offloading all software work to contractors. I took the job a year ago with the hope its name recognition would be helpful in the future but I had no idea there was such a stigma around contracting. I'm starting to look around again, so I guess I'll see how it effects me.
- ciaranm 11y ago
  Can I ask what location this is? It's vastly different to my experience of the contracting environment in the UK.
  - phpnode 11y ago
    Agree that this is the exact opposite of my experience as a contractor in the UK. I work as a contractor because the money is much better and because I have access to a wide variety of interesting projects. In the UK the contractors have the power - the companies I work for would hire me full time if they could.
darkclarity 11y ago
As the article suggests, I think it's just code. The recruiter is being subtle in case the employee overreacts and passes on the message to the candidate. Contractors are expensive, more experienced, less malleable and can give other employees ideas that there's an alternative. Graduates and junior developers will burn themselves to hell and back trying to impress their employer because they don't know any better. That includes people who have never worked for a proper business (i.e. not a VC backed startup).
musesum 11y ago
Uhm, I remember hiring one contractor twice. The first time for $50/hour. The second time for $400/hour. He wanted more, but I was able to talk him down to the same rate as the other contractor. They both worked in crypto. As for me, after co was acquired, I was a FTE for one day, with great benefits. But, the lawyers wouldn't clarify a claus in the FTE contract that would exempt my IP. Was I assigning it or excluding it? Their answer was "either". Before that, I was working for 4 days per week for the startup and 1 day per week on my own projects (at 4/5ths the pay). I know plenty of indy developers that are absolutely brilliant. Sometimes they take on side projects as contractors.
Spooky23 11y ago
Depends on the area of expertise and how you buy that expertise. Many contractors are really installers, and are great at bootstrapping a product or service. But... they know little or nothing about the actual running of the thing they setup. They don't get how to integrate their product's magic with your ITSM system, or what metrics to monitor, etc. On the developer side, I've seen more than my share of consultants who are high-priests of whatever methodology/language/framework religion they preach, but have a hard time delivering value.
sago 11y ago
"Contractor" can mean, entrepreneurial person who's made a career helping a range of companies who's internal developers couldn't get the job done. Or it could mean, someone that a company took on with a day-rate because they needed a warm body, but didn't want to actually hire them either, in case someone better came along. Or anything in between.
hackerboos 11y ago
I had a hard time getting recruiters to submit me for contracting gigs.
curun1r 11y ago
It comes from the incentive structure of the recruiter and says less about the potential hire. Recruiters are often paid a commission for every one of their successful hires and that commission is often split between an immediate payment and a payment (or payments) when the hire hits specific milestones (6mo, 1 yr, etc). Recruiters don't like trying to fit contractors into non-contract roles because they're worried about the contractor leaving before the recruiter's remaining commission is paid. If that happens, the recruiter puts in just as much work and gets paid less. They'd rather discard those resumes that they consider to be riskier and focus all their time on people with a history of staying at least 2 years in every one of their jobs.

by koevet 11y ago

teddyuk 11y ago

It really depends on the people, you get good/bad contractors and good/bad employees - it is just a useless generalization.

TickleSteve 11y ago

I'm biased (being a long-term contractor), but I would agree that this statement is exactly wrong. Breadth of experience counts and you can't get that without having 'been around'. On the other hand, if you're hiring a contractor who has had lots of very short contracts, that should raise a warning flag. Quite simply tho, why would any good contractor want to go permie? the attraction for me is simple... I get paid twice what I would otherwise get in a permie position.

mdpopescu 11y ago
Why would it raise a warning flag? I'd move to Australia for a one-week job, but I would hate moving to another town for six months. [I'm in Europe.] I just can't see any drawback to short-term contracts.
- TickleSteve 11y ago
  Certainly in my experience, all my contracts have been a minimum of 3 months, but averaging around a year and going up to a couple years or even more if you include return contracts. Its not necessarily the length, but the lack of extensions that is a warning sign. Most projects do not last a short time so a lack of extensions indicates a problem.
  - mdpopescu 11y ago
    I worked for a company which extended my contract to two years, but I've been in five or six different projects during that time. All but one (Avon AU which is ongoing) have been completed successfully. I am really biased towards short, "solvable" projects :)
dkopi 11y ago
Contractors go back to permanent jobs for lots of reasons. Re-locations, change in family status, social reasons (sure does get lonely working from home), aiming for managerial roles, a more stable income (even though less per hour) being able to focus on programming(without having to hunt for new contracts after each project is finished).
- TickleSteve 11y ago
  Yeah, was being slightly tongue-in-cheek when I said that. I know many fellow-contractors who have turned permie, but for me personally I've gained so much professionally, experience-wise and of course monetarily that I would never go back to permie-land. I've also been lucky in that I've never been forced to work away from home and have always gone from one contract to the next with no gap.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

libria 11y ago

In the case of Microsoft which is the context, this is generally true because the hiring for contractors is less rigorous (and pays less) than SDE. Most v-dash's I know spring for the opportunity to re-interview and trade up to FTE for benefits/comp and longevity of course.

jamesdutc 11y ago

"Consulting" or "contracting" can refer to different kinds of work arrangements. One of these is what's called "staff augmentation." Large companies with huge teams of full-time employed software programmers will often hire contractors to fill gaps. These contractors are typically contractors-in-name-only: they work under exactly the same conditions as full-time employees but with a worse tax situation, without access to benefits, and without eligibility to receive equity or cash bonuses. They are often contracted through intermediaries who take a large cut. These contractors can be fired more easily than their full-time employed colleagues, and they may often work on time-limited contracts that cannot be renewed. (They often do not count against a manager's allotted "head count.") These contractors are typically in this position, because cannot get hired as full-time employees. They often jump between contracting jobs until someone gives them a chance or until they manage to get a client to "convert" them to full-time. Staffing firms are in on this. If a recruiter sends you to interview for a contract role at some large company, it means they don't think you could get a job as a full-time employee. Hiring managers also know this. If they see you've only ever worked as a contractor, then they will assume you don't have what it takes to get a job as a full-time employee. (This is not right, and this is not fair.)

vanderhosen 11y ago
I'm a contractor for a large research facility. The arrangement is almost exactly as you describe, but I am a W2 employee. They hire researchers with phds and such, while offloading all software work to contractors. I took the job a year ago with the hope its name recognition would be helpful in the future but I had no idea there was such a stigma around contracting. I'm starting to look around again, so I guess I'll see how it effects me.
ciaranm 11y ago
Can I ask what location this is? It's vastly different to my experience of the contracting environment in the UK.
- phpnode 11y ago
  Agree that this is the exact opposite of my experience as a contractor in the UK. I work as a contractor because the money is much better and because I have access to a wide variety of interesting projects. In the UK the contractors have the power - the companies I work for would hire me full time if they could.

darkclarity 11y ago

As the article suggests, I think it's just code. The recruiter is being subtle in case the employee overreacts and passes on the message to the candidate. Contractors are expensive, more experienced, less malleable and can give other employees ideas that there's an alternative. Graduates and junior developers will burn themselves to hell and back trying to impress their employer because they don't know any better. That includes people who have never worked for a proper business (i.e. not a VC backed startup).

musesum 11y ago

Uhm, I remember hiring one contractor twice. The first time for $50/hour. The second time for $400/hour. He wanted more, but I was able to talk him down to the same rate as the other contractor. They both worked in crypto. As for me, after co was acquired, I was a FTE for one day, with great benefits. But, the lawyers wouldn't clarify a claus in the FTE contract that would exempt my IP. Was I assigning it or excluding it? Their answer was "either". Before that, I was working for 4 days per week for the startup and 1 day per week on my own projects (at 4/5ths the pay). I know plenty of indy developers that are absolutely brilliant. Sometimes they take on side projects as contractors.

Spooky23 11y ago

Depends on the area of expertise and how you buy that expertise. Many contractors are really installers, and are great at bootstrapping a product or service. But... they know little or nothing about the actual running of the thing they setup. They don't get how to integrate their product's magic with your ITSM system, or what metrics to monitor, etc. On the developer side, I've seen more than my share of consultants who are high-priests of whatever methodology/language/framework religion they preach, but have a hard time delivering value.

sago 11y ago

"Contractor" can mean, entrepreneurial person who's made a career helping a range of companies who's internal developers couldn't get the job done. Or it could mean, someone that a company took on with a day-rate because they needed a warm body, but didn't want to actually hire them either, in case someone better came along. Or anything in between.

hackerboos 11y ago

I had a hard time getting recruiters to submit me for contracting gigs.

curun1r 11y ago

It comes from the incentive structure of the recruiter and says less about the potential hire. Recruiters are often paid a commission for every one of their successful hires and that commission is often split between an immediate payment and a payment (or payments) when the hire hits specific milestones (6mo, 1 yr, etc). Recruiters don't like trying to fit contractors into non-contract roles because they're worried about the contractor leaving before the recruiter's remaining commission is paid. If that happens, the recruiter puts in just as much work and gets paid less. They'd rather discard those resumes that they consider to be riskier and focus all their time on people with a history of staying at least 2 years in every one of their jobs.