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"Consulting" or "contracting" can refer to different kinds of work arrangements. One of these is what's called "staff augmentation." Large companies with huge

"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.
  - ciaranm 11y ago
    Similar situation here. The company I'm currently contracting for mentioned they struggle to find experienced Scala devs who will interview for permanent roles.
- bryanrasmussen 11y ago
  I think this is an U.S thing where this kind of division has sprung up - so you have contractor ("temp", "paid less") full-time employee consultant ("paid more")
  - binarycheese 11y ago
    Contractors get paid way more in the US especially on the East Coast because they usually have to take care of their own benefits and taxes
  - stirno 11y ago
    There is a pretty important distinction here -- We have seen in the US consulting market (at large corporations) an influx of 90s style contractor arrangements for staff augmentation. This is basically the counter to failed outsourcing efforts. These contractors almost entirely work for large groups like Robert Half, Tata, Infosys, Tek Systems and others. We also still have a very very strong consultant labor force making 2-3x what W2 full-time employees can pull in. These consultants generally work through smaller consulting firms that take smaller cuts for the placement/handling billing and invoicing.
    - mcdowall 11y ago
swalsh 11y ago
A good way to know what kind of contractor they are is to look at the vendor. Robert Half, Tech Systems etc probably augmentation. Smaller vendor, or independent. Better chance of "Specialist".
hibikir 11y ago
In Missouri, you want the contractor. I've worked for Fortune 500 companies around here. The senior full time employees have been working at the same place forever, so their skills are often outdated. They get paid a lot less, but they are often fine with that, because the place gives them the one thing they want: status. Changing jobs means you might not get that status. In comparison, the top contractors get far better pay, have worked in more than one or two places in their career, and are the guys you want to hire. It's probably different in the bay, where big tech companies have little trouble paying 200K+ compensation packages, but around here, just contractors do. Why do the contractors get paid more? Because they can get paid without talking to HR, or meeting any pay bands. Last year, I worked with other three contractors, whose names anyone in the Scala community would recognize. 200-300K a year range. The best full timer they had (which just quit, after being told how silly he had been by being full time), made 110K. Being well known means that switching to work for TrendyCo isn't difficult though.
billions 11y ago
There are two types of contractors and they lie on either side of the skill bell curve. What you describe are the lower end contractors. Top end contractors refuse to take full time. They run their taxes through S-Corps, come in to fix the most challenging problems, and big-co's get in bidding wars over their next contract.
- wdmeldon 11y ago
  I think in general, you are correct about the skill difference between contractors. But there is more to it than just that. Low end contractors don't choose that path, they end up their because they either, like you said, are low skill, or because they made career mistakes and need to get back on track. I would definitely fall into the latter group.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
google_tvc 11y ago
You absolutely nailed it on the head. I am one of these "staff augmentation" devs and it has been bothering me for awhile now. I would love to try my hand at one of these "trendy" startups as a full-time employee but I am pretty much the opposite of what they seem to be looking for: - non-technical degree from a local state school - 35+ years old - only have a couple of years of professional software development experience and most of it as a contractor/consultant - not white - most of my work is back end bug-fixing, maintenance, being in an on-call rotation, and occasionally integrating some system to some enterprise database - buzzwords in my resume (Java, Borg, RPC, Hibernate, SQL, XML, Eclipse IDE, DAO, DTO, etc) probably scares off the young devs because apparently anything remotely related to J2EE or enterprise is evil - my real employer is one of those Indian staffing firms I tried one of those "dev auction" sites (Hired.com) one time. The "talent advocate" assigned to me got really excited upon hearing I am currently a contractor at the BigCo. in Mountain View, CA. She immediately put me up on auction and I guess her enthusiasm got to me since I got excited as well when I started seeing all these cool San Francisco startups viewing my profile. Then both of us were disappointed when none of the startups were interested. The auction period came and went. I had zero offers to chat on the phone despite dozens of views. She was nice enough to give me another auction round and I went for it. Only a half dozen new views on my profile that time but at least I got one phone interview out of it. The talent advocate was a bit confused by the whole thing and couldn't understand why most of the startups didn't even want to speak to me. She did offer to personally reach out to some of the startups on my behalf but I knew what happened so I politely bowed out of the auction. So I guess I have this stigma now and I know it's only going to get tougher the older I get. I want to fix this and hopefully move to a full-time product development role before it is too late. Should I quit my job and go back to school? Join a coding bootcamp or "hacker community"? Continue working as a contractor and keep applying to startups on the side?

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.
- ciaranm 11y ago
  Similar situation here. The company I'm currently contracting for mentioned they struggle to find experienced Scala devs who will interview for permanent roles.
bryanrasmussen 11y ago
I think this is an U.S thing where this kind of division has sprung up - so you have contractor ("temp", "paid less") full-time employee consultant ("paid more")
- binarycheese 11y ago
  Contractors get paid way more in the US especially on the East Coast because they usually have to take care of their own benefits and taxes
- stirno 11y ago
  There is a pretty important distinction here -- We have seen in the US consulting market (at large corporations) an influx of 90s style contractor arrangements for staff augmentation. This is basically the counter to failed outsourcing efforts. These contractors almost entirely work for large groups like Robert Half, Tata, Infosys, Tek Systems and others. We also still have a very very strong consultant labor force making 2-3x what W2 full-time employees can pull in. These consultants generally work through smaller consulting firms that take smaller cuts for the placement/handling billing and invoicing.
  - mcdowall 11y ago

swalsh 11y ago

A good way to know what kind of contractor they are is to look at the vendor. Robert Half, Tech Systems etc probably augmentation. Smaller vendor, or independent. Better chance of "Specialist".

hibikir 11y ago

In Missouri, you want the contractor. I've worked for Fortune 500 companies around here. The senior full time employees have been working at the same place forever, so their skills are often outdated. They get paid a lot less, but they are often fine with that, because the place gives them the one thing they want: status. Changing jobs means you might not get that status. In comparison, the top contractors get far better pay, have worked in more than one or two places in their career, and are the guys you want to hire. It's probably different in the bay, where big tech companies have little trouble paying 200K+ compensation packages, but around here, just contractors do. Why do the contractors get paid more? Because they can get paid without talking to HR, or meeting any pay bands. Last year, I worked with other three contractors, whose names anyone in the Scala community would recognize. 200-300K a year range. The best full timer they had (which just quit, after being told how silly he had been by being full time), made 110K. Being well known means that switching to work for TrendyCo isn't difficult though.

billions 11y ago

There are two types of contractors and they lie on either side of the skill bell curve. What you describe are the lower end contractors. Top end contractors refuse to take full time. They run their taxes through S-Corps, come in to fix the most challenging problems, and big-co's get in bidding wars over their next contract.

wdmeldon 11y ago
I think in general, you are correct about the skill difference between contractors. But there is more to it than just that. Low end contractors don't choose that path, they end up their because they either, like you said, are low skill, or because they made career mistakes and need to get back on track. I would definitely fall into the latter group.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

google_tvc 11y ago

You absolutely nailed it on the head. I am one of these "staff augmentation" devs and it has been bothering me for awhile now. I would love to try my hand at one of these "trendy" startups as a full-time employee but I am pretty much the opposite of what they seem to be looking for: - non-technical degree from a local state school - 35+ years old - only have a couple of years of professional software development experience and most of it as a contractor/consultant - not white - most of my work is back end bug-fixing, maintenance, being in an on-call rotation, and occasionally integrating some system to some enterprise database - buzzwords in my resume (Java, Borg, RPC, Hibernate, SQL, XML, Eclipse IDE, DAO, DTO, etc) probably scares off the young devs because apparently anything remotely related to J2EE or enterprise is evil - my real employer is one of those Indian staffing firms I tried one of those "dev auction" sites (Hired.com) one time. The "talent advocate" assigned to me got really excited upon hearing I am currently a contractor at the BigCo. in Mountain View, CA. She immediately put me up on auction and I guess her enthusiasm got to me since I got excited as well when I started seeing all these cool San Francisco startups viewing my profile. Then both of us were disappointed when none of the startups were interested. The auction period came and went. I had zero offers to chat on the phone despite dozens of views. She was nice enough to give me another auction round and I went for it. Only a half dozen new views on my profile that time but at least I got one phone interview out of it. The talent advocate was a bit confused by the whole thing and couldn't understand why most of the startups didn't even want to speak to me. She did offer to personally reach out to some of the startups on my behalf but I knew what happened so I politely bowed out of the auction. So I guess I have this stigma now and I know it's only going to get tougher the older I get. I want to fix this and hopefully move to a full-time product development role before it is too late. Should I quit my job and go back to school? Join a coding bootcamp or "hacker community"? Continue working as a contractor and keep applying to startups on the side?