>employee, not contractor You should reconsider this. Everything you want - and more - can be had if you go contracting and stick with the same contract/compan

>employee, not contractor You should reconsider this. Everything you want - and more - can be had if you go contracting and stick with the same contract/company when it rolls over every 6 months (which they often do). As a contractor, you're external to the company, so there's no mentoring of junior devs, no on-call, no researching new tech. You're brought in to write code, and that's it. Interviews are short and easy, with no Leetcode or other tests, and the day rate for someone with 10 years experience will easily give you above €100k a year, allowing for 5 weeks holiday. That's in Europe, where contracting via recruiting agencies is huge. In the US it's very different, and contractors have to find end clients themselves and manage those clients.