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> contractor and never has to deal with the repercussions of their actions. This doesn't match my experience of contracting. Not caring about code quality and

> contractor and never has to deal with the repercussions of their actions. This doesn't match my experience of contracting. Not caring about code quality and then leaving others holding the bag of sh*t is frequently what "ladder climbers" do, and those are, by definition, on payroll rather than contractors. For a contractor, there is no ladder to climb, but willingness to get one's hands dirty is definitely part of the job description. Contractors are quite frequently the people who are brought in at extra expense to maintain mission-critical infrastructure when the employee who made it is no longer at the firm, or has moved on to different responsibilities. After having gone through several contracts, a typical contractor will often have a lot more experience with different coding practices and their respective outcomes and a deeper appreciation of good engineering.

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
> For a contractor, there is no ladder to climb, The trick is to refuse to adopt the job-title "contractor" - simply refer to oneself as a "consultant" - it goes a long way. Fun-fact: there's no rule against contractors/consultants earning equity in their clients' projects either: apparently I can artificially raise my hourly-rate by 20% during the post-interview negotiations, then sweet-talk the client into letting me have token equity in exchange for a 16% pay-cut. Simply do this for every small gig you get and eventually it works out as a pretty-nice personal-ladder to early-retirement. ...not that I want to retire, really - the idea terrifies me because I simply can't do anything except work :/
JohnFen 3y ago
Yes, my experience being a contractor largely backs this up. Also, remember another possible reasons why a company might hire a contractor: to have someone to blame for a project they know is failing. One of my favorite things about contract work is that it's time-limited. This means that I can be 100% honest about bad dev processes, bad code, bad management, etc., because I won't have to worry about angry managers making my life miserable for any longer than the remainder of my contract period. I can't count the number of times I've spoken up about something terrible, only to have the permanent devs privately tell me later "I'm so happy you said that. I've been wishing I could bring that up for years"

DaiPlusPlus 3y ago

> For a contractor, there is no ladder to climb, The trick is to refuse to adopt the job-title "contractor" - simply refer to oneself as a "consultant" - it goes a long way. Fun-fact: there's no rule against contractors/consultants earning equity in their clients' projects either: apparently I can artificially raise my hourly-rate by 20% during the post-interview negotiations, then sweet-talk the client into letting me have token equity in exchange for a 16% pay-cut. Simply do this for every small gig you get and eventually it works out as a pretty-nice personal-ladder to early-retirement. ...not that I want to retire, really - the idea terrifies me because I simply can't do anything except work :/

JohnFen 3y ago

Yes, my experience being a contractor largely backs this up. Also, remember another possible reasons why a company might hire a contractor: to have someone to blame for a project they know is failing. One of my favorite things about contract work is that it's time-limited. This means that I can be 100% honest about bad dev processes, bad code, bad management, etc., because I won't have to worry about angry managers making my life miserable for any longer than the remainder of my contract period. I can't count the number of times I've spoken up about something terrible, only to have the permanent devs privately tell me later "I'm so happy you said that. I've been wishing I could bring that up for years"