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I've never seen a contractor have better salary/pay unless they're a fully independent subject matter expert and have no interest in being employed. I've hired

I've never seen a contractor have better salary/pay unless they're a fully independent subject matter expert and have no interest in being employed. I've hired a quite a few contractors and there is usually two cases, I need workers, or expertise that is highly limited. Most contractors, not SME, are sourced from staffing agencies/partners. Sure, the resource cost is on par with a salaried worker, but typically the staffing company sourcing these people are going to take a huge chunk on that contract, at least 1/3. So yes, the resource/person is 280K on paper, but it's extremely rare they actually get paid that. The staffing agencies will provide benefits, but they're not even close to what in house staff are getting. It also becomes nearly impossible to hire a contractor from partners in cases like this because you have to buy out the resource on the contract which is almost a non-starter because these fees can easily be 6 figures per head.

scarface_74 3y ago
The staffing agencies benefits are always subpar and more expensive. And you’re right about the difference between “staff augmentation” contractors pay and SMEs. I just went into detail in a sibling reply. But to add on, the company I ended up being a tech lead at with a full time position. I came in at $65/hour. I only took the job because I saw a chance to eventually wiggle my way into a tech lead role and I wanted to be on the ground floor of a green field project. I ended up working so much overtime - and getting paid for it - I made out pretty well compared to the local market. I got on my wife’s health insurance. I also mentioned that now that I am a SME on a niche but growing AWS service [1], I am able to charge $135 an hour for a side project and that’s a discount. [1] I beta tested the APIs while working at AWS and I was a major contributor on a popular open source official “AWS Solution” that’s built on top of it.

scarface_74 3y ago

The staffing agencies benefits are always subpar and more expensive. And you’re right about the difference between “staff augmentation” contractors pay and SMEs. I just went into detail in a sibling reply. But to add on, the company I ended up being a tech lead at with a full time position. I came in at $65/hour. I only took the job because I saw a chance to eventually wiggle my way into a tech lead role and I wanted to be on the ground floor of a green field project. I ended up working so much overtime - and getting paid for it - I made out pretty well compared to the local market. I got on my wife’s health insurance. I also mentioned that now that I am a SME on a niche but growing AWS service [1], I am able to charge $135 an hour for a side project and that’s a discount. [1] I beta tested the APIs while working at AWS and I was a major contributor on a popular open source official “AWS Solution” that’s built on top of it.