Many developers dream of becoming a freelancer. The promise of freedom to work whenever, wherever, and on what you want as well as lucrative rates ...
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Things to add to this (this is very US specific, your mileage may very):
Totally agree with no.1 and 2, but not with 3. I have been a contractor in my career and work with different contractors in my current company. Sometimes contractors are hired as a check of competency and they become FTEs later on.
But I hate how they system of hiring the contractor works here. Usually they have to go through 3rd parties who get hefty part of the paycheck. This way a contractor legally works for the third party company as FTE while he/she is a contractor for the main company where work is done.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Eve. Afaik for a company, it's much easier to let go of employees in the US compared to e.g. most European countries. And for employees, there's not much of a notice period when you want to quit, right? If you're not even paid much more than an FTE what's the advantage of being a contractor in the US?
Exactly. I have always looked for FTE roles, unless a person wants to work in different environments, then i would suggest to join some consulting company.
As for me, i don't see any benefits of being a contractor.
That's very interesting. Thanks! I'll add a note that my experience doesn't reflect the life of a contractor in the US
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Sam. Interesting to read. It sounds like many of the things I mention are not valid in the US. That makes me wonder: What are the advantages of being a contractor in the US?
Hey so sorry, didn't get notifications on this!
I think the main advantages of being a contractor for me were:
Honestly those are about all for me, I much prefer working as a W2 employee, just because it takes all the stress out of taxes and it's usually impossible for me to remember to pay my quarterlies. Highly recommend taking W2 options over contractor positions.
As someone who has been contracting for 5 years, I agree with all the points made in this article. My remarks:
Thanks for sharing your experience. I totally agree, it's a double-edged sword. After all, you're acting as a business. And that always means there are risks.
I talked to some recruiters though and was surprised to hear that there is currently a higher demand for contractors. This is a bit counterintuitive.
One reason is probably that it's riskier to hire employees in countries where they are protected. You can easily fire a contractor of you run out of money. But you're mostly stuck with an employee.
Another reason that I experienced myself is that larger companies have hiring stops in crisis situations. So they can't hire new employees. But contractors have a different status. Departments that are still doing fine and are in need for extra workforce can get around the hiring freeze by calling contractors in.
The advice about leaving a good impression is gold! Not only that companies and other contractors will remember you. But also the recruiters internally flag candidates as trusted or not afaik. Once you get a green flag you won't have problems finding the next gig. A red flag will cause problems though
I have come to realize a hard truth, security in a job does not exist.
Totally true. Job security is a myth.
This way to work reminds me 100% of SAP.
I used to work with consultants but I was the company employee which they help.
For me, the focus is to gain the hottest skills so they come looking for me. It works but takes about 2 years of dedicated self study.
Nice article, I will consider being a contractor when I get more experiences on web dev career.
I do wonder can a contractor be remote or have to onsite?
Thanks Kelvin! A contractor can work remotely. That's up to the client and your negotiation skills. My experience is that clients in Germany demand contractors to be on-site at least partly. Sometimes only a day per month, more often at least a day per week though. But companies here are often not so remote-friendly. Might be different in other countries ;)
Thanks for the insight, I get it, that might be a norm for the contractor business now, need to onsite and meet with the team once a while. But I do see some job posts online nowadays that hiring contractors online or remotely, I guess the location of the job shouldn't be the differentiator of "freelancer" and "contractor" by definition, agree?
I'd say it's more a norm in Germany, at least from my experience. But we're far behind other countries with respect to digitization. So yes, you're right. The location is not the differentiating factor.
For me freelancing and contracting are synonyms, but I often read the exact opposite of what you wrote. "Contracting" being the low-end freelance work and "consulting" being the high-end work.
Yeah, true. I also read stories on Reddit of 20-year-olds finding themselves in bad contracting jobs for minimum wage. I guess there's a dark side to contracting. If a company can hire a (mostly inexperienced) dev as a contractor for a low hourly rate they save a lot of money on benefits like health insurance and so on. That's very common in the construction industry afaik. In Germany, there are a lot of people from other countries working on construction sites as contractors without having any benefits or security. I described the sunny side: If you're an expert you make a good living.
Btw I didn't want to say that freelance or consulting are paid worse. I guess they can even earn more since they take higher risks. But that depends a lot on your negotiation skills and your skills
In France we only use the term freelance for both cases
In Germany also for the most part. In my LinkedIn it even says I'm a freelancer. With this post I wanted to point out that there are differences though