Traveling Contracting

Question

I am fresh out of College (graduated in December with BS in Comp Sci). I have been working for a very large (40,000+ employee) company for over two years. My job is as stable as anyone could hope for. However, I am always bored, they cannot keep us (developers) busy. I am thinking about apply at some local contracting companies and try out contracting. I have been told that I could make a lot more money as a contractor and even more if I was willing to travel. I have been told that as a contractor I would basically be constantly coding, no BS meetings about project charters and stage gates, and that I would learn more in a year than I would in 10 years at my current job (this I believe since we're using java 1.4 and our brand new laptops have windows 2000 on them... lol). I just want to know what to expect if I decided to go the contracting route, and if traveling is worth it. Since I don't have any kids and this seems like the best time to do something like this.

What have been your experiences with contracting? How do the mechanics of travel as a contractor work (what is paid for, do you work 4 10 hour days... etc)? Will I really be mostly coding? Will I really gain valuable insight and knowledge of the IT world?

Answer 1

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

You're stuck in a large company with all the large company management bureaucracy and strict job roles that goes with it. If you contract for a large company guess what you get? However you can choose who you contract for (if they're happy contracting to someone with two years experience). To me it sounds like you actually want to work for a small company developing software in a more agile fashion, and that's a more risky move!

Note that with contracting you'll go from project to project, and having to pick up the client's systems (code, models, databases, workflows, etc) from new each time, often with very little assistance. If the systems are in any way mature, then there will be lots of cruft to sift out - if you're lucky it will be documented! So every time you have a problem, you will have to get on the phone to them or find them (a difficult task on its own) to get the knowledge you need.

Answer 2

As a contractor you do tend to be less involved in meetings, in my experience. But you spend a lot of time teasing requirements out of clients and waiting for responses on things. As you're not in the day-to-day flow of the organization, you have to work a lot harder to understand what's going on.

Answer 3

Nearly everywhere I've been, we've hired contractors to work on the old, legacy stuff that our employees have forgotten or otherwise don't want to work on. Nobody is going to hire you in order to teach you things - you won;t be around long enough, so they will only hire you for your current skills. Quite a few contractors complain about having to keep their skills up to date, at their own expense.

You'll also get less time spent in meetings (well... maybe not, you'll be there to be told what they expect of you), but you'll also have to manage your own accounts, and invoice the client, and then chase up payment.

So, don;t think contracting is a magic route to fun coding with the latest technologies. Its probably the opposite of that. What you want is a different job.

Answer 4

I can't speak for your situation in particular, but my company recently terminated all of our contractors as part of our cutbacks, and many other companies did the same. Most companies have hiring freezes, where they will not take on new employees at all, contractors or not. My friends that were working as contractors all lost their jobs, and are generally having a difficult time finding new positions.

If you are already in a steady job, I would say that now is not the best time to drop it and try switching to the life of a contractor.

You expressed an interest in learning new technologies, so if your company doesn't keep you busy, and you're "always bored", why aren't you using that time to read up on the things you're interested in?

Answer 5

I've been migrant IT labor for 30+ years.

"I have been told that as a contractor I would basically be constantly coding"

False. You might wind up doing a lot of new development or a lot of maintenance. Depends on the contract firm's relationships.

"no BS meetings about project charters and stage gates"

False. The contract firm has to land the gig. As a contractor, you write a LOT of proposals that get shot down in flames. In-house initiatives are quietly morphed into something else. Out-of-house initiatives turn ugly -- the contracts are fired -- there are lawsuits.

"and that I would learn more in a year than I would in 10 years at my current job"

True. If you pay close attention and take careful notes. More importantly, if you've done your homework outside the workplace. I've been to a fair amount of training, but I think that 75% of the skills I use regularly (Java, Python, DB Design, Architecture, Apache config, HTML) I had to learn on my own.

"what to expect if I decided to go the contracting route"

Parts of it are bad. Parts are good. It's a job -- that's why they have to pay you to do it.

"if traveling is worth it."

Let me list the benefits -- Skiing in Anchorage, Skiing in Utah, Diving in the Florida Keys, flying the entire family first-class to San Diego, using Hilton Honors points to stay at the Waldorf=Astoria.

Let me list the problems -- kids who got into serious trouble at school. Missing family time because of travel. The unending stress of air travel, including the TSA security theater setups everywhere.

Answer 6

I've been contracting/consulting for just over a year and am really enjoying it. A few of the perks:

• money is good.
• changing projects fairly often keeps the boredom levels down.
• working from home rules.
• because you are an expensive resource relative to other employees, the amount of administrative fluff and pointless meetings is minimal. The client wants you to spend as much time as possible working on whatever it is you've been contracted to do.
• I'm picking up new knowledge much faster than when I was a normal employee. I suppose its related to changing projects often and working with a range of people.

I strongly disagree with the sentiment that contractors get boxed in and have to teach themselves new skills in their own time. Perhaps this is true for some domains but my experience has been the absolute opposite. One thing I have noticed is that if you do a good job with a project, you'll be asked to look at other projects even if you have no experience with the technology in question. Being trusted as competent and honest is far more important to most employers than a '5 years experience with J2EE' line on your resume.

That said, its not all rainbows and butterflies. Some of the downsides:

• getting a mortgage is going to be really hard because of the lack of permanent employment.
• whenever there is a downturn, you'll be the first against the wall.
• if you are working on a fixed cost basis, you'll have to get really good at project estimation or risk lots of unpaid overtime.
• taking on multiple clients at the same time can be a horrible mess unless you have excellent time management skills.

Overall, I'm really enjoying it and for me the pros far outweigh the cons. I think I'd only go back to being a normal employee if I had a family and couldnt warrant the risk of being out of work for an extended period of time.