Comment by lsc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lsc | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> I hire contractors. I don't have time for people to ramp up on the job. I need them to come in knowing the stack we are working in.

Employers can bluster all they want; in the end, either they need to be happy hiring someone willing to work for the wages offered, increasing the wages offered and spending a lot more time looking (better wages gets you access to a larger pool, but it in no way chases away the incompetent, you still need to filter) or doing without the employee. As an interviewing worker, this means that you don't need to outrun the bear; you just need to be better than nothing, and better than anyone else willing to work for the same position. I've been working since '95 or'96, and personally don't feel I've actually been qualified to do any job I've had... but I'm better than nothing, and beating the competition is usually not very challenging.

As far as I can tell, the facts on the ground for contract work (which is to say, lower total comp than working as a FTE at one of the local big companies, lower job security, less respect, and generally slightly worse working conditions) means that when you are hiring contractors for a big company, you are hiring from a pool of people who are unable to get the same job at the same sort of company as a FTE.

As far as I can tell, the facts on the ground for contract work (which is to say, lower total comp than working as a FTE at one of the local big companies, lower job security, less respect, and generally slightly worse working conditions) means that when you are hiring contractors for a big company, you are hiring from a pool of people who are unable to get the same job at the same sort of company as a FTE.

Contractors making less and being less qualified aren't the facts on the ground at all in my neck of the woods. If you're making less as a contractor than the similarly skilled FTE, you're doing it wrong.

When I'm W2 contracting, I take what I think my yearly salary should be, divide by 1800 to allow for unpaid holidays, vacations, and 3 weeks to find a new gig and make that my hourly rate. I also add in a premium for the crap I know I'm going to put up with and the lack of benefits.

When you're contracting you get paid for every hour you work, if anything, being an FTE is more exploitive.

EDIT:

I guess I should add for context that I get benefits through my wife's very stable government job. That allows me to be more flexible with jumping back and forth between full time and contracting.

I agree that FTE's tend to get exploited more. Being hourly means that they usually don't want you to work more than 40 hours/week, and if they do, then you're getting paid for it.

Also, it's much easier to shirk the "ownership" aspect of the products. FTE's typically handle the maintenance window in the middle of the night, the deployments, the firefighting. And they don't get paid for it. As a contractor, it's typically accepted when you say "I'm just a contractor, it's really not my product".

Yes, it's much more of a mercenary type arrangement. FTE's will oftentimes treat you as a second class citizen. But, you go home at 5pm.

But, what about job stability you say? Nobody has that. Working somewhere for 10 years and then suddenly getting put on the street is the worst case. You're hobbled. Finding a new gig every 1-3 years keeps you sharp.

The biggest difference is not in how the FTEs treat you; I've never had a contract gig where I was treated badly enough to really care. The big difference is the prestige. Getting a FTE job at one of the top tier silicon valley companies is like having a degree from a really prestigious college. People will talk to you about your next gig who wouldn't otherwise talk to you.

I'm not in Silicon Valley, but I have been in a major metropolitan area for 20 years where jobs have always been easy to come by (with the exception of 2008-2011) and where stock options and bonuses aren't plentiful but wages are high enough for seasoned developers to allow you to easily buy a house in the 'burbs with good schools.

That would put your $90/hr contractor at $162K full time salary; and for base, sure. Base-wise, I'd expect a $90/hr contractor to come out closer to $150K if they converted to full time. But bonus and stock often make up another 30% or more in silicon valley, and you don't get that as a contractor.

This was actually the weird part for me, because I did some contracting around here in the aughts, and the pay was slightly better than fte work, but at that point, few of the FTEs I knew had significant bonus or stock grants. (You'd get options, just not RSUs) - as far as I can tell, this change to compensating developers with RSUs and bonuses is something that happened this decade; FTE comp went up dramatically due to bonus/stock, and contractor income remained competitive with base.

Of course, it's way different at smaller companies, or if you have the connections to avoid the body shops at larger companies, but smaller companies usually pay their full timers dramatically less anyhow, and if you have the kinds of connections required to go direct with the big players, being an individual contributor is probably not the highest value use of your time.

And I imagine things are different outside of silicon valley. Things are... very different and weird here.

Edit: oh also, 'similarly skilled' - I'm a contractor now, and yes, I get paid less than the FTEs I work alongside, I mean, I get slightly more than their base, but no bonus or stock. But... I'm also not similarly skilled. The FTEs doing my job are obviously better, at least by the standards by which we are evaluated. I'd give myself a 1 in 10 chance of passing a technical interview for a FTE job at the company where I contract now, and that is, uh, displaying confidence. My point wasn't that things are unfair; I don't think I'm being treated unfairly, aside from a few minor points, but that after the body shop takes a cut, there's just not enough left to pay enough to get people as good as what you get when you hire for the ridiculously well-compensated FTE positions at the larger and more prestigious companies in silicon valley. And the company matters; I interview often and just a few months back turned down a FTE position at a lesser company, for reasons having to do with pay, prestige, and trust.

Where I live, a good software developer can make between 120K and 145K as an FTE and easily bill from 70 - 80/hr as a W2 contractor. Bonuses and stock options aren't too much of thing either way. Maybe about 10-15% of compensation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com