Life as a Contractor
So, I've been working for THE MAN ever since I graduated from college and although I've enjoyed my jobs I'm getting increasingly tired of the rat race. I've just begun possibly looking into being a freelance/contract engineer and I was hoping to get some advice. Would you advise against it? I'm okay with a pay decrease but from becoming a contractor I was hoping to have more free time and more flexibility. I have a friend from high school who works in the entertainment industry as a freelance camera assistant, and it looks like she works crazy hours some weeks while she has some weeks entirely to herself. Is this what a contractor's life is like in the tech industry? If you are a contractor any advice would be really appreciated. If there are things that I should be thinking about before actually seriously considering the switch that kind of information would also be great. Also, this might be stupid but how do you find these short-term jobs? Do you find them one after another?
20 YOE, 12 as a contractor. I bill ~110 corp to corp in the Midwest. I'm a contractor because in my market it pays more than FTE, but day to day it is not much different from FTE. You're supposed to be able to set your own schedule and use your own equipment, etc. but in my experience consultants are pretty much staff augmentation. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. No 5 year plans. Fewer stupid meetings. Computers, internet, travel, home office, etc. are all expenses. The flip side is that you have more responsibility. You'll need to figure out the following: - What kind of business are you going to create? You don't want to be a sole proprietorship as it puts your personal assets at risk. S corp or LLC are common for consultants (my company is an S corp). I haven't met someone that has a C corp. - Understand your market. What's the going rate? Reach out to consultants that you've worked with to get this number. - Health insurance. My spouse provides health insurance for our family. Bonus! - Retirement. - Taxes. I spend 2k per year on an accountant so don't have to think about tax payments. I'm very happy to spend this money. - Career development and following market trends is on you. If you want to work with the new shiny thing there might not be a large demand in your market. Know ahead of time if you're willing to take a cut in pay to work with cool stuff. Some gigs may be short term, but in my market this is the exception more than the rule. If you get shit done your clients will want to keep you. What else, I'm in a small-ish market and have never been out of work in my 12 years of consulting. I find work mostly through consulting companies. I only do corp to corp (vs W2). You'll be asked to convert to FTE, don't ever turn down this conversation and have a set number that you'd convert for. Getting hit up frequently on LinkedIn is a two way street! You can try to get rates out of recruiters or quote them a high rate to see if they bite.
Spot on!
Blind is full of shit. Your response is so good it’s almost out of place. I’d follow you on Reddit !
Best way is to find a niche that's somewhat small and where you have a good access to the "buyer". For example, you might be super specialized in building starter data pipelines for data science and you have a good network of directors and VP of analytics, then you essentially have an endless supply of gigs and not a lot of competition relatively speaking. Just find something you know well (or get up to speed) and build a consulting practice. The worst thing you can say is "I'll do whatever you pay me for", that's not a great way to go about it.
Freelance =/= contract. As a freelance photographer/videographer I charge clients minimum 75/hr depending on the project. My job at FB I make half that per hr, and work days are similar to FTEs. Some days I’ll take off for projects cuz I know I’ll make more those few days than at my day job. At this point I’m possibly going to go down the full time freelance route, just need to book more recurring clients.
It may be worth renegotiating your day rate if possible. I know contractors that charge between 800 to 1200 a day. FB can afford it.
What is a good rate for a contractor? Meaning vs the extra expenses you have to cover.
it depends on what your contract says. The whole point of being a contractor is your contract says what you will do. I wouldn't bucket all contractors as having the same experience in terms of hours or anything. All contracts are different
Pay increases if you go contract. You need to be able to pay your own health etc
Wouldn’t say pay increase per say as you get none of the benefits that an FTE gets. No health care, No rsu’s, no relocation benefits. Also healthcare is ridiculous as a single male in his 20s it costs $400/month, I don’t even remember the last time it was that I went to the hospital....
That's exactly why pay increases. A employee with benefits might get a 300k salary and benefits. A contractor will get 500k and nothing else.
Contractors are not real employees
Oh noone knew that before
And not human. shame
Contracting in Tech would depend on the company you end up working at. I gave had companies where there was no responsibility aka been told you do this and some where I was expected to work more than their FTE but not been paid for holidays or not having a shiny health insurance
I strongly recommend to NOT, I repeat, NOT become contractor!! In many tech companies, you are always treated like third class citizens. There are buildings you can’t go to. There are events you don’t have access to, etc. Also, the pay has to be much higher because of 1099. Too many downsides.
If you don’t care for access or events and just want to control your career. Is this still not something to do?
How can you control your career if your being told what to do and what not to. Your opinions are mostly not cared for. You can’t take up responsibilities or interests. You are told to not interact with FTEs, and, can’t have side projects. You can’t take work home due to security reasons and you can’t be flexible with time anyway.
I recently signed a part time freelance consulting gig at 80/hr. Getting the gig is a combination of marketing yourself (think tutorials, blog posts, YouTube, etc) and having niche knowledge that few others possess
project based yea, normal contractors just work like any other regular jobs, except getting paid by a different company. To land a project based contact, that requires specialized knowledge/ skill/ industry experience at higher level.