Virtually all employment in the US is at will, meaning you are continually on "probation". The difference between a contractor and an FT is that the contractor is 1099'd, pays both halves of FICA taxes, and isn't provided health insurance; more importantly, when the employer is as overt about the issue as "not hiring you full time", there's no implied social contract or norm ensuring you'll even end up getting the job.
Contractors make significantly more money than full time devs partly for this reason. They're compensated for shouldering the risk of keeping a full book of work. Getting a good developer to work as a contractor for what will eventually be their FT wage is almost kind of a scam.
This is a simple, practical issue. You're Sam, a developer with 5 years experience. You have a choice between two roughly equal jobs. One prospective employer offers you a full time job tomorrow; the other offers you a 3 month auditioning contract. Which offer do you pick?
Agreed, but most states as well as federal laws also prohibit discrimination, and companies of any size/sophistication have HR policies to be sure they avoid being vulnerable to discrimination lawsuits in todays litigious climate. Probably fairly safe to fire a 20 - 30 year old white male for "any reason" but firing a minority or female or older person has to be done more carefully, following all established policy. With an explicit 90 probationary period there is more freedom in that initial window of time.
Also if you work 40 hours a week at the employer's place of business, are provided with all the tools you need to work, are paid directly by the employer, and are told what hours to work and how to do the task, the IRS will consider you an employee. Maybe if its only for 90 days you can get away with calling the person a contractor, but I think you're walking a fine line.
That doesn't contradict what tptacek said, though. You may be an employee, though probationary, for 90 days, but the company should still compensate you at a higher rate for those 90 days to reflect the risk you're taking.
Try looking at it a different way - assume, you will have a full time job at either of these prospective employers. Do you want the one that makes FT offers immediately, or the one that makes them only after testing new people out for 3 months?
I want the one that makes FT offers, because I don't believe that the best programmers, who can write their own ticket in this business climate, would put up with this contracting bullshit. This approach to hiring is a cop-out. It says, "we don't know how to hire properly, so we're going to push the risk onto the candidates".
I've seen the contracts with my own eyes. But I guess I can't prove that the developers in question were good without divulging names.
Anyways, I don't see why this is a cop-out any more than any other hiring procedure. No company has anywhere near a 100% success rate - this procedure acknowledges the shortcomings of a traditional interview process (namely that succeeding on an interview and succeeding as a developer are two very different animals) and tries to address them.
> Anyways, I don't see why this is a cop-out any more than any other hiring procedure. No company has anywhere near a 100% success rate - this procedure acknowledges the shortcomings of a traditional interview process (namely that succeeding on an interview and succeeding as a developer are two very different animals) and tries to address them.
Agreed. But tptacek's point seem to be that this new process addresses the perceived weaknesses of traditional processes by moving all the downsides/risks to the potential employee. I think the hiring firm can signal their honorable intentions more clearly if they would pay a significantly higher salary during "probation" - something that compensates for lost benefits etc.
Edit: staunch mentions elsewhere on this thread that he is offering higher rates during probation.
I'd take the one that makes full-time offers immediately in a heartbeat, because I wouldn't trust the company that does the 3-month, no-benefits contracting "test".
Going to work for a company with employees of varying skill is no big deal; every company above a certain size has people who probably shouldn't have been hired. Going to work for a company with shady management, however, is a deal-breaker.
Exactly. I don't get what the big deal is about working with lower skilled programmers. At my job there are some fairly "bad" programmers, but even they are a pleasure to work with. The trick is simply to make sure you hire nice people. I've spent plenty of time getting them up to speed with various languages and techniques, and they're all very receptive. The trick is, you yourself have to leave ego at the door. I think this is the hard part for a lot of people.
My first programming job started with a two week contract which then ultimately became a FT position.
So I accepted a position like that and it worked out fine, but honestly, I will never do it again. I only accepted it in the first place because I was a desperate, inexperienced hire without any alternatives. Now I'm more skilled and have experience that demonstrates at least some ability. Accordingly, I don't need to take those kinds of risks.
Just because I'm good, maybe the boss's wife decides she doesn't like me or I lose some political blame-the-new-guy game, or they decide on entirely different qualities in a hire, or whatever. In this climate that sort of risk is their problem. I also won't do 10 hour programming 'tests' and I'm pretty reluctant to do several full-day programming interview marathon sessions. It sucks, I don't want to take the time off for that crap, and most importantly...
I don't have to.
This means there are places I can't work at, but there are plenty that would be glad to have me, and that suits me fine.
Contractors make significantly more money than full time devs partly for this reason
I've always heard that, yet when I look for contract work, it's always at equivalent or less than my hourly equivalent as a full-time dev. Full time was $100k - $115k/yr, contract was $40 - $50/hr, in the SF Bay Area.
Then you're looking for contracts from the wrong kinds of companies; standard rates for most folks with a decent amount of experience start around $100/hr, more for short contracts, maybe a little less for longer ones or preferred repeat clients.
Again, I wonder what technology areas. Having looked, off and on, for C++ contract positions, I never see anything that high, in the SF area or elsewhere. Of course, my typical search involves Dice and Craigslist. Perhaps there's a better method of finding lucrative contracts.
As someone who has done this for 5+ years now (before that 10 years at various large / medium corps. and startups), I'd advise you that you won't find good opportunities via Dice and Craigslist. Nearly all of my contracts have come from references / networking (i.e. people I worked with once who hire me back as a consultant to build something / solve a problem). You're just looking in the wrong place.
So, general statements about how contractors should make approximately double their per-hour salaried rate only apply to people with a sufficiently established network of paying clients.
I don't know, I don't really consider it "normal" or "market rate" if there isn't an open market for it.
I appreciate your wisdom, though, don't get me wrong. It just makes me question the typical advice espoused by people.
Contractors make significantly more money than full time devs partly for this reason. They're compensated for shouldering the risk of keeping a full book of work. Getting a good developer to work as a contractor for what will eventually be their FT wage is almost kind of a scam.
This is a simple, practical issue. You're Sam, a developer with 5 years experience. You have a choice between two roughly equal jobs. One prospective employer offers you a full time job tomorrow; the other offers you a 3 month auditioning contract. Which offer do you pick?