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But that's not how red/green/$color badges work at Google/Intel/Facebook/$company.

They're not "3 highly skilled C++ programmers", they're usually slotted into some kind of not as appreciated but still required role, like QA or data entry, and they're not "in two weeks, for 6 months", they're basically at a single host company for the entire time, but they renew the contract in 6 month increments until such time when the host company decides it doesn't need them anymore. Which is basically a form of downsizing.

They aren't some form of highly skilled consultants that drop to aid a project in a pinch. Usually they're basically indistinguishable from FTEs.

P.S. "3 C++ programmers for 6 months", in the context of adding developers to a team, is usually a sign of horrible project management. Software development just doesn't work like that, c.f. The Mythical Man Month.

If you have an understaffed team with a list of clearly defined tech debt, a temporary addition to the team to address the tech debt could ease pressure on the core team and allow them to "catch up" and work more efficiently.

This is fixed through tax legislation, where there are "bright line" tests for whether or not someone is an employee.

When I was a contractor in New Zealand, I had an external office, my contract allowed me to subcontract, I used my own equipment and I didn't go to the parties.

When they wanted to send me overseas? We negotiated a new contract which included paying me hourly rates for the flight hours.

Unmentioned in the Canadian and New Zealand documents, they also typically consider length of service as a hint. If the contractor is with a single company for more than 2 years, that's a hint that they're not really a contractor.

USA [3]:

  1 Behavioral Control (instructions, when, rules, evaluation)
  2 Financial Control (equipment, expenses, profit)
  3 Relationship (contracts, benefits, permanency)

Canada [1]:

  1 Control
  2 Tools and Equipment
  3 Ability to subcontract
  4 Financial Risk
  5 Outside office and/or staff
  6 Able to increase profit

New Zealand [2]:

  1 Intention test (what both parties intend?)
  2 Control vs independence test (who sets the rules?)
  3 Integration test (are they part of the team? uniforms/parties)
  4 Fundamental/economic reality test (who pays what?)

[1]: https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publi...

[2]: https://www.employment.govt.nz/starting-employment/who-is-an...

[3]: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/understanding-employee-vs-contr...

Yeah, and the training described in the article is a direct result of these tax rules.

This is de-facto status quo in tech. Usually the carrot is that you can transfer into the company as a FTE in a year or two. I've also seen people go from FTE to a contractor doing basically the same job just with a different title. Honestly, there should be a mass class action by these contractors at Google. Maybe that will put an end to it all. Trump could curry a lot of favor by investigating these issues. It's as big an issue as H1B.

" If you work at a temp agency, they pay you regardless of whether you're bringing money"

That's never been a thing I've seen. Cite?

"they do technical training and career advancement work"

I've only seen that in the sense of "we'll test your MS Office proficiency and offer you generic resume tips"

The temp agency model exists solely to enable large corporations to avoid having layoffs and reorgs: firing 49% of Google's staff would have a terrible effect on the stock price, and telling the temp agencies that they won't have contracts next quarter boosts the bottom line, instead.

Cite: every technical consulting firm that W2s its employees and invoices its clients.

Sure, these exist, but that's not really the same line of business.

You have your technical consulting firm and general IT contractors that sell services to companies whose main competence is not software developers. Then you have contractors go on-site, develop some software, and go back once the project is over.

But those aren't red badges in the sense we're talking about. We're talking about a company whose core competence is software development taking on contractors as members in existing software dev teams. The companies employing these contractors tend to be more like shell companies then technical consulting firms, and most of the training given to the contractor is the same as that given to FTEs, by the host company, since they have to work on the same code base and contractors and FTEs need to be in lock-step.

I ran a firm like this, and we had vendor badges. We weren't a "shell company", but even if we had been, the underlying idea would be the same: we W2'd our employees and invoiced our clients. We were on the hook for paying for employee downtime.

I'm responding to the claim above, about "that never being a thing they've seen", which seems silly to me because it's the basic way every staff-aug firm works.

How many of these contractors are software engineers who do get W-2d jobs? My understanding was that the majority were non software roles like cleaning staff, physical security guards, cafeteria workers, etc. I've worked in temp agencies for that type of work and you stop getting paid when the temp agency does.

Its all hourly paid work with the contracting firm only acting as a legal shield for the hiring company to be able to add/remove what are effectively their employees, without being beholden to the political or legal ramifications of layoffs

Since the instructions quoted refer to rewarding team members on projects with things like t-shirts, the impression I got from the article is: most of them.

Regardless: I was responding to a point upthread about the supposed rarity of these arrangements. I'm less interested in litigating other things.

I think the point is, firms like yours may exist. But they are in the minority at large tech firms who have software development as their core competency

I think I'm maybe not being clear. I'm saying: body shop or not, the core feature of a staff-aug firm --- the entire reason they exist at all --- is so that the staff-aug firm owns the W2 downtime risk, and the client can retain or release augmented staff at will.

The question from the top of the thread is whether staff-aug firm employees get paid even when Google doesn't need them. And the answer to that question, in general, is yes: they're W2 employees, not 1099s.

I'm sure Matasano did a number of things better than a large body shop firm. But paying for bench time is a norm, not an exception.

I agree with the rest of your post except for

>But paying for bench time is a norm, not an exception

Having worked at a temp firm for a low skilled job, call center and data entry, you don't get paid for downtime. They have you on an agreement where you get paid hourly and just aren't scheduled. Or they let you go and call you back if there's more work later. The negotiating power isn't there for employees to have the companies shoulder that risk

Were your clients software (or software-adjacent) companies like Google, Intel, Facebook, etc., or companies who usually do not employ software development teams?

Also, since I know who you are, did your firm supply highly specialized engineers in fields such as security or cryptography? Or were you involved in general software development?

As a counterpoint, I was a TVC in an engineering role at a large tech company. I had interviewed with the company for a full-time role, and was invited to TVC due to a companywide hiring freeze.

I negotiated my pay directly with the company. They basically told me "we can only hire TVCs now, and the vetting process for new vendors is exhausting. If you want to start right away, join this agency." The client was the agency's primary (or maybe only) customer. I was paid an hourly rate and expected to fill out a timesheet. If I wasn't working (e.g. if I was at the end of the client's max 1 year TVC policy), I wouldn't be paid. The agency took some commission on top of my hourly rate, but I never knew what it was.

The whole thing was a very thin veil to dissuade TVCs from going for back benefits like the famous Microsoft case. Both companies were upfront about that.

But when "temps" can be employed for 10+ years in the same role with the same host company, is that model still true?

Yes. Having the option of being redeployed elsewhere or called back but not doing so is not the same thing as not having that option.

A lot of guys have their own businesses that they use for contracting

Yeah, and that's what, a fraction of a percent of the contractors? They're not who we're talking about right now.