Ask HN: Why do you hire engineering contractors for mid-term job? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why do you hire engineering contractors for mid-term job?

9 pointsJohanCutych8 comments

We've been bootstrapping our business for quite some time now (over 7 years) and currently decided to look for mid-term contracts to boost the cashflow.

Did you ever hire a developer for a 3-6 months contract? If so, who are you? What was the purpose of the hire? Where did you look for freelancers?

I am asking as I struggle with this concept a little bit. In the realm of hardcore tech startups it seems like everyone tends to hire devs on full time positions with the desire to build strong and long lasting tech teams - which makes total sense.

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Contractors are often hired for budgetary reasons. It can be easier to get sign off to hire a resource for 6 months at $x per month than to hire a full time employee whose salary is seen as an ongoing cost, year on year.

6 month cost can be an easy sell. Lifetime employee can be more difficult.

I work as a contractor myself in Ireland, and it's usually large companies, consultancy companies or government agencies who hire contractors. It's rare (but not unheard of) for startups here to hire contractors.

Those 6 month contracts usually roll on, so effectively you're working as if you were a permanent employee, but on paper you're always only ever a 6 month expense.

Thanks for the super valuable insight. Would you be actually up for connecting on LinkedIn? Got some additional question I would love to ask you!

I think we're already connected. You're name seemed familiar. https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrendevitt/

Wow! What a coincidence! I will be in touch with you.

Another huge reason is HR salary restrictions. In large companies, a senior individual contributor cannot make more than X, while the going market rate for people in hot specialities of the day is often higher than that. Contracts are a way to circumvent the HR restrictions. Many contractors are staying for a couple years within the same company and are essentially an employee in everything but a name.

At my company, we hire contractors usually as a way of staffing at least 30% of the resources in a flexible way. Meaning we keep them for about 3 years, let them go for about 18 months, and they are free to come back for another 3 years. This way the company can just cut them loose if we see a market downturn without having to fire a regular employee.

That's interesting way of keeping to company flexible for market downturns. But do you hire contractors for even shorter terms? If not, I am curious to hear why. Is it because 3 months are not enough to get them up to speed? Thanks for jumping in!

This seems fairly typical for large non-tech companies. They all seem to flirt with the line when it come to shadow employees.

We usually don't do less than 3 months for a contractor. If it's that short of a time, we are usually looking for a consultant/vendor just to get the system or new technology set up correctly for regular teams to take advantage of.

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