Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com