What are the drawbacks of contracting?
The biggest drawback of contracting is its unpredictability. You never know when you will be working or for how long. While you work the money may be very good, but contracts can end without warning and it may take longer to find a new contract than you expected. If your technical skills are highly specialized, you may have to travel around the country to keep busy or you may have to settle in a particular area, like Silicon Valley, where demand for your skills is strong.
Another drawback to consulting is that over time you may burn out on being a gypsy and begin to feel that in spite of all your labor you never build anything lasting. As you move from project to project you learn and forget the details of dozens of systems, while you form and break relationships with dozens of coworkers. This can be exciting for the first few years, particularly when coupled with high earnings. But after a while, many people find it hard to keep on living this way.
Yet another challenge of contracting is that contractors are almost always hired to do the kinds work they have done before. If you are a C++ programmer, you’ll be offered C++ contracts. If you’re a DB2 specialist you’ll get jobs that involve DB2 databases.When recruiters offer you ever increasing rates for doing the same kinds of work over and over again, it is hard to turn them down and hunt for the rarer contracts that let you learn new things that enhance your skills. Because of this, over time it can become increasingly difficult to get paid experience using new technology.
Eventually you may get stuck in a software ghetto, able to find work only in the handful of companies that still need people with your obsolescing skills.
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