Ok - so lately since I got here, I've been gtting hit by a TON of recruiters. Apparently there IS a market for a native English speaking programmer with people skills...

Anywho - some of hte jobs have been contract, others contract to perm and then others full time. DO any of you guys out there do the contract gigs? A one year contract gig just scares the bejeezus outta me - prolly cuz I've never done one.

Any inputs?

You could always just go the self-employed route too. Do you have a family to support? If I did, I might be more tempted to go with something more secure (like fulltime) with benefits.

I started out working full time for a company, but did some moonlighting with my father (he's not a computer person, but needed computer help). I got lots of experience in my fulltime work, and in the meantime, the work with my father grew to such a point that I decided to take the risk with him and make it into a fulltime business. I quit my fulltime job and essentially work as a paid consultant for my fathers company. I also kept some contacts from clients of my fulltime job and supplemented my income with small projects here and there for these clients. I never pursued other work - I was lucky enough to have my plate full.

As a paid consultant, I have to take care of my own income tax payments etc., I get no benefits or paid vacation time, but the money is pretty decent. I personally really love working from home and being able to set my own hours. I was lucky to be able to do the moonlighting since some companies make you sign agreements saying that they own ANY work you do during the period your employed by them and/or they say you can't work for anyone else. I negotiated this out of my contract and I'm glad I did. (Though I'm not really sure how enforcable that sort of thing is anyway).

Currently I'm developing a couple of new businesses with a few partners, so we'll see how that goes.

I don't have anyone to support so, I feel fairly comfortable with the risk involved not having guaranteed long-term employment with a big company. I don't regret doing what I'm doing at all. I would be nervous about only doing contract work and having to constantly find a new contract as one end. I prefer to try to have a few irons in the fire at once so I'm not only relying on one thing.

That may not exactly answer your question, but maybe it'll give you some ideas. I guess one other thing... if you have a good contract offer now, you can take it and if you don't like it, you can switch to another full time job at the end of the contract. I think if you speak English as a first language, have good people and programming skills, you'll always be able to find work somewhere (knock on wood) .

I am basically doing the self employment thing right now myself with the exception of the tax thing...my taxes DO get taken out of my paycheck. But I don't get any paid time off and I have to buy my own insurnace etc...

I'm in a contract/perm position now but am thinking of taking a contract job for a decent raise...but after a year...who knows...

Just feeling the waters out and seeing if anyone else out there is jumping from contract to contract and if so hows it working out...

I've done the contract to contract thing, I think I was lucky at the time to not really have any gaps in getting a paycheck. Contract to hire sounds tempting sometimes, but I've never actually had that happen for me. At one position they did end up keeping me on after the contract expired on an hourly basis. I think i prefer my stable job even if it pays less... Hopefully I get a raise soon .

In the end, it really depends if you can take a hit of no paycheck and for how long.

My wife and I have a good deal, I get the paycheck and benefits, she is doing the self employment thing. Works good if you have this setup , but test thoroughly before rolling to production.

lol we're the other way around