Has anyone worked as a software developer at a consulting company as a full time employee, not just a contractor? If so, could you offer how the experience was?

I've read a lot of developers shit on consulting positions, but it seems no different then developing a product for clients.

The problem with contractors is, they have no care of what they deliver, If it works, it works, if it doesn't, it's not their problem, they're nothing more then a crack whore when your desperate for a good time.

But... sometimes, you find the virgin on the corner who puts in the extra effort, be that guy!

Back to you though, do they even exist? I've only known of consulates who jump from gig to gig with a new firm every other week.

It's a software consulting company, all their developers are full time. and they are hiring because of recent growth. They mentioned I'd get to dabble in different tech stacks from project to project, which last around 6 months on average. They do a hackathon once a year. If you aren't on a client project, you're working on internal stuff or they pay for classes.
The developers I talked to say they get enough time to finish projects. It has great reviews on glassdoor.

Just seems to good to be true.

Not about the question of contractors vs full time.
Where I’m from the norm is that all consultants are full time employees at the consultant firm.

@shoogknight nothing unusually fancy AT ALL about a consultant company having a few hackathons per year and everyone ”on the bench” getting free education and new employees getting to dabble in different parts of the tech stack.

But good employee reviews might be harder to come by, focus on those

I was a full time consultant during most of the first half of my career, now I work for a product company.

I’d say being a consultant is perfect for new devs as you get to try out a lot of different projects ans varied tech.
Visiting a multitude of clients and business fields is also fun and educational.

The downside is you get way more pressured by deadlines than in a product company. and idiotic sales people who told the client you have 25 years of Vue experience when you only done React for 1 year.
But I still enjoyed that overall experience and did not regret it one bit!

I now prefer being at a product company but that might be because I’ve already tried consulting. Was fun for 3 years but then I kinda wanted to focus more on one product!

@jiraTicket thanks for the answer. I guess its all miles ahead of what my current job offers.

With my current job, it's not tight deadlines, its tights hours per task. Say I have to implement a custom feature, the PM will say I have 4 hours to complete it. And with how we track time, they know how long everything takes because we have to have 40 billable hours a week.

So it be relief to just have tight deadlines instead

Oh I can see how your current deadline situation is worse. Micro management canl be an unnecesse steess factor, motivation killer and a daily annoyance.

But Sometimes that happens in consultant gigs too: some clients demand you spend ages breaking down tasks and estimating each one.

Some are fine with saying: the deadline is 6 months - here are 60 feature prioritized, we get thay you might not finish them all.

Guess that’s part of the fun of being a consultant: you get to say ”Oh I worked on a shit project last quarter but this new one is great”. Lots of variation in a short period of time.

@shoogknight
That's the new scam in many places. They hire you so their customers don't have to.

Usually they will offer poor benefits, sketchy, if any vacation, and still want to pay you as hourly. The customer can then dodge any and all employee vs contractor regulation and let you go the moment they need to with no consequence. They see it as worth the premium, and bonus, it serves to depress market wages because salary scales can be managed outside the company and depressed collusively.

It also leads to the contemptuous attitudes towards contractors that @C0D4 exhibits, and those with the luxury of entering the market before everyone became a contractor share. Namely that all contractors are just shitty job hoppers who "can't commit." The reality is closer to they're not given any loyalty or opportunity, so what obligation do they have to go the extra mile? After the first few disingenuous 6 month CTH positions they end up at for a few years, they know the score.

I sincerely wish that all companies operating under this business model burn to ground and take the people who benefit from it with them.

I currently under a contract for almost a year since I'm a fresher when the pandemic was in full swing. I say it depends on the individual. I usually devote time to upskilling, studying if I'm not strong on things and practicing soft skills. I feel most the colleagues I work with seem not as motivated as me or want to learn. I know my current contractor offers me not much benefits and pay. It's hard because I'm passionate on my end. I'm just putting up with it until I can get a better opportunity and my contract is up and do my best. That's my take. I can see the perspective on my end.