Software Engineer Choices: Permanent Employee vs Contractor vs Micro-ISV, Part 1: Employee

For engineers who prefer stability.

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This article is one of the “IT Job Interview” series.

Here is a quick explanation of three work choices for a software engineer:

• Permanent Employee: a full-time job.
  Employees work in and are part of the business.
• Contractor: offer IT services to a company for a short period.
  Contractors are running their own business.
• Micro-ISV: is an independent software vendor with fewer than 10 or even just one software developer, i.e. Work for yourself.
  In the context of this article, Mirco-ISV is a one-person software business.

The first two choices are available for most IT roles, including testers (auto or manual, business analysts and managers). For a one-person Micro-ISV, the person must possess high-level coding skills.

I worked in all the above three types, in order. In this article, I will share my thoughts.

1. Permanent Employee

Pros:

• Job Stability
• Career ladder via promotions…