Comment by raw_anon_1111

I have only worked as a contractor where I was officially working for a third party company and they had a contract with the client. But I didn’t get paid when I wasn’t on contract and working full time for consulting companies (or departments) where I was a full time employee with benefits and got paid regardless of whether I was on the bench.

Either way, I have never known clients to pay in advance and now I’m high enough up the food chain to know that every company has trouble from time to time getting clients to pay. But that’s never been a “me problem”. The company I work for has sales, accounting and legal to worry about it. I get paid on time regardless. The trade off in getting paid less per hour is well worth it.

I still wonder if most people doing “independent consulting” wouldn’t be better off taking your bog standard enterprise dev job working 40 hours a week or working full time for consulting company.