Comment by raw_anon_1111

To a first approximation, no big company wants to deal with independent contractors.

My two anecdotes:

About a decade ago, I was leading a project and the director wished he could have “another me”. I told him about a guy who I had worked with who would be good. He wanted $80/hour. My director liked him. He wouldn’t pay my friend $80/hour as an independent contractor. But he would pay a consulting company $110/hour to hire him and then he work for us and he would still get his $80/hour.

Second anecdote: when I was between jobs for a month, a former CTO wanted me to do a side project for him - same situation, he wouldn’t pay me directly because of liability reasons what I wanted. But I reached out to the same consulting company and made the same deal. That went through immediately.

> Moreover, what stops that remote devops from taking place with highly qualified Hungarian or Polish or Portuguese engineers for 40 percent of the rate?

If your value add is only tactics and not strategy, you’re going to have a hard time getting decent rates consulting or even working for consulting companies.

I work in consulting now. I get paid - decently - while I do hands on work, I can also lead projects and do more strategy type projects.