Contract Work vs. Direct Employment 1

[kat6787]

Hi everybody,
I'm a young engineer (<2 years after grad with 1 internship during school), I graduated with a BS in a maritime structures/coastal engineering degree. I am working towards me EIT certificate and will start working towards a masters in structures (after I get done with my EIT quest), however all that means absolutely nothing to employers until I have the certificate or diploma in my hand.

I was hoping to get some opinions about working a contract position with the limited experience that I have. I only ask because all the contract engineers that I have worked with have had a atleast 5 years of experience and normally had a specialty that the company needed at that time, but not necessarily for an extended period of time.

Is it better to stay on as a direct employee for a few more years before making the switch to becoming a contractor?

Thanks
Kat

 

[civilperson]

In my experience as a contractor, (mercenary money grubbing dis-loyal engineering prostitute), I find I am paid roughly double the pay for comparable employees. The benefits that I forgo are worth approximately 14%, (paid vacation, paid holidays, health insurance, etc.), so if I work more than seven months a year I come out ahead. The variety is stimulating with numerous standard methodologies to learn and compare. My longevity at any one company is equal to the average salaried employee since most lay off at the end of project completion unless a new project starts simultaneously with the completion.

 

[Pipeline1972]

what employers says to contractors: " We like you, you're doing a great job, we'd like to keep you, blah blah blah, but.. we're out of work. Go home and we'll call you in a couple of weeks."

Draftsman - Designer Industrial Piping

 

[Kwan]

I was a direct at one time. The management called everyone together (directs and contractors) and announced a RIF next friday, contractors are not affected. Go back to work. I eventually quite to move on to contracting and was interviewed by HR. The lady said, yes contracting is more lucrative, but you are giving up job security. I then told her about the RIF announcement. She had no comment.

I worked another company where they laid off all but one of the directs. Contractors were not affective.

contracting = job security + 1.5 * time

 

[kontiki99]

Interesting thread.

I think that I've seen both deadbeat permanent engineers and deadbeat contractors.

Does contract engineering pay overtime over 40 hrs?

 

[debodine]

kontiki99:

You are correct that there are deadbeats (and by reasonable implication, solid workers and even stellar performers) in both the contract and permanent engineering communities. To answer your specific question, in the ten years that I performed contract engineering (1994-2004) every contract I was under paid time-and-a-half for anything over 40 hours in one week. I don't know if that has changed in the past three years or not.

debodine

 

[KENAT]

Last year when I was conract I was meant to get time + 1/2 for time over 40 hours.

Of course I was never allowed to work over 40 hours, at least "officially", so never got to see any of it.

However, that was with a view to going permanent, if it hadn't been for that I would have been watching the clock counting the seconds...

 

[ewh]

OT is usually dependent on how well you negotiate with the contract shop. I wouldn't take a contract without it unless there was some huge over-riding reason (like unemployment was running out).