As a contractor, I sit on a delayed train in a tunnel or held up by transport sites, costing my client precious hours of the working day. As a software developer, I wake up before the dawn and produce some of my very best work before the sun appears on the horizon.
On-site, we are expected to hit the ground running. We start a new role with our extensive and varied corporate experience. We may bring ideas from other roles, not information of course as we respect confidentiality, but methods, best practices and that indefinable quality: certainty.
On-site we have a lot to offer, however, we do not replace permanent staff. We do not want to introduce friction with people who have invested years or even their lives in collaboration with their employers. We are there to get a specific task done while a permanent resource is found (if it is required). Or we are there to get a project done, professionally.
Contractors who take real jobs from real people are just expensive employees. All strength to them, but that is not what I offer as a contractor. I prefer to get things done and then face my next challenge. More and more I find that the value that I give to clients is achieved more effectively online than it is after a frustrating commute into an office, even though I have worked in some of the most extraordinary offices with some extraordinary people, most of the time I am not socialising, I am facing a screen and making code work.
Online contracting is obviously a better way to employ project development resources. How to find a good remote contractor? This forum is a great place. How much should it cost? Is a daily rate the best way to charge? Perhaps not.
At Software Antelope Ltd, I am developing a better way to offer remote contracting services that reduces the element of risk for clients and the overhead of administration for developers. It employs Agile, Kanban and repositories. It employs efficient and secure delivery of projects. I do not have to sit on a train or take up a desk or sit in a meeting room. I simply deliver and get paid for what is produced.
Business evolves efficiency and that means more profit and less stress on our poor old transport infrastructure.