I’ve worked a lot of contract jobs and very few straight jobs. I would love to have a really good straight job at this point in my career, but the contract work wasn’t bad at all. It’s usually worse benefits. And make sure it’s W-2 and not 1099, or you’d better ask for a lot more money, because you’ll pay double the taxes you’re used to. I learned a lot because it’s usually a very diverse environment in terms of people’s experiences, so there are lots of different perspectives from the jaded pro to the recent grad.
I’ve been doing this for 25 years and I’m slowing down and getting tired of constantly being in team building mode. I want a straight job where I can build up specific expertise and relationships and use my experience on a single set of products/services. But I don’t regret my contracts. I mean I could tell horror stories about a couple of really shitty contractors I worked for, but the actual job and people I worked with were great even so.