I’ve been a contactor for quite a few years now – with a break in the middle where I ran an agency with a friend for a couple of years (Nothing bad happened, we’re still friends and the agency is going great guns, it just wasn’t right for me at the time).  So I’ve got a lot of experience working in quite a number of companies and teams but I’m still not convinced I’ve got contracting, or at least my attitude towards it quite right.

Basically I am still a bit confused about what the role of a contractor is, and I also think that some of the clients I’ve worked for are also not clear.

Code Monkeys – Is this what we are?  Just guys brought in to fill a few holes and plug the resourcing gaps. Sometimes I suppose this is exactly what we are. The core team of developers have chosen the way they are going to build the application, the code framework we are going to use and have already picked up the cool bits of code to do.  As a contractor you step in to do the boring bit (because they are dull) or difficult, high risk or application vital bits (because no one wants to be left holding the baby when everything turns into a shit storm). I can understand this way of doing things, but it is expensive.  You don’t need an extra Flex developer sitting on your team on the off chance that a requirement comes in which needs another pair of hands, so when it does you get in a contractor. I’m also not really bothered about doing the bits no one else wants to either – it goes with the territory – if I wanted to try and make myself into a rock star (and I don’t honestly think I’m good enough to be one) I’d find the coolest agency in London and do everything to get a job.

If you are using contractors in this way then really you need to have an experienced in house architect, or at least an extremely experienced lead developer. Otherwise you end up with a team of contractors sitting around waiting to find out what they are supposed to do, or worse getting the wrong end of the stick and getting stuck in with gusto only to find out that they’ve done it all wrong.

The reason that you can do this with contractors is that we are pretty experienced ourselves, we’ve generally been coding to a high standard for a while and can hit the ground running regardless of the code or problem we are given. If you want it written in a certain way then as contractors we can do it that way. But should we?

Maybe as contractors our role should be more pro-active. Rather than sitting down and getting on with the job we are given we should take more of an active role in actually telling the rest of the team what we think and the way that we would do the job. Granted you can’t really do this when you are well into the project, or towards the end (which can be when agencies realise that they need another pair of hands) but when you are near the beginning of the project surely this is a good idea? As contractors we have worked in loads of different places, used tons of different development methodologies and seen many near misses and cock-ups and will have an opinion on how to avoid these problems in the future.

I tend to go down the middle of these routes. Make my opinion known and then get my head down and do what I’m asked too, but sometimes I wonder if being a slightly more opinionated developer at the outset would make the project, and my time at the client’s office, go a bit smoother.

This really is just me musing aloud (or blogging aloud – whatever…..;) ) I’m interested in what other contractors and also agency full timers think.