Benefits of a full-time job

Friendly Equity Compensation Policies

Tech is one of the few industries, if not the only, that pay with equity even to its lowest ranking employees. This means as a worker, you get to reap the financial benefits of an owner when the business does well or is simply loved by investors. As a result, equity compensation plays a huge role in attracting talent – it’s the ultimate Ponzi scheme that isn’t outright called a Ponzi scheme, yet. Nonetheless, I digress.

Just to hit home the point, equity compensation means you make money while you sleep, or milling about and twiddling your thumbs. When your equity vests, you get your shares in one lump sum quarterly or annually, depending on the company’s equity structure. In short, in terms of comp and return on investment, or ROI, tech has the highest pay off from working two jobs.

Less Unpredictability

Being an employee there should not be the unpredictability of consulting. I have had to fly out to remote cities as a consultant and meetings and projects can happen almost instantly. Full-time employee status means you know what is about to happen.

Benefits

Benefits are by far the main reason to be an employee. Unless you are building out a very large consulting firm with tons of employees who work for you or you can demand a very high hourly or project rate, then benefits can be as much as 30% of the value of working for a large employer.

Job Flexibility

I found while working as an employee I was able to flex and change and move into different job functions, especially at a large employer. At one employer working full time I had 7 job titles and departments in 4 years. As a consultant you typically are locked into a narrow scope job.

Management Skill

As a consultant, you rarely can be a manager, director or VP or CEO and very rarely will you be developed for management (if it still exists). Being a consultant means you will not be going to personal development training or management training. You will have to find and read articles yourself to get yourself trained!

I am sure there are a dozen reasons for one or the other (the other option is consulting). It is still clear to me that working as an employee is the better situation. Maybe it has more to do with where you are at in your career (if you are not starting up a business). If you are about to have kids and start a family, obviously being on a corporation’s medical insurance is probably the biggest factor in why you would want to be an employee and not a consultant. If you had kids and they are long gone and you don’t have a major medical problem, then consulting could be the way to go.