Comment Consultant = project (Score 1) 256
Having worked in several full time and consulting positions, my current experience is that consultants or contractors are perfect for projects that require a skillset that the company is not willing to pay for full time. We build out e-commerce networks regularly, and are used to size the network (something akin to voodoo magic if you want to do it right), design architecture, lay the infrastructure, size the servers, build, harden, and configure the servers, design network monitoring, design security, etc. etc. etc.
To do that, the company would have to hire, full time, 1-2 network geeks with experience in high-speed co-location networks and redundancy, 1-2 security geeks capable of dealing with high-traffic exposed websites and various network hardware and OSs, 1-2 snmp/netmon geeks for HP Openview or whatnot, and at least 2 crak Unix admins.
If the company picks up consultants instead, the buildout may cost them 200k, but it is much cheaper than salary for all those people. Also, what do you do with all of those people after the project is finished? As full-timers, they will get bored and leave. As consultants, they don't have the chance.
To do that, the company would have to hire, full time, 1-2 network geeks with experience in high-speed co-location networks and redundancy, 1-2 security geeks capable of dealing with high-traffic exposed websites and various network hardware and OSs, 1-2 snmp/netmon geeks for HP Openview or whatnot, and at least 2 crak Unix admins.
If the company picks up consultants instead, the buildout may cost them 200k, but it is much cheaper than salary for all those people. Also, what do you do with all of those people after the project is finished? As full-timers, they will get bored and leave. As consultants, they don't have the chance.
