No mid level managers. No HR. No juniors trying to backstab you with clueless management. No TPS reports. No offshore team. All meetings have a point or you don't go. You set your own hours. You only work at work and you are "at work" less hours generally.
At least that's how it is for me. Lack of the above is worth 10's of K extra per year.
But it's not for everyone. If you lack the ability or discipline to achieve actual results for which you are 100% responsible, at a speed and scale that makes economic sense (or at least the ability to convince people of this), if you lack the ability to keep from being eaten by the world, you are better off with a job.
On the other hand, I wake up , I open my computer, I do 8 hours of work and I shut down in the evening and I leave my home office.
I don’t have to worry about trying to chase clients for work or payment. I get paid when I’m sick or on vacation or holidays. There is a sales team that brings work in and an accounting and legal team to collect payments.
People are saying "you can charge more" and that's true but over the long haul with dry spells, re-work because you were stupid or a client outclevered you, trouble collecting, vacations, insurance and the fact you can skate by for a bit just showing up if you aren't feeling it for a few days at work, a good job probably does pay better and for certain types of people (I'm not one of those types of people) it is less stressful overall.
To be fair, the “corporate world” for me has been working full time for cloud consulting companies for the past 5 years.
As long as you stay away from staff augmentation projects, it’s not bad. Most of my day to day work is working directly with clients. Unless you are a junior, you’re usually over your part of larger projects (mid level) with little micro managing or the project itself (senior, staff). You’re always of course answerable to your client.
I do understand though. My first stint working in consulting was the consulting department at AWS (full time, direct hire). I would rather get a daily anal probe with a cactus than ever work for a large company again.
I didn’t mind working for a 60 person startup before then where all of the people in charge were grown people and not tech bros
At least that's how it is for me. Lack of the above is worth 10's of K extra per year.
But it's not for everyone. If you lack the ability or discipline to achieve actual results for which you are 100% responsible, at a speed and scale that makes economic sense (or at least the ability to convince people of this), if you lack the ability to keep from being eaten by the world, you are better off with a job.