> And yes, software developers do go from contract to FTE. The interview process may become somewhat pro forma in that case,
This whole paragraph sounds very weird to me. It runs completely opposite to my experience.
I have never worked at a place which made contractors go through technical interviews. That sounds like a huge waste of time when you already know how they perform. Interviewing is costly.
In the field I used to work for, hiring contractors was seen as a major pain because you had to be careful about not spoiling your relationship with their current company and contracts tend to have clauses about "poaching". It was never done unless you really wanted the guy.
Where are you? I believe my experience is typical of large tech companies in California, which was the question asked. I'd be shocked if a former contractor got hired without at least a half-baked pretense of an interview, if only for legal reasons--to treat contractors differently from other non-employees risks creating a presumption that they're not non-employees, which HR built this whole elaborate mechanism to fight.
And the agencies are absolutely fine with it. Sometimes there's a buyout fee, but not a big deal. The agencies are pretty interchangeable anyways, so they can't be too picky.
This whole paragraph sounds very weird to me. It runs completely opposite to my experience.
I have never worked at a place which made contractors go through technical interviews. That sounds like a huge waste of time when you already know how they perform. Interviewing is costly.
In the field I used to work for, hiring contractors was seen as a major pain because you had to be careful about not spoiling your relationship with their current company and contracts tend to have clauses about "poaching". It was never done unless you really wanted the guy.