Yes. I've met several people who take short term (6-month to year long) contracts. Usually, companies hire them because they have an expertise in a skill that the company wants to develop, or they have expertise in a skill that the company wants to use but doesn't want to hire long term. Sometimes, companies do this because hiring employees is costlier in the long run. When you are a contractor, you move from contract to contract every year or so. You won't get additional responsibilities, and you will get exposed to lot of differrent technologies. To be hired, you will need to know the technology well enough that you can do the work without training. THis means you will be responsible for your own training. The hardest part of being a contractor is that you will have to continuously learn new things by yourself. Also, some companies tend to overwork contractors. Some people don't like this, because you might end up spending 12 hours at the job + 2 hours training yourself. This leaves you 8 hours for sleep and 2 hours to eat and get dressed. You may not get time for hobbies or family. Some people are made for this lifestyle. If you are the kind of person who is glued to his computer all day, then this is perfect. You are basically making a lot of money for something you are going to do anyways. Many of these people end up taking a 2 month break between contracts just so they can relax. You come in, understand what they need, work hard and deliver. Recharge for 2 months and then get ready for next round. No other political or management bullshit. Wham bam, thank you ma'am. It's not bad, if you have the aptitude.
There are a lot of people who do this in my area. I live near Washington DC, and the government is a big employer here. It's a lot costlier for the government to hire employees than to hire contractors, so a lot of government jobs are done by contractors. There are a lot of companies whose main job is to hire people that can be contracted out to the government. The government has preferred contractors that they work with. Of course, it is difficult to become a preferred contractor, and a preferred contractor can't find everyone, so the preferred contractors contract with sub-contractors, who contracts with other sub-contractors. There's like a whole supply chain of contracting going around here. This is my job ecosystem. You might need to explore your job ecosystem to understand this better.
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Or alternatively, you can look at startups. usually, startups need people who can roll up their sleeves and get the job done. Since the entire company will probably be a 2-pizza team, there's probably going to be very little bullshit. You work there, get to them the point where they get funding to get to the next level, and take your exit to the next startup. You will probably be paid more in equity than in salary, and you will be taking risk. If the startup tanks, you won't get paid. You can say you did some cool things, though. You will have good stories to tell your friends.
You should do this only if you can afford it. Agian, it depends on how many startups are there in the place you work. Very easy to do this in San Francisco. A lot harder in Podunk town