Factors to consider when deciding which position to choose: "contract" or "permanent"

  Permanent Contract
Positive
  1. "Stability", confidence in the future
  2. Ability to develop the career, "growth" with the company
  3. Usually more fundamental and interesting job
  4. Possibility to see all phases of the development process
  5. Benefits (dental, prescription, fitness club, etc.)
  6. Ability to learn new stuff, courses, conferences, business trips
  1. Higher salary ranges, lower taxes
  2. Usually more interesting job
  3. Little documentation and a lot of coding
  4. Fast acquired experience in diverse fields
  5. Wide experience and acquaintance of many companies
  6. No involvement into company's conflicts and troubles
  7. Often little or no maintenance
  8. Theoretical possibility to stay in the company you liked
Negative
  1. Lower salary ranges, higher taxation
  2. Often less interesting job and more static. Project might takes years to develop.
  3. Participation in many conflicts of the development group
  4. Usually tons of documentation
  5. Experience is narrow and specialized that might slow down the search of the next job.
  1. No stability at all. Contracts usually long 2,3,6,9,12 months
  2. Often nervous job, very high responsibility
  3. No benefits, must pay everything by yourself
  4. Often the job is less interesting because of maintenance or support job. Often contractors have little or no credit for large projects
  5. Contract locations might be far from each other