Maintenance contract

[FiveTimes]

I am hopefully about to return to contracting after a spell in the permie arena

What are the implications of offering a maintenance contract to my current employers for support and occasional development ?

I would be running this in parallel with my new contract.

[northernladuk]

The main implication that comes to mind is can you deliver on it? The devil will be in the details I guess but if you offer this service in parallel are you going to get caught with your pants down if you are busy on the contract and can't meet the clients maintenance needs?

If you can then I can't think of.

[DotNetDeveloper]

I wouldn't advise it.

Your current employer may be skeptical about your ability to deliver. But if they accept such an agreement, you also run the risk of burning yourself out.

I moved from contracting to freelancing, where I was juggling 3 demanding clients at once... and I wanted to jump out the window to end it all. It was tough, too tough, working weekends and evenings to meet demands that are just not possible as you have two clients that expect something for Monday morning and it is currently 5am Monday.

Then I got a contracting gig again, winded down the clients with evening work and handovers and never want to get myself into that situation again.

Stick to a 9-5 and use the extra time to enjoy life and work on your plan B. The extra money is just not worth it IMHO.

[Wanderer]

What are the implications of offering a maintenance contract to my current employers for support and occasional development ?

It could bite you if you sign up with a support contract then take a contract with a client with a permie-tractor mentality who thinks they own you 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and wants to know why you are disappearing into the stairwell to take a call for half an hour at a time. You would have to draft your support contract very carefully with SLAs such that you won't be expected to deal with issues instantly. You definitely want to get professional help in drafting the support contract.

On the plus side, it's a good way to keep a working relationship going with previous clients and if your system is stable and well sorted then it could be a nice little earner for doing bugger all. Future development work could be sub-contracted out if you are unable to do it yourself. It's also a good defence if IR35 ever comes up.