Lesson 9

Independent Contractors

Most of the company works in teams of 3 to 7. A small number of students may instead work as independent contractors: a company of one, doing a project the studio actually needs.

What a contractor is

A contractor is not a punishment and not an escape. It is a different contract with the same standards. Contractors:

Commit deliverables at sprint planning like every team, and demo at every pool day or sprint review
Clear the same lesson cards, write the same DDRs, and file the same status report
Own every deliverable personally. There is no teammate to point at, and no teammate to hide behind
Build things the company will use. Contractor projects sell their product back to the teams

How you become one

Contractor status is granted by the teacher, not chosen, and slots are limited (2 to 3 at a time). It happens one of two ways:

By proposal. You pitch a project the studio needs and you are the right person to build it.
By reassignment. If working on a team is not working, after a documented probation sprint with clear written expectations, the teacher may move you to contractor status.

Either way, the gate is the same: a written project proposal before any build time. One page: objective, what you will produce, materials and estimated cost, timeline by sprint, what you expect to be hard, and what “done” looks like. The proposal is reviewed like a design review; expect questions.

Example contractor projects

A claw test fixture teams use to benchmark grip designs
A camera comparison (latency, low light, fogging) with data teams can cite in DDRs
Driver practice props built to mission task dimensions
A battery charging and tracking station
Studio tooling: label systems, cable testers, a tether management reel

Notice the pattern: every project has a customer inside the company.

The path back

Contractor status is reviewed each sprint. Contractors in good standing can propose joining or rejoining a team at any sprint boundary, and teams can recruit contractors whose work they respect. Delivering as a contractor is the strongest possible argument that you are ready for a team again.

The fine print

A contractor who stops delivering does not get a quieter version of the class; they get the same “not yet” everyone gets, the same redo path, and a conversation about scope. The water and the sprint record judge contractors exactly as they judge teams.