Question: Is there a downside about taking too many short-term contract positions? I'm still early in my career (I'm 25) but I've only been in a perm full-time job once for 1.5 years. My other 2 jobs have been been 6 month contracts. My current job is a 6-month contract-to-hire position which has been ok but I'd like to move elsewhere when the contract finishes. Are all these short-term jobs seen as a black mark? 

I've read that it's recommended to stay at a permanent full-time job for a year but don't contractor jobs have different guidelines? Isn't it common for contractors to jump around jobs like this?

Answer: 
**Resume Considerations**

You may wish to phrase things in such a way to make this clear. If you are sending out resumes, consider how it would look to to see something like:

* Widget Engineer at MegaCorp A
* Widget Engineer at MegaCorp B

It will not be clear at the outset that you have been doing contract work. If you include bullets under each job and include something like "6-month contract to build Awesome Widgets" and have the dates match accordingly, I don't think this is an issue.

In fact, there may be companies which see this as a plus - because if they are looking for a short-term contract employee and see someone with only 1+ year periods at each of their job, it will be difficult for the employer to judge how you would take a contract offer and if you would be happy to accept a shorter contract and have the employment end after this period.

**Interview Considerations**

If you get to an interview, this should be an easy thing to talk about as you are able to give explanations as to why you have had so many jobs. It is not a given people will see this as a negative, however, if you run into older hiring managers or even HR people they may (regardless of this being more typical in software) care and so it is probably a good idea to at least talk about your work experience to answer the unspoken feeling of "does this guy just have a hard time liking any company; he probably won't like us either" a lot of those people likely will have.

Again, keep in mind if you are applying through the traditional route, you and your resume/information will interact with people who are not part of the software-engineering role, and they likely will view things with a somewhat different perspective.

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Just a note, if you are simply changing jobs because you never like them or because the company doesn't want to renew any of the contracts because of performance, then yes, it probably will be seen as a negative.
I wouldn't view you as a job hopper and disqualify you on that basis, but, to be honest, I would have difficulty considering you qualified for a senior position either. This is because you haven't had to live with the results of what you created. Further, many people I have interviewed and worked with as contractors with this type of experience never develop the depth to become senior developers, they are repeating the same level of experience over and over. Now if each contract takes you a little further in depth on something and you are clearly developing significant expertise in an area, then it would not be a deal breaker particularly if you are a specialist of some kind. But the interview would be quite pointed towards how you have grown and learned from your mistakes.