A "stint" in consulting <i>typically</i> has three outcomes:<p>a) You fail at the business side, can't find clients, your finances suffer, after all the optimism and pleasure at owning your own time, you start looking for a job within a year or so.<p>b) You succeed at the business side, get more clients than you can handle, start sub-contracting, start having to manage your sub-contractors, decide the margins would be better if you had employees, grow into a "boutique consultancy", stop coding mostly and become a full-time salesman and manager, but now with other people who depend on you for their livelihoods.<p>c) You succeed just enough to sustain yourself, don't seek new clients or attempt to grow beyond a 1-person shop, outsource to subs when you need to for a little extra juice but otherwise shy away from taking on too much work, take the work that comes your way, subcontract for some of the bigger fish who need your special skills, and accept the 'feast or famine' reality of income, enjoy your freedom and time off between clients, but not entirely because you're always worried about where your next check is going to come from or "what if the work dried up?", but ultimately get trapped in the endless cycle of making pretty good money and "enjoying the variety" as you grow older, start a family, etc, and can't afford to take the hit trying something entrepreneurial any more since your kids need to go to college, until finally the burnout is so intense you hate consulting and the fact that your livelihood is tied to your labor, hoping that you've put enough away to at least retire early and maybe then you'll work on something you actually want to.<p>There is a fourth approach (or path, if you will) which is to work for an established consultancy as per the article. This path itself has three typical outcomes:<p>1) You are a natural creature of the corporate consulting world, you prosper in the one true measure of value -- selling work, you ascend to director-level or something where you make very good money, if you're entrepreneurial you maybe can take your clients with you to buy into a partner role at another consultancy. Maybe you see this life as a good life that you're well-suited to.<p>2) You think success at an established consultancy is based on technical merit, you're gradually disabused of this idea and suffer burnout, if you haven't been there long, you maybe jump to the product world or (gasp!) start a startup solving some problem you solved for a client of the consultancy. Congrats, now you have a startup and all the attendant cares. There is a different list for that path.<p>3) You burn out of working in corporate but think "hey, I'm a pretty good consultant and what else am I gonna do?", you decide to go independent, see outcomes a, b, c above.