My previous company basically do everything to have only contractors as software engineers on board despite CTO saying that he treats everyone as employees and contract of employment is an option.

But as contract of employment they offer 50% net of what they offer for contractors these are on hourly wage because employees have more expensive overtime by law and have a lot of benefits.

On top of that they basically treat regular employees in a shitty way and even refuse to comply with my country laws like a work time. They literally put in contracts that they have to work 42 hours per week even if you can’t hire anyone for more than 40. And they enforce on them unpaid overtime which also is literally illegal. Same as working in holidays.

And they also have great reviews because reviewing them badly could only hurt me.

The only reviews are written by management.

This is why I pick companies where reviews are realistic. On my current company’s glassdor a lot of people complained on fast scaling up and related issues. It made the reviews legitimate for me.