IBM

Some managers will work to implement good agile and/or XP workflows.

Pay is decent (for a contractor without benefits).

Not super stressful, depending on your manager.

Corporate level puts pressure on managers to stifle agile flow and make XP nearly impossible to implement.

Contract to hire employees who have not left or been let go have not been hired on as full-time employees after years of contract work.

Virtually no developer communication with end users of products.

High-level management decisions lead to months of work on products that will never be sold. These kinds of decisions have resulted in mass layoffs without regard to employee performance.

Lack of an onboarding process leads to months of wheel-spinning before figuring out what's going on.

Ease up on lower-level managers and encourage XP, or at least quality Agile practices.

Hire the long-term contractors.

Find buyers for products in early stages before investing crazy amounts of money.