Three engineers show up to your standup. All three work through external contracts. On paper, the arrangements look almost identical. In practice, they are not. One is an independent freelancer. One was sourced specifically for your role by a staff augmentation partner. One was assigned from a vendor's available bench. The differences may not show up in the first month. They show up when something goes wrong: a missed sprint, a production incident at 2 AM, an unexpected depar