You can "work for another company at the same instant you're working for [your current one]"? What about a direct competitor?

Do you actually get paid per job worked, and not salary? How does that work? What metrics do you use to determine the amount of work done? This is a genuine question. Most setups like this I've seen are with freelancers, and those are contractors.

That would be the last item on the list, which I specifically excluded.

I was asking about the 3rd and 4th to last items on the list...

I thought I was an employee at my second role as a developer. Found out after a government ruling I was a contractor.

Being a developer doesn't make you an employee.

If you work for contracts / jobs and not for a company that has hired you full time then yeah you are probably a contractor depending on where you are occupation does not magically determine employment status (contractor vs employee).

It did for me. I was hired locally and worked for a short time on location but then worked from home. When tax time came I asked for my t4 but employer said I wasn't an employee so I asked for a ruling and it was deemed I was a contractor. That ending up costing me thousands.. I quickly found something else..

Not sure where you live, but every job I have had that's a full employment job has had me fill out a W2 tax form as one of the first papers I sign. If I'm not asked to sign one, I'm going to get suspicious about my employment status immediately.

I've worked a few software developer jobs- particularly at very early startups- that were probably illegal. Either as an employee treated way too much like a contractor, or a contractor treated way too much like an employee.