Is it a recruitment agency, is it a software company?

Somewhere along the line, recruiters decided it was an easier sell to describe themselves as a software company. They then became "digital transformation" companies.

Software companies realised that most places just wanted bodies. So they became like the recruitment agencies, shipping in people and occasionally checking in on them.

Both of these types of companies have occasional check-ins with their staff. A Christmas party, some half hearted slack groups like "MLOps", "Edge computing", a case study here and there.

So for some reason in the UK, there are a plethora of recruitment agencies selling themselves as software companies. Organising developer events, calling themselves "Open Source" Evangelists, spamming LinkedIn until she can't take no more.

Ultimately, they are just recruitment companies. There is no progression for developers, no upsides. Just a treadmill of projects. Maybe that's good enoug.