261–270 of 549 posts
I quit. I had a nearly 20 year career in software, excellent references and well paid. I became completely burned out and hyper-cynical at the pointlessness and shallowness of it all. I can't get excited or even much beyond passing interest in an industry that is almost completely devoted to making the problem of too much stuff far worse. So instead of getting excited at another pointless startup or tech that's "goin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Less stress? Retail workers turn up a 9 leave at 17:30 - they dot get called up outside of work in an emergency to fix some one elses code that causing a problem.
In retail, you don't get free food / liquid. You have to stand on your feet all day. Customers are allowed to scream at you and you have to figure out how to make them happy. Bosses are more than happy to fire you because, let's be honest, there are 1,000 others that can do your job. No guarantees of a 40 hour work-week. No paid holidays, no benefits. Raises are like 25c, and that is only if the boss really likes you…
As for the no guarantee of 40 hour work week... well, again ignoring the financial aspect of it, only working 20 or 30 hours a week was much more enjoyable than 40-55 hours (or even higher at some places) work weeks.
Another benefit is that at this level management is more concerned with the quality of my work than the volume, or whether I get in at 10:00 or take a two hour lunch break from time to time. I like to say "you're not paying me for the code I write, you're paying me for the code other people don't write because I'm here".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have any advice for freelancers looking for interesting clients? I'm mostly able to find clients that either 1) want full-time employees or 2) are working on 'me-too' CRUDs (sometimes both).
My suggestion is actually not to find interesting clients. My suggestion is to find high-paying clients and then to become your own 'interesting' client (aka, reduce your lifestyle cost to a point in which you're able to use this money to sustain months of self-directed work). Nothing is perfect and I've no idea whether this particular idiosyncrasy would suit other people - I'm still undecided whether it's for me.
I've been consulting with various clients for the last 4 years. I make a few multiples more than I need to survive, and do not work more than 50% of the working days per year.
This is relatively easy to achieve:
- I have no debt outside of a couple school loans, which I prioritize paying down to zero. Everything else is either living expenses, or discretionary spending.
- I ensure my clients pay for everything they need—hosting, Github, any and all services. This is an easy sell, as it keeps everything firmly in their control and they can replace me at any time.
- I charge by the day, not the hour. My clients have never complained, and they seem to find it easier to think and budget in per-day terms.
I worked in landscaping and then as a custodian making $7/hr before I started learning to code. Working as a programmer has transformed my life. I've got a lot of autonomy in my days, I enjoy solving technical problems, I get to work from home and see my 2yr old grow up. Yeah it sucks when your manager puts heavy deadlines on your team, or having to do things you don't necessarily agree with, or navigating corporate…
I joke with programmer friends that we should become gardeners instead. I guess the appeal of physical labor is you get to leave work at work.
Move! Here's the thing: I love programming, I've been working has a web dev since I was 18 (34 now), but I always loved design and creating desktop apps. And recently I've been learning Swift and mobile design. This year, the startup I was working with went bankrupt, and I just dive into depression and self-confidence as a developer. I couldn't stop thinking to myself: "oh no, not again all those web dev interview pr…
I fear I'm on this path. PHP is dead to me. I also hate the JS ecosystem and I'm not fond of JS as a language in and of itself. I loooove Ruby and doing the backend of Rails site. Sadly, frontend is the new backend and JS takes up a larger and larger percentage of my Rails apps.
I enjoy programming but 'working as a programmer' is infuriating. There are so many interesting product ideas yet 'me-too' CRUD app recreations of previously successful incumbents products are highly desired. This is particularly true in the startup ecosystems where kids talk about 'interesting' problems and finding 'purpose' and yet are blindly following the mantras and motivational speeches of trite capitalists. I…
I enjoy X, but 'working doing X' is infuriating. I would bet that most people feel this way. Maybe we should consider alternatives to wage labor that better meet the needs of people instead of the needs of the capitalists...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would suggest looking in the mirror ;) Let's be honest. Freelancers are not there to find "interesting clients". They are a temporary resource that enables a client to get a job done they under-resourced. You have a choice as a freelancer 1) Become money focused. Earn as much as you can for as long as you can. 2) Become idea focused. Earn as much as you can until you have enough to bootstrap the idea. Rinse and rep…
Dumb question .. how does one go about getting started as a freelancer? Are there agencies or some other mechanism to get you started? Specifically, interested in how to get started in North America.
Use that as a time to learn time management, invoicing and billing, taxes, etc, while you build up a network. This is basically freelance apprenticeship.
Do that for maybe a year and then start doing your own thing.