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Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

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Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#61

Post by V-2 »

lqet wrote: post #51
V-2 wrote: post #46

In Poland, where I'm from, it's pretty much the norm to be self-employed in Poland in the IT sector. I believe that around 50% of workers are technically contracted one-man companies, and this percentage is inversely correlated with the seniority level - the greater the earnings (and the sense of job security that goes along with expertise and experience), the greater the incentive. Going B2B makes a substantial diff…

This would be quite risky where I am from, for both the freelancer and the employer. Being self employed, but only for a single customer, is false self-employment. If you get caught, your employer has to pay taxes and social security contributions retroactively for up to 4 years, and afaik both the employer and the freelancer are liable for the money owed to the tax office and social securities. If you are caught doi…

This risk does exist in Poland, but among the criteria for "false self-employment" is being expected to work within fixed hours, and in a location specified by the employer.

As IT workers - even those who've got contracts of employment - typically do flexible hours, and pretty often work from home (or otherwise remotely), it doesn't really apply.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#63

Post by jacquesm »

V-2 wrote: post #46

In Poland, where I'm from, it's pretty much the norm to be self-employed in Poland in the IT sector. I believe that around 50% of workers are technically contracted one-man companies, and this percentage is inversely correlated with the seniority level - the greater the earnings (and the sense of job security that goes along with expertise and experience), the greater the incentive. Going B2B makes a substantial diff…

That's for tax reasons only though, technically it is just another form of long term employment. As soon as you have multiple customers that you send invoices to with some regularity and you have autonomy would you pass the 'self employed' test in other countries. If you refer to them as your client and you only have one then you're technically an employee, if you refer to your contact at your client as 'your boss' then you also are an employee.

We have a lot of this in NL as well, the long term effect is the slow erosion of the social safety net. Because good luck if your client decides they no longer need your services, suddenly you find out what the downside of being self employed is. Nothing to fall back on. So save like your life depends on it.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#64

Post by jacquesm »

hkhanna wrote: post #3

Me! I started my solo, startup law practice almost by accident via a Hacker News comment years ago. It's now my primary source of income. It's hard, but less hard than what startup founders do. It's nice having control of my schedule, but the flip side is that there's never a day off. Personally, I think being self-employed is great for people who naturally work really hard and want to capture the full output of thei…

Nice one, congratulations!

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#66

Post by jacquesm »

davidpolberger wrote: post #38

I have been self-employed since 2008, when I quit my job in software engineering to go all-in on my software business (that dated from 2003). That failed spectacularly, because I only focused on technology and not on the value I was creating, and with few customers, I had to do on-site contracting for more than a year before going on full-time parental leave. I then rebooted my software project, launched a landing si…

That's some very impressive stamina and it must have been really hard at times.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#67

Post by wruza »

jacknews wrote: post #28

I'm self unemployed, lol.

Seconded. Was doing it for a year and it feels great, most of the times. I slept in a wrong position tonight and now my back hurts. I’ll either wait the crisis out or… idk tbh, thought of working for animal shelter. The world doesn’t motivate me to do anything atm.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#69

Post by jacquesm »

upupupandaway wrote: post #29
damon_c wrote: post #17

I was self employed for about 10 years until one of the startups I did along the way turned into something and now I have to work there.

This reads quite funny: “god damn it, one of my projects was successful, so it ruined the fun”

That's exactly how it goes though. You put something together on an idle Tuesday evening and you end up as the person running a 30 people company if you're not very careful about it. Success has a massive price tag.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you are self employed?

#70

Post by k__ »

unD wrote: post #23
k__ wrote: post #10

I'm self employed for around 10 years now. Before that I was employed as frontend developer for around 7 years. I started self employment as software consultant, which worked pretty well despite not having any connections from my previous employment. I only needed one or two projects a year to sustain my lifestyle. Getting two companies a year to accept your application isn't hard. If you write at least 5 application…

How do you get clients for tech writing, if I may ask? Are you maintaining a stable pool of companies and doing work as they need it, or do you always have to fish for new opportunities? I've been authoring sw dev books that target a niche audience, and I've done some writing for the company that develops the sw itself. I'm wondering whether to expand to other areas, too—I've got the feeling that 2024 is going to be…

As all articles I wrote under my own name (some are ghost writing) are implicit advertisement, most clients approached me after they read some of my pieces.

Over the years I got a hand full of stable clients. Some want content every month, some every quarter, etc.

Then there is word of mouth. The people I work with at my client companies are usually in the content business, so they need constant influx of quality content and know many other people who need it too.

I also work with a tech content agency, they always have a few articles a month I can work on, if business is slow.

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