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I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

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Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#241

Post by datavirtue »

candiddevmike wrote: post #83
beezlewax wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong but I feel I work harder than most people on my team. I always go for stories in areas that are more complex than the rest or areas that are new to me. I'm always trying to learn more to keep ahead of the rest. My performance reviews are always "exceeds expectations", but I haven't seen how this benefits anyone other than the company so far. Maybe I should just take it more easy but I feel li…

Not to be discouraging, but promotions rarely go to top performers in the sense of what you're doing. They go to movers and shakers, folks with heavy soft skills who routinely interact with skip levels and the like. Their work output is marginal to the influence they command. Basically, you're most likely being taken advantage of and will never be properly rewarded for what you're doing, IME.

Yeah, if you aren't skipping levels you are sitting still. Takes balls and the ability to handle when it goes sideways. It is often a gamble at first. Most people don't want to bring on this type of stress/uncertainty--but when it works, it works.

I went from "lucky to get hired" application support engineer peon to being groomed for CTO by stepping out of my lane. My supervisor had a sign on his wall: "Stay in your lane." I did not (he ended up sacked by the CFO). I found that even pissing off some key executives (CEO/CFO) a few times just helped my profile. I got lucky but it was all deliberate.

One of the executives I inflamed (CFO) had to sign off on two record setting raises/promotions for me. All brought before the board of directors/investors by the then/current CTO.

To be fair, I was also super productive/knowledgeable and a high-performer. Everyone else was used to working at big companies, I had been sitting at home the previous ten years playing on my computer and gardening.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#242

Post by datavirtue »

sdiupIGPWEfh wrote: post #223
candiddevmike wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be discouraging, but promotions rarely go to top performers in the sense of what you're doing. They go to movers and shakers, folks with heavy soft skills who routinely interact with skip levels and the like. Their work output is marginal to the influence they command. Basically, you're most likely being taken advantage of and will never be properly rewarded for what you're doing, IME.

Truth. Been learning this the hard way, myself. But what do you do when you've never been one with heavy soft skills? When schmoozing has never been natural or enjoyable? Is there really nothing more than either choosing to suck it up and accept your fate or else force yourself to be what you're not?

Change your mind to make it enjoyable. Emotional intelligence, be helpful to all. Play the game using intuition and any opportunity. The team/company situation also must be condusive to it.

Schmoozing is not the way.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#243

Post by datavirtue »

leros wrote: post #228

I'm feeling something similar now. I'm doing freelance work about 20 hours a week making my previous income level. So far each project has ended because the company wants me to go full time with them. The challenge hasn't been finding work, it's been keeping it part-time free lance or quitting.

They want that sweet sweet FTE discount and unlimited hours.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#244

Post by manicennui »

sdiupIGPWEfh wrote: post #223
candiddevmike wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be discouraging, but promotions rarely go to top performers in the sense of what you're doing. They go to movers and shakers, folks with heavy soft skills who routinely interact with skip levels and the like. Their work output is marginal to the influence they command. Basically, you're most likely being taken advantage of and will never be properly rewarded for what you're doing, IME.

Truth. Been learning this the hard way, myself. But what do you do when you've never been one with heavy soft skills? When schmoozing has never been natural or enjoyable? Is there really nothing more than either choosing to suck it up and accept your fate or else force yourself to be what you're not?

I can tell you what worked for me, but I can't promise that it will work for others. Basically, I just stopped giving a shit about what other people thought, especially most other software engineers.

I stopped caring about getting promoted and doing things just for visibility. If I see something that needs to be done, I make sure it gets taken care of. I ask intelligent questions in meetings and have almost always put way more thought into anything we're working on than anyone else so I'm able to have good questions and concerns. I focus on delivering for the business and not impressing other software engineers.

The key, and this is the one piece of bullshit unfortunately, is to make sure your manager and ideally your manager's manager know about what you are doing. I mostly accomplish this during my one-on-one and by speaking up in various meetings we are in. I also work for a company where talking directly to senior management and even executives is truly accepted.

The thing is, most people are followers and need to be told what to do. Become the person that knows what needs to be done and makes sure things don't fall through the cracks. Unless you are looking to go into management, focus on the technical and driving projects to completion, but avoid trying to manage other people. Eventually if you build enough respect from the team you can get them to do what is needed and your can build enough trust with your manager that you can direct them to deal with problem employees.

The downside to all of this is that I'm pulled into absolutely everything because everyone wants my opinion and I'll actually make decisions for everyone instead of meeting about it 15 times. I end up doing very little actual development these days, but I'm paid extremely well and don't have to manage people. In the end this doesn't bother me that much because I see corporate software development as a different activity from the one I actually enjoy.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#245

Post by atum47 »

Keirmot wrote: post #217
atum47 wrote: post #131

Back when I was a 3d artist I was making good money as a freelancer. I would also work with a archviz studio as an "employee". Time went by and I leaned towards the "secure" job with the studio (instead of opening my own), cause from time to time I would have a hard time with my clients as a freelancer (sometimes they did not pay, sometimes they would ask for changes that would be a entire new work...). Making a long…

I think any kind of career move, be it freelance, corporate or anything in between, has risks. You shouldn’t regret the decision you made if when you made them you used the best information available to you - no one can predict the future.

Thanks for the kind words

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#246

Post by kirso »

JackMorgan wrote: post #219
dmje wrote: post #105

12 years into running a tiny digital consultancy with my wife. We've used an "associate" model for all that time - a posh way of saying "a network of trusted freelancers". We've deliberately chosen not to take on staff. We could have grown at many points along the way but haven't wanted to. Instead we've stayed small, focused and profitable. The benefits to growing would have been being able to take on bigger gigs, b…

Same as what my wife and I are doing. Together we make enough in 10 hours a week to pay for our tiny apartment, 16 year old car, insurance, and healthy veggie diet. The rest of the week? Well, this year we're ultra-marathon training, volunteer firefighting, backpacked the first half of the Appalachian trail, crew on a racing sailboat, and running a charity teaching apprentices how to be software engineers (got two in…

This is amazing, is there a place to learn more about the apprenticeship?

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#247

Post by kirso »

ilamont wrote: post #51

For years I’ve felt “weird” and “wrong” for working this way. I still feel guilty when telling people that I am only open for meetings from 11 am to 5 pm. The only exceptions are people in distant time zones. It can also feel wrong if your SO is on a regular 9 to 5 and you are getting up without an alarm clock, going shopping and making appointments in the middle of the day, and generally setting your own work habits…

In that case this passage is for you:

We don’t need to explain ourselves to them.

We don’t need to prove our success through conventional means.

We don’t need to measure against a scale that others have invented.

We don’t need to feel guilty for refusing to take on unnecessary responsibilities.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#248

Post by Cayde-6 »

tuukkah wrote: post #124
93po wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think maybe the premise is having minimums per day so you can’t be called on a weekend and only bill half an hour for it

It would suck if I was called in on a weekend (without having agreed to be on call). It would suck even more if I was called in for a whole day just because I'd demanded that to be my minimum. Instead, weekend hours could be priced 16 times higher. There could be a quantity discount so that a full day would be somewhat less expensive.

I don’t think it means you work a full day, but that you bill a minimum of a full day for any weekend work.

A while back I worked at a consultancy that typically billed using a 15-minute granularity during standard office hours, reasonably rounded up/down. Unless otherwise contracted, outside of office hours the granularity increased to 1 hour rounded up. A 5 minute fix would be billed as an hour, a 65 minute fix as 2 hours, etc. It was also only undertaken for emergencies; general work requests would be done the next business day.

Generally all contracts were budgeted some number of hours per billing cycle per service. N full-time engineers would be converted to an equivalent amount of hours for the budget.

The result was that overtime was used judiciously and clients were rarely insisted on pushing big changes near the end of a day or on Fridays.

Re: I don’t want to grow my freelance design studio into an agency

#249

Post by xupybd »

louwrentius wrote: post #238
xupybd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect I have a different understanding of capitalism. To me it simply means free markets. Something the author is taking advantage of to build the life she wants. But she seems to dislike the hustle culture that has formed within our current economic system.

Capitalism is so much more (and worse) than that. And “you criticize society yet you participate in it” is never a noteworthy/ relevant observation.

That was not my point. My point was that she has the freedom to hustle all she wants or to do it the way she is. That's great.
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