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Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

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Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#61

Post by skrebbel »

tluyben2 wrote: post #60
skrebbel wrote: post #57

Guys, a question about this: reading HN, I have the feeling that in USA freelancers are a pretty common phenomenon in software. Where I work (Netherlands), all freelancers I know are working full-time 2 year projects anyway, not at all getting them the flexibility articles like these refer to. They mostly get paid more than the employees, in exchange for less job security and having to invest in education themselves.…

Friends of mine in the Netherlands (i'm Dutch) who freelance are like me; once starting to freelance you rather work MORE than less. Not for the money but for the freedom of being able to take on whatever you like. And then ofcourse you don't like it anymore as you end up doing way to much. Jobs protect you from that (or should). I don't know how that is in the US and would like to know as well. It's very possible in…

Cool, thanks for the response. What kind of work do you and your friends do? And, now that we're nearby anyway, in which city/area? (I'm in Eindhoven)

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#62

Post by Alan01252 »

skrebbel wrote: post #57

Guys, a question about this: reading HN, I have the feeling that in USA freelancers are a pretty common phenomenon in software. Where I work (Netherlands), all freelancers I know are working full-time 2 year projects anyway, not at all getting them the flexibility articles like these refer to. They mostly get paid more than the employees, in exchange for less job security and having to invest in education themselves.…

Not US but UK here. And yes, in my experience, yes you can do 20 hour weeks from freelance jobs. The people/companies who want you are simply those companies with more work than they can currently handle.

It's not hard to see why, in the UK especially, there's a severe shortage of good developers. I can safely say ( hopefully without coming across as arrogant) that I'm a better developer than any other I've met whilst freelancing thus far. Companies are willing to pay for that knowledge and experience, even if it's on a time limited basis.

It's well understood in programming circles that a good developer can be much more economically viable then several not so good developers working on the same problem. I think Joel Spolsky's sums up this point quite well here http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/HighNotes.html.

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#63

Post by tluyben2 »

skrebbel wrote: post #61
tluyben2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friends of mine in the Netherlands (i'm Dutch) who freelance are like me; once starting to freelance you rather work MORE than less. Not for the money but for the freedom of being able to take on whatever you like. And then ofcourse you don't like it anymore as you end up doing way to much. Jobs protect you from that (or should). I don't know how that is in the US and would like to know as well. It's very possible in…

Cool, thanks for the response. What kind of work do you and your friends do? And, now that we're nearby anyway, in which city/area? (I'm in Eindhoven)

Most people I know are in software development in the Noord Holland area. My freelance days where a long time ago after university; I freelanced all over NL in software development, my first gig was in Den Bosch. After that I just started companies and moved things to a bigger scale :) Currently we do projects for Dutch, UK and German companies and that's what I liked most. I never liked freelancing very much really; it's all too chaotic for me (unless you take a 2-year project which is not in my nature).

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#64

Post by jaggederest »

Alan01252 wrote: post #4

I'm almost at the end of my second month freelancing (post to come soon) and find this inspiring. My biggest struggle at the moment is what to aim for, yes working three days a week and getting similar money to what I was earning full time is great. Yet at the same time I'm not sure if this is enough for me personally. In fact when I start talking to my friends in full time jobs I kinda feel guilty! Maybe I need some…

Do it then, and save it so you don't have to work. Part of the glory is being able to decide for yourself.

When I was freelancing, I'd be putting in 50-60 hour weeks most of the time, because I felt like the hustle really paid off, but any time I got burnt out, boom, time off.

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#65

Post by tluyben2 »

brandall10 wrote: post #45
nolok wrote: post #10

I've always wanted to turn to freelancing, mostly because my girlfriend has visa issues and it would allow me to go live with her full time and take better care of my family, but my biggest drawback and what stopped me was that I didn't know how to start getting decent projects. I'm a webdev, I mostly feel confident to start with PHP where I have lots of experience and worked on websites with millions uniques and thi…

I would say get involved in your local community... go to meet-ups, tech talks, Startup Weekends, etc, and become a known entity. The real benefit to this is you get to meet people who are already established, as usually those are the people who tend to do these things and sometimes they work in teams. I did a pro-bono project with a local known dev, he liked the work and invited me to come along on a long-term paid…

I was coming here to say this; there are meet-ups, business breakfasts (VERY early but very nice to find clients), etc. A friend of mine from an underdeveloped part of the EU thought he could make no money there; he went to a few business breakfasts there after finding out they actually were held there. Few months later he has ONLY work from his region and more than enough to say he cannot take new work till beginning of 2013. It really works...

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#66

Post by liquidcool »

nolok wrote: post #10

I've always wanted to turn to freelancing, mostly because my girlfriend has visa issues and it would allow me to go live with her full time and take better care of my family, but my biggest drawback and what stopped me was that I didn't know how to start getting decent projects. I'm a webdev, I mostly feel confident to start with PHP where I have lots of experience and worked on websites with millions uniques and thi…

Where are you moving to? Because that's where you need to do your networking. And possibly figure out your own work visa issues.

Your main goal doesn't seem to be more time, but a different place and more money. Start by networking with local recruiters to get your foot into that market. They often can get you contracting jobs. Then you can network with locals.

Finally, full stack software is a big job - in fact it's many jobs, and rarely do developers do all of them (and never well). I've been freelancing for almost 4 years, but never completely on my own. I always team with other locals with different skill sets to tackle more complex projects with better rates.

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#67

Post by liquidcool »

michaelochurch wrote: post #52
LVB wrote: post #37

These posts are always both inspiring and wrenching for me. I'm mid-career and come from the mold where getting a good fulltime job out of college is what one does. That's simply the way it was, at least in my circles (college, family, etc), and I never considered working for myself. Fast-forward 15 years. Corporate life has actually been pretty decent to me. I've not been jerked around too much, had some opportunity…

LVB: you now what I think you should do? If you don't want to leave the corporate world, and your only gripe is the lack of vacation, negotiate . If your boss gives you a raise, ask if you can trade in 2% of salary for another week: taking an 8% raise instead of 10%. If he can't give you a raise at all, ask if you can get an additional week off instead. If you have to, offer to have any time past your 3rd week unpaid…

I agree. Some companies are more flexible than others on this, so the obvious solution is to find a flexible company.

The good news is that one major corp. I know had an unbreakable policy for years (every new employee starts at the same 2 weeks, NO exceptions) broke this when the local market got so tight they had no choice. So job market timing is part of it, too.

I'll also point out that executive compensation is always flexible, and the OP is coming of an age where that might be a valid path.

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#68

Post by eagsalazar »

LVB wrote: post #37

These posts are always both inspiring and wrenching for me. I'm mid-career and come from the mold where getting a good fulltime job out of college is what one does. That's simply the way it was, at least in my circles (college, family, etc), and I never considered working for myself. Fast-forward 15 years. Corporate life has actually been pretty decent to me. I've not been jerked around too much, had some opportunity…

At almost 40 I'd be worried about ageism. Seriously, most high demand freelancers are your age at the oldest and most are younger. Fair or not there is a widespread perception that 40+ coders aren't very good. Be careful cutting off your safety net as your freelancing might get much harder in the next few years.

I'd test the waters and make sure to keep up contacts with the work-a-day world so you can jump back on board if you need to.

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#69

Post by gridmail »

What has become a letter to Hacker News:

GO TO LOS ANGELES. LOS ANGELES HAS IDEAS TOO. GO INVEST IN LOS ANGELES.

Every day I here stories of kids with half the ability of me getting rich and companies with half my potential getting invested in. I have been a web developer for 10 YEARS running some of the largest websites in southern california, but I am still JUST AN EMPLOYEE. God DAMNIT Northern california get your asses together and step up to the plate The talent is here. We have been conjuring ideas and staying poor. I know the entertainment industry runs the show here, but there is plenty of room! Please get off your LUCKING asses and come to southern california you will see a world of young developers (aging now) who were never offered millions for their ideas doing the work of 10 men. One man armies here running some of the biggest websites in the business, but getting treated like janitors at entertainment companies.

Do you know what hacker news looks like to us one man armies in southern california??? It looks like a fantasy world where people actually discuss technology meanwhile here in southern california it is still taboo and social suicide to mention you do anything with websites in mixed company.

Maybe you should just stay up there and hand money back and forth to each other while we developers here save our pennies and eventually do it ourselves. After all the entertainment industry isn't going to do it. They don't want to lose their slaves. But who do you think builds all those mickey mouse websites, porn and hundreds of miles of online stores. Guys like me with working knowledge from decades and literally suit cases full of ideas. There might even be more developers here than there. But we are treated like garbage and second class citizens.

Well this is an invitation. The entertainment industry isn't going anywhere and as long as you are afraid to cohabitate the same city as them you are missing the kind of talent that prefers warm weather and beaches. What kind of person would enjoy that. The smart kind. Where are all the biggest ideas? They are right here. They always have been. You can sleep on my couch.

-the talent

Re: Freelancing: A 6-Month Retrospective

#70

Post by LVB »

michaelochurch wrote: post #52
LVB wrote: post #37

These posts are always both inspiring and wrenching for me. I'm mid-career and come from the mold where getting a good fulltime job out of college is what one does. That's simply the way it was, at least in my circles (college, family, etc), and I never considered working for myself. Fast-forward 15 years. Corporate life has actually been pretty decent to me. I've not been jerked around too much, had some opportunity…

LVB: you now what I think you should do? If you don't want to leave the corporate world, and your only gripe is the lack of vacation, negotiate . If your boss gives you a raise, ask if you can trade in 2% of salary for another week: taking an 8% raise instead of 10%. If he can't give you a raise at all, ask if you can get an additional week off instead. If you have to, offer to have any time past your 3rd week unpaid…

PTO was a part of my negotiation when I was looking for a new job, but it didn't work out. The job market was worse then, and I was quite keen to make the move out of my previous location (it was a cross country move) so it wasn't worth not getting the new job.

That said, over the past week I've been drafting a polite but direct letter asking for the extra week. Sure I've already had the job for a couple years and my bargaining position is ostensible worse, but their need for employees is a lot higher and they have repeatedly said how much they like me, I do good work, future roles, etc. I like the idea of making them sweat a bit (there have been a number of recent departures), and maybe it will pay off.

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