81–90 of 124 posts
This guy knows what he's talking about. He omitted the part about not having to put on pants to go to work, though. That's worth $25k/year to me, easy.
So I guess this freedom is worth different amounts to different people.
I am a software engineer specializing in robotics systems, and I find it really hard to find contract work that doesn't involve Javascript/PHP/etc, let alone one that involves engineering systems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
What stops you from just taking a week of unpaid time off?
The work, environment and people are quite good at the company, but the leave policies are annoyingly stingy.
Are there any freelance jobs which aren't web-related? I am a software engineer specializing in robotics systems, and I find it really hard to find contract work that doesn't involve Javascript/PHP/etc, let alone one that involves engineering systems.
The usual advice is to specialize in something that's specific but in demand. For example, you could get really good at setting up a particularly common type of robotics system, or setting up systems for a particular type of problem. Perhaps try approaching the sales folks for a robot company and seeing if their customers are often looking for experienced freelancers: If so, would they be willing to recommend you? (Of course, if the robotics company has its own consulting division you might not have much luck with this plan…)
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…
> Yes I could "just do it", but that would go against very deep and well set views of how I need to provide for my family. I'm not able to stomach the risk at this point. My suggestion: Temporarily cut your family's expenses down to the bone. Food, shelter, telephones, insurance, connectivity, clothing etc. Save up six months of the pre-cut household burn rate. Put it into another bank account that doesn't have an AT…
You can actually pull the money out of your Roth IRA without penalty of any kind, for any reason. The catch is twofold:
1) You can only withdraw the money you used to fund the IRA (not the money you've made inside the IRA). E.g., if you've put in $20k over 4 years and the account value today is $25k, you can take up to $20k penalty-free.
2) You can't replace the money back into the account past the $5k maximum. So if you withdraw $20k and then don't need it after all... too bad, you can still only put back $5k/year.
You know, you don't have to give up the "safety and security" of a full-time gig to have the freedom and control-your-own-schedule benefits of a freelancer. The "Results-Only Work Environment" ( http://www.gorowe.com ) is trying to merge the stability and benefits of a full-time job and the flexibility and freedom of freelancing. If more gigs embraced ROWE, perhaps folks wouldn't have to choose the lesser of two evil…
Only thing you're missing out on is the ability to work on and towards your own projects. Not sure about the average freelancer, but most technical freelancers I know see it as a stepping stone towards getting their own little SaaS or iPhone app business off the ground. If you're working full-time for a company, IME contracts tend to own all intellectual output at your time there, at home or otherwise. This doesn't m…
Cringe -- this is bad advice for setting your consulting rate. In the US, the full cost of an $100K employee is not $100K. It's $100K salary + paid vacation time + employment taxes paid by employer + healthcare + office space & pro-rated related expenses (like cleaning of said office space). This metric is called the "fully loaded cost" of an employee and ends up being 1.3x-1.5x of the salary.
But even this calculation fails to capture the flexibility advantages that your clients get from hiring short term. It ignores the fact that as a consultant you are hired only when you are needed and are 100% utilized, while a yearly employee may not be fully utilized every day of the year. Essentially, an employer that hires a full time employee agrees to "buy in bulk" and pay for time that may or may not be fully utilized. By necessity this means that your rate should be higher to account for the additional value provided plus provide cushion for those in-between project times when you are looking for work or doing proposals.
Two quick and dirty metrics I have seen for determining rate per hour are 1) yearly salary / 1000 and 2) 2x full time employee hourly rate. Both of these converge on about $100/hr. Un-official data from HN seems to confirm a median freelance rate in that range (about $90/hr): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3420203
Is it that the developers here are not good enough, or not trustworthy enough. Or is it that they are unwilling to take the plunge into the unknown. I do think there surely is an inertia factor to it. But that's true anywhere else.
Maybe I just haven't looked well enough.
Why is it that I do not see people in India freelancing? I do not know of a single person who freelance in software development and I live in Bangalore, touted as the Silicon Valley of India. Is it that the developers here are not good enough, or not trustworthy enough. Or is it that they are unwilling to take the plunge into the unknown. I do think there surely is an inertia factor to it. But that's true anywhere el…
Why is it that I do not see people in India freelancing? I do not know of a single person who freelance in software development and I live in Bangalore, touted as the Silicon Valley of India. Is it that the developers here are not good enough, or not trustworthy enough. Or is it that they are unwilling to take the plunge into the unknown. I do think there surely is an inertia factor to it. But that's true anywhere el…
I live in Bangalore. Did 'freelancing' for >10 years. Now doing a spot of product dev (so not doing that anymore). I know many people who do (and drop back into BigCo jobs for a year or two when they want to take it easy for a while). Lots of people freelance in Bangalore. The key is to have some kind of specialized skill (design,analytics, etc) - vs generic web stack (J2EE, RoR etc) skills.
And did it pay well enough for other people to consider it?