One thing that I don’t see brought up enough is the different kinds of engagements a freelance developer could target:
I suspect for many of us, the easiest to find would be what’s called “staff augmentation” - basically you get inserted into an existing team in some capacity, except you’re on a contract basis so not tied down, get to negotiate your terms, don’t get employee benefits etc etc
Such engagements are often quite stable and long term (some companies are even willing to make them open ended!)
The downside is that you have less leverage to set high rates (although I’ve been able to get pretty satisfactory ones), you don’t have as much flexibility because you’re expected to be a regular member of the team and work 9-5ish hours, and you don’t get to escape the corporate/teamwork setting as much (if that was what you were looking for going freelance)
The upside is that you have to find new clients way less often, but still have the freedom to switch around as often as you want if you get bored/want to hunt for better rates etc
Now what most ppl think of freelancing is doing a single project and then either finding another one with the client or needing to find another client (eg this is most of the work on upwork)
In my short consulting career I’ve not found such work (tho haven’t been looking either) and frankly am still nervous on whether I can deliver well in such a capacity without the support of anyone else as it may. And obviously you’ll have to hunt for clients way more often with such projects.
If you reply with your email I’m happy to answer any questions or help if I think I can
One other advantage of contracting even in a staff aug arrangement: you have some protection against overwork in that (as long as your terms are hourly) you simply charge more if you worked more that week
Often this also leads to clients being more careful about having sane workloads
I suspect for many of us, the easiest to find would be what’s called “staff augmentation” - basically you get inserted into an existing team in some capacity, except you’re on a contract basis so not tied down, get to negotiate your terms, don’t get employee benefits etc etc
Such engagements are often quite stable and long term (some companies are even willing to make them open ended!)
The downside is that you have less leverage to set high rates (although I’ve been able to get pretty satisfactory ones), you don’t have as much flexibility because you’re expected to be a regular member of the team and work 9-5ish hours, and you don’t get to escape the corporate/teamwork setting as much (if that was what you were looking for going freelance)
The upside is that you have to find new clients way less often, but still have the freedom to switch around as often as you want if you get bored/want to hunt for better rates etc
Now what most ppl think of freelancing is doing a single project and then either finding another one with the client or needing to find another client (eg this is most of the work on upwork)
In my short consulting career I’ve not found such work (tho haven’t been looking either) and frankly am still nervous on whether I can deliver well in such a capacity without the support of anyone else as it may. And obviously you’ll have to hunt for clients way more often with such projects.
If you reply with your email I’m happy to answer any questions or help if I think I can