Is it worth being a freelance developer (Apps,Sites)
Discussion
I've been flirting with the idea of working for myself within freelance development. I have a computer science from uni background and have worked in web development in the past. Sort of drifted away from it but now mostly focused on Java, C# development. I see that there are tons of freelance developers around and it seems most still have full time jobs. I work in the civil service now so pretty busy but it is not IT. I want to be in a software development career. One major downside to getting into that is that I have zero background in software development and despite my education I can't even really get interviews at local companies. I'm trying to research it all and I know PH has some developers here who may be able to share their experience and advices.
So bottom line, is it worth it?
So bottom line, is it worth it?
From my experience, no it's not.
You may sail along happily for a while, but the paperwork overhead is significant and you will spend a lot of time working for free on proposals and also dealing with customers who are not quite sure what they want.
It may suit if you have a very particular mindset but in general it's an easier life to work for a company where there are other people to deal with a lot of the hassles (accounts department, business analysts, sales and marketing, project managers, it department etc.)
Working as a freelancer generally means everything is up to you. Which is nice from a self-reliance perspective and a PITA when you really have nowhere to turn when you could do with a hand.
If you do go for it, join IPSE or FSB for a bit of protection.
You may sail along happily for a while, but the paperwork overhead is significant and you will spend a lot of time working for free on proposals and also dealing with customers who are not quite sure what they want.
It may suit if you have a very particular mindset but in general it's an easier life to work for a company where there are other people to deal with a lot of the hassles (accounts department, business analysts, sales and marketing, project managers, it department etc.)
Working as a freelancer generally means everything is up to you. Which is nice from a self-reliance perspective and a PITA when you really have nowhere to turn when you could do with a hand.
If you do go for it, join IPSE or FSB for a bit of protection.
If you're happy working a 9-5 for a set wage then no.
If you want variety and uncapped earning potential then go for it, you only live once and you should test yourself in life. It can be a PITA but depends entirely on your clients tbh, I've been self employed now for years and I've ditched Rubbish clients along the way and retained the ones that respect the work and my team, it pays dividends to nurture the good ones.
What platforms can you dev in? Any experience in Magento and Wordpress?
If you want variety and uncapped earning potential then go for it, you only live once and you should test yourself in life. It can be a PITA but depends entirely on your clients tbh, I've been self employed now for years and I've ditched Rubbish clients along the way and retained the ones that respect the work and my team, it pays dividends to nurture the good ones.
What platforms can you dev in? Any experience in Magento and Wordpress?
Flooble said:
From my experience, no it's not.
You may sail along happily for a while, but the paperwork overhead is significant and you will spend a lot of time working for free on proposals and also dealing with customers who are not quite sure what they want.
It may suit if you have a very particular mindset but in general it's an easier life to work for a company where there are other people to deal with a lot of the hassles (accounts department, business analysts, sales and marketing, project managers, it department etc.)
Working as a freelancer generally means everything is up to you. Which is nice from a self-reliance perspective and a PITA when you really have nowhere to turn when you could do with a hand.
If you do go for it, join IPSE or FSB for a bit of protection.
I use to work for a smaller development company and the sheer amount of time wasting "clients" we would come across was truly shocking. Most expected a free demo of nearly the entire site and expected for free, non stop consultations. I spent more time dealing with time wasters than making actual money. That was what stopped me actually working within web development. I simply got fed up with it. Though I'm not sure which direction I would take now days. Maybe just create niche apps and work on little bits of software? probably the best idea. I just want to get out there and create stuff. Will be sticking to the day job for now but will keep on researching and hopefully find a suitable avenue for me to hopefully earn money and do what I love. You may sail along happily for a while, but the paperwork overhead is significant and you will spend a lot of time working for free on proposals and also dealing with customers who are not quite sure what they want.
It may suit if you have a very particular mindset but in general it's an easier life to work for a company where there are other people to deal with a lot of the hassles (accounts department, business analysts, sales and marketing, project managers, it department etc.)
Working as a freelancer generally means everything is up to you. Which is nice from a self-reliance perspective and a PITA when you really have nowhere to turn when you could do with a hand.
If you do go for it, join IPSE or FSB for a bit of protection.
Evolved said:
If you're happy working a 9-5 for a set wage then no.
If you want variety and uncapped earning potential then go for it, you only live once and you should test yourself in life. It can be a PITA but depends entirely on your clients tbh, I've been self employed now for years and I've ditched Rubbish clients along the way and retained the ones that respect the work and my team, it pays dividends to nurture the good ones.
What platforms can you dev in? Any experience in Magento and Wordpress?
I use to develop in Wordpress but not in the past 3 years. If you want variety and uncapped earning potential then go for it, you only live once and you should test yourself in life. It can be a PITA but depends entirely on your clients tbh, I've been self employed now for years and I've ditched Rubbish clients along the way and retained the ones that respect the work and my team, it pays dividends to nurture the good ones.
What platforms can you dev in? Any experience in Magento and Wordpress?
burritoNinja said:
I use to work for a smaller development company and the sheer amount of time wasting "clients" we would come across was truly shocking. Most expected a free demo of nearly the entire site and expected for free, non stop consultations. I spent more time dealing with time wasters than making actual money. That was what stopped me actually working within web development. I simply got fed up with it. Though I'm not sure which direction I would take now days. Maybe just create niche apps and work on little bits of software? probably the best idea. I just want to get out there and create stuff. Will be sticking to the day job for now but will keep on researching and hopefully find a suitable avenue for me to hopefully earn money and do what I love.
Glad you know where I am coming from then. Apps seem to be even worse given the variety and the updates, with clients not seeming to understand the need to maintain things. They also value the development of the App the same way consumers value them - pennies. Where are you based?
burritoNinja said:
Evolved said:
If you're happy working a 9-5 for a set wage then no.
If you want variety and uncapped earning potential then go for it, you only live once and you should test yourself in life. It can be a PITA but depends entirely on your clients tbh, I've been self employed now for years and I've ditched Rubbish clients along the way and retained the ones that respect the work and my team, it pays dividends to nurture the good ones.
What platforms can you dev in? Any experience in Magento and Wordpress?
I use to develop in Wordpress but not in the past 3 years. If you want variety and uncapped earning potential then go for it, you only live once and you should test yourself in life. It can be a PITA but depends entirely on your clients tbh, I've been self employed now for years and I've ditched Rubbish clients along the way and retained the ones that respect the work and my team, it pays dividends to nurture the good ones.
What platforms can you dev in? Any experience in Magento and Wordpress?
a few notes on this:
We both started off doing it on the side(wordpress+drupal). I picked up around 20 gigs in a few months and did them along side my normal job.
My experience was mixed. building sites for smaller businesses was ok, individuals was a royal PITA. People just didn't understand the actual cost of such things, and how frustrating last minute changes were. You can give a package for a specific amount of time (small clients usually wont go for per hour) but it will take a while to work out how long things take etc.
However I have retained the "support" role for several small businesses following the initial build (c10 employees each) which bring in a nice monthly fee, for which I need to do very little work. Some of these I give full IT support for, some just website.
My friend headed straight for a local volunteer role building charity sites. It got him working with bigger companies, from which he moved to paid work after 6 months and went full time on this. He now works in london earning around 35k, on a salary for a company. His specialisation was in building wordpress addons. It's simply too easy to build the sites now, so addons were his thing. He doesn't earn much for london, though I think he could earn a lot more if he was more assertive.
I also built some apps on the windows and android platforms. For a while I was getting a couple of hundred extra a month from people buying them. App design is getting big business now, so harder to get into, though possible.
I stuck at my original career (in finance) though do still have a little extra coming in from support and apps for barely any extra work.
I have a number of friends who are self employed developers - mix of front-end and full-stack. Typically they'll work within big companies on six month contracts and most of them earn enough to justify operating via their own Ltd companies, typically charging between £350-500/day. They're never short of work and always seem to have a new contract nailed by the time the current one is finished. This is in Leeds.
Efbe said:
Flooble said:
So better to flip burgers in McDonalds then?
no. better to do it on the side, and not to stick to mainstream website building, but to focus on one area and be an expert in that, or make a website/app that makes money directly for you.Gassing Station | Jobs & Employment Matters | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff