I feel similar as you do. I haven't taken the steps to go freelance route yet.
My biggest issues as an employee are lack of autonomy to work on my own hours, projects, technology, teammates etc. As freelancer, you may be able to choose your clients, fire them if they are not a good fit etc. Sure you may have to suck up and work with bad clients once in a while. But the idea of autonomy is very alluring to me.
As devs, we usually do have a lot of flexibility but sometimes you just want to take a few weeks off, you cannot do that as an employee. We have deliverable at end of this month and my boss is already talking about next deliverable. If we do freelancing right, after a big project, we would take a week or so off.
And you can start off as freelancer but overtime you can grow and create a consulting firm. I read this book, Developer's Hegemony, it had a lot of good ideas about how to go about doing this.
Anyways my plan is to freelance on the side for a while before quitting the job.
In my experience, a lot of shops with Java in their tech stack usually get devs from Infosys or other consulting companies. So you are competing with super cheap labor.
I agree. I used to believe in absolute freedom of speech on the web. But then people start sending goatsx or whatever as joke in emails. I learned to avoid opening any links form certain friends.
MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter was nice clean space to hangout for a while. Then horrible and traumatic pictures and videos start showing up in my feed. I know the world is horrible place but I don't need constant reminder about it. I unfollowed as many people as I can.
Now as a parent, I cannot constantly monitor these supposedly safe sites. I have seen disgusting or violent videos on YouTube for Kids, Amazon Videos aimed at kids, and even some kids shows on Netflix.
These platform should be responsible for the content they host, no matter who uploaded. That would be one way to clean up flith.
That's why I will pay for cable TV again and let someone moderate content for me.
There are filters for kids and indeed it wouldn't be bad in any way if there were various filters on Youtube, Facebook etc., they just ought to be voluntary (or at most imposed by one's parents).
And... this isn't going to change "kids shows on Netflix"...
Yes but they understand that in free market, they have to spend money on quality employees to make money. Hence, people still invest in companies where employees are treated better than their competitors.
Unhappy employees is not good for business over long term. That is why you see in news that racist, sexiest, or other bad actors getting fired even when they were top performers.
As a minority, who has repeatedly faced discrimination; at various jobs, airports, in restaurants, and at social events, I cannot ignore it.
Also I believe it is a moral obligation to stand up for weak. So even if you are privileged enough to be not affected by politics, you should participate in it for your weaker friends and family.
I have been considering freelancing route for a while. And the reasons you gave above are same for me.
In addition, I work in a big corp where I spend a lot of time red tapes formalities but contractors in my team only have to worry about their code and they get paid almost double some employees.
My question is how did you get started? I know you said subcontracting, is it through a consulting firm or do you do it through your own firm?
I set up my own firm first. But for my country (Netherlands) that's really just a simple registration that takes all of ten minutes. Then I sent my resume to a number of agencies that broker between corporations and subcontractors. They usually ask your rate, do the negotiations with you and the end custoner, and take 15-25% margin.
I think it's worth it but YMMV.
Furthermore there's a host of smaller stuff that you need to take care of. Liability ensurance, pension, health insurance, bookkeeping, separate bank account, and sending a time sheet and bill every month.
All of my managers were available during vacation if something truly blows up. But they never planned to dedicate a few hours for work on their vacations.
What your company needs is better processes and policies. iirc, most my managers planned their vacations so that it was not right before or after major releases or other events.
Between my work and gmail email accounts, I don't get much spam in my inbox. I also use filters, so newsletters, emails from various systems such as build tools, github, social media, etc, go to appropriate folders.
My inbox is my to-do list. I email myself things that I need to do too.
Unlike Slack, no one on email minds if you reply back a few days later. I like that it is async medium for communication.
Honestly, I think email is great and it would take a lot for me to give it up.
> My inbox is my to-do list. I email myself things that I need to do too.
I was vaguely aware that people do that. Why does that work for you, though? Surely one could take up the habit of maintaining a todo list with one of the million apps out there? Is it the "I have to do email anyways" or that it's all in one place?
> Unlike Slack, no one on email minds if you reply back a few days later.
I think that's a very underrated feature of email communication.
>> My inbox is my to-do list. I email myself things that I need to do too.
> I was vaguely aware that people do that. Why does that work for you, though? Surely one could take up the habit of maintaining a todo list with one of the million apps out there? Is it the "I have to do email anyways" or that it's all in one place?
Yes I think main reason is that it is all in one place. Every time I check my email I get to review my tasks. Also it is easier with some tasks like if my boss asks for something in email or I get a bill. I don't have to go open another app and copy email in there.
My biggest issues as an employee are lack of autonomy to work on my own hours, projects, technology, teammates etc. As freelancer, you may be able to choose your clients, fire them if they are not a good fit etc. Sure you may have to suck up and work with bad clients once in a while. But the idea of autonomy is very alluring to me.
As devs, we usually do have a lot of flexibility but sometimes you just want to take a few weeks off, you cannot do that as an employee. We have deliverable at end of this month and my boss is already talking about next deliverable. If we do freelancing right, after a big project, we would take a week or so off.
And you can start off as freelancer but overtime you can grow and create a consulting firm. I read this book, Developer's Hegemony, it had a lot of good ideas about how to go about doing this.
Anyways my plan is to freelance on the side for a while before quitting the job.