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Ask HN: How to do freelance work that is reclaimable?
Most of the projects I see, their coding depends on the outsourced company it started. I would like go into consultancy business but when things go side ways and it comes time to leave my customer, I would want them to remain happy.
Here, I wonder if how other companies are willing to take over the existing code? What should I do best to make transition easier for the project itself for encouragement of new team taking over?
Thank you for thoughts.
- gregjor 8y agoWrite clean, simple code. Don’t over-engineer. Use version control. Document design decisions, dependencies that aren’t obvious, and installation/build instructions, and keep those current. Did I mention USE VERSION CONTROL? My freelance business is taking over legacy software when the original developers quit, get fired, stop answering emails.
- leowoo91 8y agoI like your points, I assume I will do all. "Document design decisions" is new for me, I will look for standards for that.
- axelrosen 8y agoI think to some degree you have to accept the disposable nature of consulting. If you want to be responsible for satisfaction years down the road, you could do a product-consulting hybrid, where you do quite a lot of customer-specific dev upfront but as part of a bigger product. Otherwise you really need to make sure the customer cares about it as much as you do. And many simply don't.