4 ms·

I am the OP and I spend far less actually... a few hours at the beginning of a contract sure but the average contract is multiple months. All of the bills are a

I am the OP and I spend far less actually... a few hours at the beginning of a contract sure but the average contract is multiple months. All of the bills are auto paid, I just need to choose the right card/account when I pay for something. Invoices take about two minutes to generate using a free site called “invoice-generator.com.” The accountant I would have hired anyway to do my taxes. I don’t pay for the lawyer if I don’t use them. I also get to skip doing phone screens, interviews, being oncall... I am spending a lot more of my time focusing on product problems than I was as a full time employee. Also - this might be obvious but the goal is to make more than you made as a full time employee or get more vacation time for the same amount per year not merely tread water.

raverbashing 8y ago
Is most of your work "on site" at the customer or at home?
- kevinburke 8y ago
  Usually I commute to wherever the company is located 4 days a week. I have done all-remote projects before though.
ordinaryperson 8y ago
I'm glad to hear I'm wrong. I'm certainly not rooting for anyone to fail. But a couple of things. One, the higher you rise in responsibility the more likely your work is to be meta-work. I saw your personal site and the services you're advertising, as time goes on you'll be offering more business-like services because inevitably that's what customers want. Sadly most programmers have to choose between having the satisfaction of doing IC work and having their salary plateau or transitioning into management and/or biz dev consulting. Second, it's hard to build equity as an independent. That is, if you work for Facebook or Amazon or whoever for 5 years, that's a hard skill you can trade in for a better job elsewhere, or at the very least your benefits start to accrue higher and higher (e.g. at my Big Tech Co: discount off public stock purchase). How many 55 year old solo independent devs do you see out there in the wild? I'm sure they exist but unless the have some very specific skill set (e.g. COBOL programming for banks) it's hard to have a forever career as a generalist IC. But again, more power to you if you can make it work. I'm not criticizing the lifestyle, only suggesting that it's not some peaceful freedom from BS that we'd all want to imagine it to be.
- enobrev 8y ago
  > How many 55 year old solo independent devs do you see out there in the wild? I think this might be too young of a profession for that point to add up. I've been a solo independent Dev for 20 years and I'm only 40. I don't know if I'll be doing this for another 15 years, but I certainly don't expect to take a job anywhere.
  - ordinaryperson 8y ago
    I sincerely hope you can continue as you've been doing, but as you'll see from many testimonials here at HN ageism in tech is a real thing, people's reactions to you will start to change as soon as you "look" old. Most of the ageism applies to FT work at Big Tech Co but IMO it sadly applies to solo, independent devs as well since 50% of it is how you market yourself, and "old" will equate to "out of touch" in too many people's eyes.
    - spraak 8y ago
      Have you ever done solo though? From reading your responses here I get the feeling no. Not that your views would be invalid if you haven't, but it does give a different weight to them vs someone who has been doing it a long time, especially who is now e.g. over 50
      - ordinaryperson 8y ago
        I have but not in many years. Maybe things have changed since then -- I don't know. But as I've said many times in this thread my point is not to say freelancing is terrible or not viable, just that articles like these seem to underrate some of the tradeoffs, which are significant. Glad it works out for the OP and you, I guess. But when your wife is pregnant or your kids need to go to the ER life can get very expensive as a freelancer. Too easy to judge the career path as a single 20-something, IMHO.
    - dboreham 8y ago
      I think ageism might be less prevalent for freelancers/consultants. Same with being remote, ime.
balfirevic 8y ago
Do you only work with software companies where you hand over your work and they take over the maintenance and keeping the software running in production?
- kevinburke 8y ago
  Pretty much, yes

raverbashing 8y ago

Is most of your work "on site" at the customer or at home?

kevinburke 8y ago
Usually I commute to wherever the company is located 4 days a week. I have done all-remote projects before though.

ordinaryperson 8y ago

I'm glad to hear I'm wrong. I'm certainly not rooting for anyone to fail. But a couple of things. One, the higher you rise in responsibility the more likely your work is to be meta-work. I saw your personal site and the services you're advertising, as time goes on you'll be offering more business-like services because inevitably that's what customers want. Sadly most programmers have to choose between having the satisfaction of doing IC work and having their salary plateau or transitioning into management and/or biz dev consulting. Second, it's hard to build equity as an independent. That is, if you work for Facebook or Amazon or whoever for 5 years, that's a hard skill you can trade in for a better job elsewhere, or at the very least your benefits start to accrue higher and higher (e.g. at my Big Tech Co: discount off public stock purchase). How many 55 year old solo independent devs do you see out there in the wild? I'm sure they exist but unless the have some very specific skill set (e.g. COBOL programming for banks) it's hard to have a forever career as a generalist IC. But again, more power to you if you can make it work. I'm not criticizing the lifestyle, only suggesting that it's not some peaceful freedom from BS that we'd all want to imagine it to be.

enobrev 8y ago
> How many 55 year old solo independent devs do you see out there in the wild? I think this might be too young of a profession for that point to add up. I've been a solo independent Dev for 20 years and I'm only 40. I don't know if I'll be doing this for another 15 years, but I certainly don't expect to take a job anywhere.
- ordinaryperson 8y ago
  I sincerely hope you can continue as you've been doing, but as you'll see from many testimonials here at HN ageism in tech is a real thing, people's reactions to you will start to change as soon as you "look" old. Most of the ageism applies to FT work at Big Tech Co but IMO it sadly applies to solo, independent devs as well since 50% of it is how you market yourself, and "old" will equate to "out of touch" in too many people's eyes.
  - spraak 8y ago
    Have you ever done solo though? From reading your responses here I get the feeling no. Not that your views would be invalid if you haven't, but it does give a different weight to them vs someone who has been doing it a long time, especially who is now e.g. over 50
    - ordinaryperson 8y ago
      I have but not in many years. Maybe things have changed since then -- I don't know. But as I've said many times in this thread my point is not to say freelancing is terrible or not viable, just that articles like these seem to underrate some of the tradeoffs, which are significant. Glad it works out for the OP and you, I guess. But when your wife is pregnant or your kids need to go to the ER life can get very expensive as a freelancer. Too easy to judge the career path as a single 20-something, IMHO.
  - dboreham 8y ago
    I think ageism might be less prevalent for freelancers/consultants. Same with being remote, ime.

balfirevic 8y ago

Do you only work with software companies where you hand over your work and they take over the maintenance and keeping the software running in production?

kevinburke 8y ago
Pretty much, yes