3 ms·

And if you don't, you kinda never get to work on more than one thing, and therefore grow and cross-pollinate ideas from different domains. It's one of the toug

And if you don't, you kinda never get to work on more than one thing, and therefore grow and cross-pollinate ideas from different domains. It's one of the toughest things about working as an employee if you're interested in more than one area. That's why I switched to freelance consulting, where I found the variety far more enjoyable. It looks very likely I'm moving back to "permanent" employment soon for stability and access to more interesting "big" corporate projects that I found as an independent. (My valiant initiatives to struggle on intermittent income and use the free time to transform the hardware world into an open source hardware world don't seem to be needed any more; better people than me are doing a great job!) But I have mixed feelings from a nagging doubt that I'll be stuck doing one thing all the time, until I have the temerity to leave the employer. We'll see, I do have an open mind and I'll give it enough time to find out, but it's at the back of my mind.

yxhuvud 6y ago
While you are right in that you shouldn't stay on the same place forever, there is definitely very huge and important lessons in staying at a place long enough that you don't only have to deliver something, but also get to maintain it over time.
- jlokier 6y ago
  I've found I actually got to stay "long enough" to maintain delivered projects much more an independent than as an employee. As an employee I wasn't able to maintain projects longer than 2-3 years even when I wanted, due to fixed term (academic) employment contracts, redundancy, projects getting terminated due to business decisions, and reassignment to different projects. As an independent I found I've had very long term ongoing client relationships (7+ years for one, 5 years for another so far), where they call me back to maintain their products for years after shipping. During that, it's fine and even expected that I have overlapping newer work with other clients. So I'm expected to maintain a number of things long after shipping, and that's what I expect to be called to do if I did a good job of delivering the project in the first place. I think my experience of maintenance and dogfooding may be the opposite of what people think of, when they think about employees vs. independents.
jlokier 6y ago
While I won't ask why the multiple downvotes, because that's discouraged here on HN, I will express considerable surprise. Reading over it again, it doesn't strike me as a disagreeable comment, just another point of view about one type of working relationship over another.

yxhuvud 6y ago

While you are right in that you shouldn't stay on the same place forever, there is definitely very huge and important lessons in staying at a place long enough that you don't only have to deliver something, but also get to maintain it over time.

jlokier 6y ago
I've found I actually got to stay "long enough" to maintain delivered projects much more an independent than as an employee. As an employee I wasn't able to maintain projects longer than 2-3 years even when I wanted, due to fixed term (academic) employment contracts, redundancy, projects getting terminated due to business decisions, and reassignment to different projects. As an independent I found I've had very long term ongoing client relationships (7+ years for one, 5 years for another so far), where they call me back to maintain their products for years after shipping. During that, it's fine and even expected that I have overlapping newer work with other clients. So I'm expected to maintain a number of things long after shipping, and that's what I expect to be called to do if I did a good job of delivering the project in the first place. I think my experience of maintenance and dogfooding may be the opposite of what people think of, when they think about employees vs. independents.

jlokier 6y ago

While I won't ask why the multiple downvotes, because that's discouraged here on HN, I will express considerable surprise. Reading over it again, it doesn't strike me as a disagreeable comment, just another point of view about one type of working relationship over another.