I worked in regular f/t programming jobs for a couple of decades, both in the software/tech sector and in other domains. That experience gave me more than techn

I worked in regular f/t programming jobs for a couple of decades, both in the software/tech sector and in other domains. That experience gave me more than technical skills. It gave me business domain knowledge, the ability to work with people and understand priorities, and a fairly good network of former colleagues and managers. Then I started freelance contracting for a former employer. I got more work through friends and contacts. I have freelanced solo for over a decade now. I have some articles on my web site typicalprogrammer.com you might find useful. I’ve also commented here quite a bit about freelancing. You run into terrible people and terrible jobs just like you occasionally encounter people you don’t like or things you don’t want to do in any aspect of your life. To some degree you can frame the situation and set your expectations. For example I have friends who only want to work on sexy projects with language X, so while they aren’t suffering from legacy PHP work they aren’t finding any work. I don’t care much about languages or tools. My satisfaction comes from solving business problems and cultivating long-term trust relationships with my customers. You will find a lot more work outside of the tech sector than in the tech sector. Some of it won’t seem all that interesting, technically, but it can prove satisfying and lucrative.