I think there are some good points made in this post that apply to business-related activities that developers often remain woefully ignorant about. Freelancing

I think there are some good points made in this post that apply to business-related activities that developers often remain woefully ignorant about. Freelancing definitely makes you reset your expectations a bit more, whether you work as a full time employee or not. However, there are a couple of important aspects of professional growth that freelancers can miss out on: 1) Long term ownership of a product/service. Your approach and outlook to writing code changes if you know you have to own/maintain it for a long time. You'll be more thoughtful in your decisions, more mindful of system/customer/team impact, and be critical of the latest, hot technology on HN. All good things, I believe. 2) Team dynamics and leadership, especially within larger teams. Freelancers often work solo, and there's something to be said about learning to work in the scope of a team, both as a contributor and as a leader. While plenty of freelancers can assemble teams and tackle large problems, they often acquire these skills working for a firm at some point in their careers. If you go too early into freelancing before learning these skills, you may never break out of being a one-man band.