There will be times where you’re working your daily job and you’ll find yourself fantasizing about not having to work for a boss. Being your own boss and being fully independent sounds attractive to a lot of people. Work whenever you want, choose the projects that are most challenging, and work with people you enjoy working with.
The overall picture of being a freelance developer might seem idyllic. Some people spent their time only dreaming about being a freelance developer. Other people take the leap. But what can you expect once you start working as a freelance developer?
Let me tell you upfront: it isn’t all roses.
Technical Aspect
If you’ve got some experience working a corporate nine-to-five job as a software developer you’ll know that most things have been taken care of. Basic things every software development team needs like test environments, automated tests, and other code quality measures like code reviews.
This completely changes when you start working on the website of the local barbershop. This is when you’ll first find out about the not so romantic side of freelancing.
What you’ll often find looks far from optimal. No test environment, no version control, and outdated software. When freelancing you’ll never know what mess you are going to have to deal with. And more often than not it turns out to be a disaster.
A lot of your work as a freelance developer will be either maintaining or adding features to an existing website or project. Chances are you have to work with someone else’s code most of the time. Obviously, it’s nice to have a new project you can work on yourself and build from the start but more often than not this won’t be the case.
The things you’ll find are not what you would classify as craftsmanship. Fragile architecture and quick and dirty solutions are what you’re going to find more often than not. Especially when the developer before you was doing the project for a fixed price.
When working on your day job, that looked so bad, solid architecture and well thought out solutions were the norms.
#freelancing #programming #software-development #web-development #javascript
