The Hidden Costs of Going Freelance

snydeq writes: IT pros lend firsthand advice on the challenges of going solo in Bob Violino's report on the hidden costs of going freelance in IT. 'The life of an independent IT contractor sounds attractive enough: the freedom to choose clients, the freedom to set your schedule, and the freedom to set your pay rate while banging out code on the beach. But all of this freedom comes at a cost. Sure, heady times for some skill sets may make IT freelancing a seller's market, but striking out on your own comes with hurdles. The more you're aware of the challenges and what you need to do to address them, the better your chance of success as an IT freelancer.'

Comments

uh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm seeing all this as though it's a choice. Like there's some guy with well combed hair, checking his watch and driving a lexus who makes the choice to begin an exciting new chapter in his life.

Do you stupid fucks seriously think I want to work like this with no insurance and dental and being afraid of starving?

THERE'S NO FUCKING JOBS YOU IDIOTS

Subby needs to get his teeth knocked the fuck out with a clue stick.

Re:uh?

[Anonymous Coward]

this isn't a real article, or a real discussion, this is some kind of poorly conceived clickbait

if you have mad skills and are too bored or antisocial to work in a real company you can
eke out a living as a hired gun working for assholes on shit projects hourly. if you're
really slick at it you can turn a pretty good living if you spend a lot of time keeping the
jobs coming in

news at 11

Re: uh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because its the degree that matters...ffs

Re: uh?

[Beck_Neard]

Yes, toe the line, follow the rules, bow to your masters, and you MIGHT get a job that pays JUST enough to live on a daily basis and forget about buying a house.

Re: uh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there are plenty of jobs. Do I want to ask, "do I want fries with that", "credit or debit", "paper or plastic", or "This is Peggy, would you like to buy an alarm system, with an extended guarantee on your car?" Jobs that people can work 60-80 hours/week... and still not make the rent, much less health insurance.

Of course, padding resume. Seen people try that. They got marched out the door as soon as I caught their bullshit. I didn't even let them get through the interview process. Interviewers do their damndest to find people padding in any way, shape, or form.

Freelance? Some people can do it, but you have to have at least CISSP level, RHCA/MCSA or top tier certification. Otherwise you are just one of many chatter monkeys looking to fleece someone. This is why companies just go with Tata or Infosys, because their consultants can assure virtually 100% security... and you are competing against legions of them and H-1Bs.

Honestly... Don't bother freelancing. Find a cool, kick-ass product that fills a niche, and start a business peddling it. CM tools were the rage 5-6 months ago, but shit like Slack and Bamboo (CI/CD) are what give the orgasms now, so make a tool that is similar. Of course, hyperconvergence will be busting down the door of the IT shops as soon as Windows Server 2016 comes out with Storage Spaces Direct, so perhaps consider writing a tool for Linux that allows machines to do I/O along their own private subnet (preferably Infiniband), so you can toss a bunch of machines on a rack with their own drives, let the software perform like Storage Spaces Direct or VMWare vSAN.

Make a product... there are way too many suit wearing chatter monkeys, and no jobs for them.

Re: uh?

[Hognoxious]

don't do anything extracurricular in terms of continuing educaiton

Alanis Morisette, is that you?

Re: uh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever, we've all figured out how to bypass HR and their toxic process with raw talent and real know how. These toxic processes will die with the bloated compabies that embrace them.

Re:uh?

[jellomizer]

Are you looking in the right place?
They are jobs but if you want to be freelance you need to on the watch all the time and that extra cash you make needs to go into that time between jobs.

The key reason why I don't freelance is because I suck at selling myself to new people. Once I am in they tend to love me, but before that I am just like any other smo.

Re: uh?

[jellomizer]

I have learned the degree does matter. Not that it is the only criteria or an absolute but I have found people with degrees especially with undergrad have a bit more roundness to their personality.

When we are teens and early 20s all we want to do is focus on one thing going to college forces us to diversify.
I found people without degrees or took extreamly specialized classes tend to be good in a small area, then be grossly inadequate in others.
A programmer needs to know how to administer a mid sized system, do general DBA tasks, look up what they don't know, treat customers well, explain things so a non-programmer can understand, know about the business that they work for.

Those liberal art classes we need to take are useful and key to success. It is just a shame that liberal arts majors are not required to take 200+ level math and science so they get diversity in their education

Re: uh?

[Redmancometh]

I've found that devs (working devs!) without degrees tend to have a far more broad knowledgebase. Typically they are part of the "IT culture" and are immersed in learning 24/7.

Too many degreed devs do it for money and only know what they were taught in school. Most dont even bother to remember ASM/C in favor of high level languages.

Someone who feels development helps define them as a person is usually far more competent.

There's overlap, but that's been my experience.

Re: uh?

[Redmancometh]

CISSP seems like an odd thing to choose...infosec is a tiny sliver of IT. As someone with a GSE and CISSP I'm gonna say it's the best part. Red team 4 lyfe!

Re: uh?

[evilviper]

I found people without degrees or took extreamly specialized classes tend to be good in a small area, then be grossly inadequate in others.

I previously had an incompetent Jr employee under me, who happened to have a doctorate...

Meanwhile, the billionaire founders of Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Facebook and Dell are college drop-outs.

Re:uh?

[Jason Levine]

The key reason why I don't freelance is because I suck at selling myself to new people. Once I am in they tend to love me, but before that I am just like any other smo.

I have this problem too. This is second only to "need a steady source of income" in reasons why I only freelance on the side. I know I'm good at what I do, but when it comes time to sell my talents to others my brain suddenly turns on me and tells me that I know nothing and there are tons of people out there who know more than I do. The latter is true - there's always someone who knows more than you - but just because others know more than me doesn't mean I know nothing. Still, it's hard to battle your own brain.

There's a term for this: Impostor Syndrome. You feel like a fraud who is going to be discovered at any moment - all despite the skills you have or your works being well received. I've heard from many IT professionals who feel this way also.

Re: uh?

[plopez]

Many people who have a dgree will not trust a person without one. Except for the lowest skill jobs.

Re: uh?

[plopez]

Gates' father geve him money to start a company, Page and Brin were Phd students (hint, you need a degree to qualify for that). Drop outs are an anomaly.

Re:uh?

[tompaulco]

Do you stupid fucks seriously think I want to work like this with no insurance and dental and being afraid of starving?

You apparently are not aware that it is possible to obtain insurance and dental without getting it from an employer? Well, it is a relatively new thing that started in only the 1920s.
In fact, I have had insurance outside of my employer (several different employers in fact) for about 20 years now. Although the employers like to make you think you are stuck with them and their insurance is cheaper, in fact that has never been the case. Why would anyone even think that buying insurance from the company store would be cheaper than buying it from hundreds of companies that are competing for your business? I have always maintained outside insurance for my family because it was cheaper than the family plan offered at my employer. Occasionally it was cheaper to insure myself with the company because the company would cover part of it. At other times, where the company listed health insurance as a benefit, it was in fact you, the employee, who paid 100% of it, so how is that a benefit, especially when it is available cheaper outside of the company?

Re: uh?

[plopez]

I'm making a lot more now than my dad did. Then again, he graduated form the 8th grade and later got a GED.

Re: uh?

[CodeArtisan]

I found people without degrees or took extreamly specialized classes tend to be good in a small area, then be grossly inadequate in others.

I previously had an incompetent Jr employee under me, who happened to have a doctorate...

Meanwhile, the billionaire founders of Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Facebook and Dell are college drop-outs.

Well, there's certainly sufficient anecdotal evidence there to create data.

Re:uh?

[JeffOwl]

Lol. Tech sector unemployment is STILL UNDER 5%. There are plenty of jobs out there, apparently just not jobs you are qualified for or willing to do for the pay.

My wife created a consulting company (woman owned small business, yea!) and hired herself. Lots of advantages, max the employer side of the 401K, pay a reasonable but small salary and take the rest in profit; it still goes against income, but you don't pay payroll tax on it. Work from wherever you want most of the time, tax free mileage reimbursement when you do have to go in. Buy computers and office equipment/furniture with pre-tax dollars. I have a good job so she doesn't have to buy health insurance. And the list goes on.

Re: uh?

[__aaclcg7560]

I once showed up at a biotech company for an I.T. support job wearing a suit and tie for the interview (recruiter insisted). I got stranded in a receptionist-less lobby for 90 minutes as the recruiter called every 15 minutes to ask where the hell I was. People kept smiling at me and badging through the doors, but not one stopped to talk me. Finally, someone did. With a suit and tie, I was better dressed than the hiring manager and CEO. The Ph.D.'s thought I was a venture capitalist being given a tour. I didn't get the job because the CEO said he couldn't afford me even though the job was at a fixed rate.

Re: uh?

[evilviper]

More than enough data here to refute the anecdotes I was replying to...

Re: uh?

[ranton]

With a suit and tie, I was better dressed than the hiring manager and CEO.

For the vast majority of job interviews, you will be much better dressed than the person interviewing you. For them it is just another day at the office. I have never been interviewed by someone in a suit, but I have never went to an interview without one. Unless you are very confident their culture would look down on a suit, its much safer to wear one. Your appearance is a very visual indicator of how much you respect the person interviewing you, and how much you respect yourself.

I didn't get the job because the CEO said he couldn't afford me even though the job was at a fixed rate.

This most likely had nothing to do with the suit. And if it did, this is the exception not the norm. No different than an anecdotal story of someone whose life was saved by not wearing a seat belt.

Re: uh?

[Locke2005]

Elison was given a huge contract by the CIA to develop a database... using the design IBM worked years on, published, but never implemented.

Re: uh?

[Locke2005]

I showed up for an interview at SCO wearing a 3-piece suit. They took one look at me, laughed, and said "You don't fit in here." No, I didn't get the job...

Re: uh?

[jellomizer]

Yes, that is very common. It is chapter 1-3 then jump to the end of the book.
I once had to work with some code where they guy purchased a database engine for some software he was working with. Then he skipped using Database SQL Commands to manage the data, and went straight into direct library calls to the low level engine. Creating tables without table definitions, and the data was in essence unreadable across systems. Any change and reporting required coding the system to parse the data.
While reading the instructions Chapter 1-3 were about setting it up. End chapters were about using the low level stuff for last resort.
He thought he was mr. bigman for writing such low level library calls. But it was pure crap, that made the product tough to manage, and any chance requires hours of code analysis, to make sure it got the right data.

Re: uh?

[fluffernutter]

Don't forget about all those awesome gig economy jobs!! Your welcome!!

Re:uh?

[jellomizer]

Well most larger companies that have salespeople who will just blatantly lie about their skills and resources. When they try to interview someone who is honest, they look like a bumbling idiot.

So let me grill you on industry buzzword x. I haven't heard of x before. after you look into it, you realize it is the same thing as other industry buzzword y, which you had decades experience in.

Re: uh?

[jafac]

Among the "useless" liberal arts classes that frame the well-rounded IT-professional's skill set, often found wanting in "professional developers":

Relational Databases

Technical Writing

Network Engineering (routers, firewall configuration, vpn devices)

Cryptography, Certificate management

User Credential Management, Directory services

mail/spam-filters

web services

Front-end and UX design

device drivers

Systems design

enterprise OS configuration management

Security and regulatory compliance

Data acquisition, analysis, analytics

  - - - okay, barely scratching the surface here. Developer toolchains? Source control management? Virtualization? Containers?

So, let me get this straight? You want me to take "History of world music appreciation" class? AND graduate in less than 5 years?

Re: uh?

[whitroth]

No, there's not. If you think so,
a) you're *very* underpriced,
b) you're just out of school for a year or so, (check out the
        "entry level jobs" that require 1-5 years esperience)
c) no one's interested in training you in a language you
        haven't studied or worked in,
d) you don't have the *right* acronyms, (mysql, but not
        Oracle, for example), because HR are ignorant *holes.
and, finally, e) there's no jobs out there.

Evidence: I had a long career programming, then doing systems administration in Linux... and the only long term job I could find (we'll exclude driving to the far 'burbs and working 3rd shift) meant I had to relocate from Chicago to DC.

And yes, let's not forget, per the o/p, that you need to pay taxes quarterly, and pay other fees, and, oh, yes, your insurance costs will be *high* (hell, we just got bought out, er, "merged", with a company more than twice our size, and I hear our insurance will cost a good bit less than it did last year, due to a larger company to bargain from).

Independent contractor? Cheap, replaceable pair of hands that we can dump if they give us any trouble, and aren't willing to work on a "whatever it takes" basis.

                      mark

Re: uh?

[Bratch]

Time to turn off being able to see posts from ACs.

Re: uh?

[Gr8Apes]

Thanks to his parents, Bill could afford to move to Albuquerque without much risk, but he never used his parents' money to build Microsoft. He and Allen built their business by their own efforts.

So he did utilize his parents wealth, or didn't he? He and Allen built their business largely by conning quite a few folks regarding SPC's QDOS, repackaged as MSDOS 1.0. In fact, you'll note that conning people was a huge part of MS's strategy over the years.

Re:uh?

[Karlt1]

You apparently are not aware that it is possible to obtain insurance and dental without getting it from an employer?

Unless you or anyone in your family has a "pre-existing condition", at least before the ACA.

Although the employers like to make you think you are stuck with them and their insurance is cheaper, in fact that has never been the case. Why would anyone even think that buying insurance from the company store would be cheaper than buying it from hundreds of companies that are competing for your business?

You think you can negotiate better rates than a company with 100's of people? Insurance companies pre-ACA (i.e. ObamaCare) only competed over the healthiest segment of the population.

At other times, where the company listed health insurance as a benefit, it was in fact you, the employee, who paid 100%

In that case "you're doing it wrong". I've worked for companies with 20 employees, to companies with 50,000+ employees and never had to pay 100% of my own premiums.

Re:uh?

[Hognoxious]

You think you can negotiate better rates than a company with 100's of people?

Of course he can. He's John Galt.

Re:uh?

[tompaulco]

You think you can negotiate better rates than a company with 100's of people?

You don't even have to negotiate. You just take the advertised rate and save money. You will always save money when there are hundreds of companies offering a product over when there is only one product available. This was true even before ACA, but everyone was told that it wasn't true and they should stick with a company plan. I wonder why that was? Kickbacks? Executive Perks?

Re:uh?

[Qzukk]

in fact that has never been the case

Unless you've had a history of cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, or any of a number of other "preexisting conditions". In that case, it's never been the case since Obamacare kicked in.

Re:uh?

[Qzukk]

You will always save money when there are hundreds of companies offering a product over when there is only one product available.

If you're 20 and healthy then yeah, getting a personal policy all by your lonesome will be cheaper than joining a risk pool of employees of all ages and health levels.

If you're 60 then getting a personal policy all by your lonesome will never be cheaper than joining a risk pool padded out by the 20 somethings buying the company plan. Unless you're talking about buying high-deductible ER-only coverage, in which case your tricycle doesn't even rank with the Ferrari's everyone else is getting and you should feel bad for claiming it's a better deal because it's cheaper.

Re:uh?

[AttillaTheNun]

You realize that comes off no different than saying the number one reason you can't be hired is because you have no skills. I presume you are on this forum because you work in a tech field, and that you set about developing skills in the field because it is a profession you desired. Why should the skill of self-promotion be any different? You'll need it to excel in life, whether you are a freelancer or not.
Unless your daddy hired you, you managed to sell yourself enough to get a full-time gig, so I also think you are selling yourself short on this aspect and just need some self-confidence.

Re:uh?

[tompaulco]

You will always save money when there are hundreds of companies offering a product over when there is only one product available.

If you're 20 and healthy then yeah, getting a personal policy all by your lonesome will be cheaper than joining a risk pool of employees of all ages and health levels.

If you're 60 then getting a personal policy all by your lonesome will never be cheaper than joining a risk pool padded out by the 20 somethings buying the company plan. Unless you're talking about buying high-deductible ER-only coverage, in which case your tricycle doesn't even rank with the Ferrari's everyone else is getting and you should feel bad for claiming it's a better deal because it's cheaper.

High Deductible aka Major Medical is the only kind of insurance that actually IS insurance.

Re: uh?

[Gr8Apes]

How exactly did they "con" SCP? They made a deal and SCP made money on the deal. Should Microsoft have told SCP that it was for IBM's machine? Maybe, but that would have killed their business. SCP could certainly have come out better, but I don't believe they were misled by MS.

Once MS had the leverage, though, they littered the ground with the corpses of companies who made deals with them. Scorched earth was Bill Gates's approach to business.

They certainly misled IBM about the codebase, and they misled SPC about the purposes to which they wanted to use it. But then again, as you point out, "con" was the operative word afterwards for everyone they dealt with.

Re:uh?

[Qzukk]

What makes your tricycle... sorry, "Major Medical" real insurance? If I have it and get cancer, will it make me whole again?

Missing cost

[AK Marc]

The Slashdot header says cost, TFA header says "pitfalls". One I've seen that is either (or both) is sales. When you are freelance, you have to spend time bidding, designing for bids, building client confidence, and other things that aren't billable.

If you aren't prepared to spend 20% of your time on unpaid sales, you aren't ready to go freelance. Yes, that's a high number. But in a down/slow time, it'll not be far off. When things are good, you'll be spending a few spare minutes on the next job, but if you only plan for the best, you'll only get the worst.

Re:Missing cost

[m2pc]

Meetings can be another time waster and non-billable. Unless you specify upfront that _any_ time spent with the client is billable, you will eat the cost of sitting through sometimes hours-long meetings just to define the project you will bid and be paid on.

On top of that, some clients will expect you to meet them wherever they need you to be, even if it's several hours away, again at your own expense.

I've been freelancing for the past couple years and love it, but just keep this in mind!

Re:Missing cost

[rockmuelle]

This is something IT freelancers need to learn from other billable industries: any time spent on the client is billable. Interior designers, architects, lawyers, doctors, lobbyists, ad agencies and every other upper-middle class profession based around working with clients works this way. It's normal and as long as you're up front about it, no one will think twice about it.

Break up your time into 15 minute chunks and bill for it anytime you're doing something for your client.

-Chris

Not on the list: time for getting new client

[cerberusss]

Couldn't find it on the list: time for getting new client.

I've been doing the contracting thing, where the client hires me to extend their on-site team. Recruitment agencies call me, I have an intake over the phone with the client and then meet them face-to-face. So I don't recognize the things mentioned like "fixed-price contract", I just have an hourly rate. You can spend anything from a couple of months to a couple of years working for the same client.

I very much like it, but I work 4 days a week. That one day a week is really useful when the contract ends, because then you'll have to start emailing recruiters, looking for the next project. The phone and face-to-face interviews take hours, and it's hard to stuff that away in the usual 9-5 business hours.

The iOS job market is great currently, so it's not hard finding a project.

Re:Not on the list: time for getting new client

[gregwbrooks]

Does your field (which sounds like app development) allow you to charge a premium rate so you can drive down the number of hours worked? Solo shops and microshops in other professional services (like PR/marketing) essentially plan on only 50% billable time, with the remainder going to biz-dev and a little admin.

But for that to work at a decent salary equivalence, your hourly rate (or equivalent if you do fixed-fee work) needs to be $100 an hour or more. Is that reasonable in your field?

Re:Not on the list: time for getting new client

[tlhIngan]

I've been doing the contracting thing, where the client hires me to extend their on-site team. Recruitment agencies call me, I have an intake over the phone with the client and then meet them face-to-face. So I don't recognize the things mentioned like "fixed-price contract", I just have an hourly rate. You can spend anything from a couple of months to a couple of years working for the same client.

In other words, you're contracting involves a "body for hire", which is a perfectly reasonable way to do contracting.

Another form of contracting is a traditional contract - you have to do X and produce Y deliverables in preferably a Z timeframe, which is more project oriented Traditional engineering companies typically do these - customer needs a product that does XYZ and with deliverables and milestones. Which can involve freelance work as well - you need to produce a document, say.

In these, there are "fixed price" contracts where you do the work and get $X for it. Then there's "Time and Materials" where you're compensated for time and expenses to get things done. The former is riskier on the company so they usually have higher margins (if the company thinks they can do it in 1 month, they'd bid 3 months for contingency), while the latter is lower risk, and thus lower margins.

If you're extending teams, that's just one form of work, but freelancing typically involves completed parcels of work.

Re:Not on the list: time for getting new client

[cerberusss]

Yes, it's app development. But I don't do fixed-price projects, I just join/extend their team. I've just started, so my current rate is at the local bottom at 65 euros. However, that translates into a decent salary for me.

Re:Not on the list: time for getting new client

[cerberusss]

Another form of contracting is a traditional contract - you have to do X and produce Y deliverables in preferably a Z timeframe, which is more project oriented

I've done these on a much smaller scale, moonlighting during my previous (regular) day job. But I found it's pretty easy to sign yourself into bankruptcy. Just make a faulty estimate, then let the client sue you. And there are always surprises. So personally, I wouldn't want to do fixed price projects as a one-man shop.

Re:Not on the list: time for getting new client

[cerberusss]

Well, I'm on site and outsourced teams aren't. And the price difference isn't that high; the big outsourcing firms like TCS ask about half of my rate.

That said, my current client is outsourcing more and more. First testing, but now also half of iOS development.

Re:Not on the list: time for getting new client

[swb]

In my experience, flat-rate projects succeed or fail by the contract terms. The deliverables have to be fixed and the project completion has to be extremely well-defined so you can declare it complete when the deliverables are complete. Scheduling should also be part of the contract so that client delays can't sap momentum and drag the project out. All change orders should be time and materials at a rate significantly higher than the flat rate average to discourage scope creep.

I usually see the problem with flat rates as being lack of client acceptance (using troubleshooting or whatever as an excuse) and delays as the main problem and vague deliverables contributing to both.

Overall, you have to be hard negotiator AND willing to tell the client "the deliverables are completed as specified, I'm not working anymore". Few businesses are willing to do this and even fewer individuals, which is why T&M is always the safer play.

Re:Not on the list: time for getting new client

[tompaulco]

Does your field (which sounds like app development) allow you to charge a premium rate so you can drive down the number of hours worked? Solo shops and microshops in other professional services (like PR/marketing) essentially plan on only 50% billable time, with the remainder going to biz-dev and a little admin. But for that to work at a decent salary equivalence, your hourly rate (or equivalent if you do fixed-fee work) needs to be $100 an hour or more. Is that reasonable in your field?

I bill $100 an hour and I find that to be extremely cheap for the work that I do. I recognize that when I was working at a company with all the meetings and interruptions, that the amount of work that I got done in a day now takes me about an hour to do on my own. So i am turning around $1500 or more of work in an hour, but only billing $100 for it.
A local medium sized business does daily rate for it's consultants. An entry level consultant bills out at $1,500 a day. That is almost $200 an hour right there. Big companies like S&P were billing out at $400 an hour 20 years ago. So no, I don't think $100 an hour is unreasonable at all. It is downright cheap.

Re:Not on the list: time for getting new client

[tompaulco]

How do you compete with India? Can't they get a team of 6 devs for the price of you?

Indian development is not that much cheaper than paying somebody local. Most of the difference is hype and buy-in from corporations that aren't including all of the costs and only looking at the upfront small difference in outlay. The actual consultants are definitely much cheaper, but the consulting house that is paying them charges about 125% of the price of a regular full time employee's salary. It may seem stupid to replace an employee with someone who charges more, but employing people has extra costs, some, but not all of which are removed by hiring a consultant.

Re:Not on the list: time for getting new client

[tompaulco]

Yes, getting a new client takes a lot of time, and you don't always know exactly when one will end, so it is hard to schedule another one to start until you are definitely done with the old one. In may case, I have several clients and I don't spend 100% of my time with any one of them, but your situation is very different because you are "supplemental staffing" which means they need you the bulk of the time.
In my last experience with independent consulting, back when the economy collapsed due to 9/11, it was hard to find any job, contracting or otherwise. Even if you tried to go back into full time employment, recruiters and companies treated former consultants like red-headed stepchildren. How DARE you go out and try to earn what you are worth! As punishment, you can't have a job with us. The job postings would even say stuff like "corporates only", "must have corporate culture", that sort of thing. That's probably illegal now, but back then if you did consulting and then tried to come back into a full time employee role, you were blacklisted.

Re:Not on the list: time for getting new client

[fluffernutter]

You don't work four days a week, you work five days a week and only get paid for four.

Re:Not on the list: time for getting new client

[cerberusss]

Yes, that is one of m fears; the economy going downhill in a big way. Before starting contracting, I worked for 8 years at a scientific institute, which offered a very solid position. In any case, my SO will still earn a bit of money as a teacher, that's a bit of an insurance.

Degree shows you can finish what you start

[perpenso]

Because its the degree that matters...ffs

The degree demonstrates two things:
(1) A base level of knowledge, which does not necessarily indicate talent in the field so its not the sole qualification.
(2) An ability to **complete** a long bureaucratic process that includes some uninteresting tasks. That may be the more important thing demonstrated.

Re:Degree shows you can finish what you start

[Copid]

Just as importantly, it gets you past the resume filter, "Must have a degree." Most of the time, if you don't get a job it's because they never even bothered to call you.

Re:Degree shows you can finish what you start

[yes-but-no]

(3) A kind of dumb mind that can't see the stupidity of most tasks you were asked to perform. A liking to be an yes-man and a willingness to fit-in.

Re:Degree shows you can finish what you start

[MagickalMyst]

"Because its the degree that matters...ffs"

If you are looking for a federal government job then yes - it does matter. Very much. At least in Canada.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[AK Marc]

And I've had programmers take down a 1000+ user network by "testing" by turning on a test network, where it mimicked the real environment, down to the IP addresses and such. Of course, they didn't tell anyone else in IT what they were doing, and they had admin access to the networking gear because the CIO was ex-programmer and programmers are the best IT workers.

Of course, when the calls were rolling in that the network was down, I got in trouble for unplugging their test gear. Programmers are best when contractors. They roll in, give you buggy code, and wander off. You don't have to keep them on the payroll.

60% tax

[hooiberg]

You automatically rank in the highest tax category as a freelancer. Of every buck you make, 60 cents go to the state.

You have to keep your own pension in mind, and let us face it, most programmers are not that good at selling themselves. While exceptions are there, once you start as a freelancer, you might start to appreciate those pesky sales droids a lot more.

Re:60% tax

[aaarrrgggh]

You can pay a lot of taxes, but (in the US at least) you can do a solo-401k retirement plan, which will let you save $37k with zero taxes and $17k with just 15%. You can also deduct expenses, and if you are creative with your business structure you can avoid some other taxes.

Re:60% tax

[Actually, I do RTFA]

You automatically rank in the highest tax category as a freelancer. Of every buck you make, 60 cents go to the state.

If that happened to you, without you suddenly making the income that would justify it, for the love of heaven seek out a tax professional. You do have to pay both your half and the employer half of FICA. But, almost certainly your tax bracket should go down*. Or you FUBARed your taxes.

Re:60% tax

[jtara]

Nonsense. At least in the U.S.

For one, how does one "automatically" rank in the highest tax category? That would depend on your income, not your freelancer status.

Make sure to incorporate (C or S). (Or form an LLC.) You then have many options not available to a sole proprietor:

• Your medical insurance premiums are deductible. (You do not need a company-sponsored plan.)
• You can receive your personal income as a combination of salary and distributions. Only salary is subject to social security taxes. This can be advantageous if you are young and don't expect to ever collect Social Security, or if you are older and have already maxed-out or nearly maxed-out benefits.
• You can deduct expenses in excess of income. (Although then you must depreciate rather than expense capital equipment). Good if you might put the business "on hold" some years while working a salary job for somebody else.)
• No-quibble home-office deduction. (Most sole-props and their accountants are scared-to-death of this one.)

Re:60% tax

[blahbooboo]

It's called a SEP not a solo-401k.

Re:60% tax

[blahbooboo]

that is a SEP is better than a solo-401k

Re:60% tax

[sociocapitalist]

You automatically rank in the highest tax category as a freelancer. Of every buck you make, 60 cents go to the state.

If that happened to you, without you suddenly making the income that would justify it, for the love of heaven seek out a tax professional. You do have to pay both your half and the employer half of FICA. But, almost certainly your tax bracket should go down*. Or you FUBARed your taxes.

Well let's hope that he's not a freelance accountant or tax planner...

Re:60% tax

[PPalmgren]

He's pretty far off, 20% or so depending on the state. Assuming $100k, he's paying 15.3% in SS/MED, and ~21% max on Fed tax. State taxes at that income are usually around 4-6% at most, so 42% worst case scenario before income deductions.

Re:60% tax

[tompaulco]

You automatically rank in the highest tax category as a freelancer. Of every buck you make, 60 cents go to the state.

You are automatically in whatever income bracket your income qualifies you for, just like anybody else.

You have to keep your own pension in mind, and let us face it, most programmers are not that good at selling themselves. While exceptions are there, once you start as a freelancer, you might start to appreciate those pesky sales droids a lot more.

Pension? BWAHAHAHA. Oh, thank goodness the company has my back. Yeah, right! These days, when you work at a company, you ARE an independent contractor. There is no pension. There is no retirement unless you are paying into it yourself (and they might match you for a few percent). As soon as they can find somebody that they think can do your job for a nickel cheaper, you are out the door. There is no loyalty from the company, but if you aren't loyal to the company and not willing to work 12 to 16 hour days every day, then you are "unprofessional". If you don't give two weeks notice, you are "unprofessional". But they can walk you out the door at a moment's notice, and that is supposed to be okay.

Re:60% tax

[coreyh]

A SEP is indeed better.

If you are a sole proprietor or LLC, you can sock away 25% of your after-employment taxes (FICA, Medicare), and you only hit a cap if you're making over $200K/yr

If you have an S-Corp, the Corp can put 25% of your salary, pre-tax into the SEP. So you take whatever amount you billed this year, divide by 5. 4 parts become salary, the 5th part becomes your IRA contribution. It adds up fast. Then again, having the discipline to save 20% of your income adds up fast no matter what you do with it.

I can only speak from my personal experience, but I have no idea where the 60% figure was sourced. I live in NYC and it's more like 40%, and income tax rates follow the same graduated scale that a regular employee would have.

Re:60% tax

[volmtech]

Self employment tax, the 15.3% minus the taxes on that amount so the effective rate is around 12.6%. At least that was what I paid when I was self employed. I argued that with a professional tax consultant, he was adamant 15.3%. The fact that you can deduct the 15.3% from your taxable income for income tax purposes escaped him.

Re: 60% tax

[PPalmgren]

You can't deduct fica taxes from fed taxable income, they fall under the same level (fed taxes) and thus use similar taxable buckets (albeit with different exemptions allowed). If you did, it would create a feedback loop. Some local taxes like property tax reduce income, or you may have been thinking about the bush tax holiday, where the percentages were lower by 2%, or thinking about a sole proprietorship aspect of income taxes on your yearly return. Paying fica taxes at a fixed percentage per paycheck/quarterly is a must requirement or you'll get smacked with under withholding and potentially penalized. There are deposit rules that trigger based on cumulative amount withheld. It doesn't matter if your yearly return says 10k due and you paid 10k over the year, if you didn't pay part of it after q1 at 2500 youre gonna get penalized.

The way to factor in income deductions is via the withholding allowances on your income tax (w-4).

Re: 60% tax

[volmtech]

On line 1 of my 1990 1040 SE, net farm income 49,945. On line 3 that amount is multiplied by .9235 to equal 46,124. On line 10 that is multiplied by .153 to get 7057 self employment tax.

. But wait, on line 25 of the 1040 you enter one half of the self employment tax, 3,529. On line 31 you deduct line 30 from the total income. That gave me an adjusted gross income of 46912 subject to income tax. So I paid 15.3% FICA tax on 92.35% of my net earnings and I deducted half of that from the net earnings subject to income tax. Got it? I did not pay 15.3% of my net income in FICA tax or income tax on all my net earnings. This was 1990 farm income. I haven't been self employed in 20 years so things may have changed.

Re: 60% tax

[PPalmgren]

You are correct, in a sense. This is done to give parity to self-employed vs someone who works for a company. When you work for a company, 7.65% of your required match is paid directly by your employer and not in your paycheck at all, so your gross would be 7.65% lower. The 7.65% reduction to income and the lower employment tax figure is to make it fairer for self-employed, and as to not require them to create an LLC just to be treated on an equal tax burden. You're still "taxed" at 15.3%, but half of that tax is not considered personal income but company expense - hence the income reduction, and income deduction. This is how they combine both employer and employee tax into the same (SE) return without making it overly complicated. If you were to have to file a separate return for your farm company, its just more paperwork for the same result.

Its still beneficial to incorporate for other reasons, but it shouldn't be a necessity for everyone - this seeks to keep it that way and not flood the system with millions of personal LLCs because of unfair treatment.

The painful truth about freelancing

[Anonymous Coward]

When I read some blogger bragging about the great joys of freelancing, I want to beat them over the head. Sure, you can make a living, for a while... and if you have the right skillset you might even make good money... for while! but skillsets change over time and although you can reskill, you'll never be as good at tomorrow's tech as what you are with today's.

What counts most in business is connections. Freelancers by definition don't have connections. When work dries up, no one has has their back.

These freelancing is greeeeeeat bloggers are like some guy bragging he picks up lots of babes. Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn't. So some harsh truths:

> the freedom to choose clients,

Truth: You will beg for work, take anything thrown your way, and be thankful for it.

> the freedom to set your schedule,

Yeah. Lots of time to do what you want "between jobs"

> and the freedom to set your pay rate while banging out code on the beach

Truth: Payrates are pretty low. You are competing with guys in third-world countries. Some of them write sucky code, sure, but others are very good, and they can live very comfortably on what for you is a meager wage.

Freelancing can mean varied work and even good pay... for a while! but there are many advantages of working for the man: job security, safety in numbers. and being able to fallback to a career in management which has good pay and doesn't demand you're up to date with the latest tech.

So next time someone brags about being a freelancer, wonder why if business is so good he is able to waste time blogging, and while you ponder this question, give him a wedgie.

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I have done some freelancing (because I had no other job).

1) There is hard competition. There is always some guy from india or china (or africa) who offers to do the job for 5 USD/hour or less - and have PhD + work experience in that particular field and his costs of living are much lower than yours.
2) It is very difficult to get enough money for living. You might get some good deals but in practice there are times when you cannot get no work so I hope you have a house and some savings or otherwise you will end-up living on the streets.
3) If you become ill then you have no income at all.
4) You waste time writing business proposals and other material which takes time and you never get paid.
5) Lots of work is done without paying the taxes (it is often even so complicated if your money flows are from multiple different countries and you contribute with some other guy from other country and pay him something etc). However, the amount of money is often so small that many authorities don't even bother to track you down.
6) Yes. You can do it while you are unemployed. At least in some european countries you are allowed to work to get very small amount of money (thought you in theory work as a contractor) and at the same time be unemployed (they do rarely check these) - but if you get caught you might lose all your umemployment benefits. Also it might work if you are a student and want to get some part-time work while studying.
7) If your past customer wants to sue you for some reason, you better have money to pay for lawyers. It might become interesting if you get sued and transferred to another country (if theory you might even get criminal charges if you do something very stupid like try to sell your customers private information to somebody).
8) Projects change all the time which might be "interesting" but is very demanding. You have constantly learn new things and cannot fully specialize into anything.
9) It is yet another way to destroy labour law benefits and unions in europe - you beg for some shot-term projects and the pay is often minimal.

=> People do it because they might get some money and they cannot get any other job.

Plus sides:
1) You get some work experience which might help you to get a "real" job.
2) If you are able to get good clients/contacts, you can maybe have a reliable source of income.

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[Jason Levine]

A friend of mine who freelances full-time told me I should quit my day job and become a full-time freelancer. And, yes, there is a temptation there because the freelance rates I charge are over 3 times my day job's hourly rate. However, whenever I look into it, I quickly realize how much more I'd need to make just to stay at my current level (once you factor in health care and other benefits I'm currently getting), how much I'd need to work unpaid (to drum up more business), and how much my "salary" would fluctuate month to month. That last one is a deal breaker. I'm supporting my wife and two kids. I can't afford to not know how much I'm going to be making month to month because the work has dried up for a couple of months, but might pick up soon (maybe, perhaps). I need that steady paycheck so I can budget how much we can spend on necessities, how much we can spend on niceties, and how much we can save. I have nothing but respect for those who freelance full-time, but don't listen to anyone who tries to claim that it is easy and 100% guaranteed to make you more money than a full-time job.

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[plopez]

You're fishing in the wrong pond. I usually worked for small to mid-sized businesses which did not have money to sink down a rat hole or with enough IT knowledge to set up their own IT or programming department. I did that for them, among other things. It was also a situation where a face-to-face relationships were the most important.

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[ranton]

the freelance rates I charge are over 3 times my day job's hourly rate

So much of what you wrote does not mesh with your statement above. Lets say you make $100k per year, so your hourly rate is roughly $50 per hour. That puts the freelance rate at $150 per hour. Lets add in a great family insurance plan that would cost you $15k per year, the employer's portion of your taxes at $8000 per year, and an extra $2000 per year in hardware purchases since you can't use the company laptop anymore. Add in another $5k for good measure, and you would need $130k to make the same as your last job. That is 22 weeks of work, or roughly 5 months.

I can't afford to not know how much I'm going to be making month to month because the work has dried up for a couple of months

Yes you can. You can go 7 months with no work as long as you work the other 5. A couple months out of work is nothing at the rates you feel you could make freelancing. Its still may not be as certain as a full time job at an established company, but making it sound like a couple months "on the beach" would be dangerous financially is dishonest. Being out of work for 6 months or more is the real danger.

I need that steady paycheck so I can budget how much we can spend on necessities, how much we can spend on niceties, and how much we can save.

If you need a steady paycheck for those things then you are by definition not budgeting. That's not meant to be an insult; almost no one budgets their money. But if you actually budget your money you could go all year with a single paycheck and not be any different than someone with 26 paychecks.

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[ranton]

What counts most in business is connections. Freelancers by definition don't have connections. When work dries up, no one has has their back.

While freelancing has its downsides, this is absolutely not one of them. Almost no one has better connections than a good freelancer / consultant. It can be hard to build a good network when you stick with a single company for years. When you are constantly meeting new people at new consulting gigs, you will build a network very quickly. And these are people with the power to make buying decisions, or else they couldn't hire you as a freelancer. So your connections on average will be with much more influential people than most full time employees.

My references from businesses I worked as a FTE are mostly other senior level developers and some mid-level managers. My references from my time as a consultant are directors and senior VP's at multinational corporations, and owners of small to medium sized businesses. Guess which ones I hand out to prospective employers? I don't even plan on using them as references anymore, because last time I did 2 out of 3 of my references called me upset that I didn't ask them for a full time position first. I'll just ask my network for an opportunity next time.

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[judoguy]

I've freelanced on and off for over thirty years. I'm 62 and no degree and I'm currently making around $170,000 a year. Not as much as I'd like, but I'm getting by.

What are you whining about? Make yourself marketable or go away. I have learned whatever I needed over the years to to make myself desirable to clients. New languages, etc., whatever it takes.

Now as a member of the bewildered elderly, I simply told my current client I'd do whatever they need. No whining to be working only with the latest tech, no complaining about maintenance instead of new development (I'm doing both at the moment), just agreeing to make their life easier in return for a decent rate.

Clients (and employers) are very happy to get someone with serious skills and experience who'll just shut up and work. I have seen many, many younger "developers" who couldn't design a relational database properly if it meant the firing squad. Who think that a couple of years coding meant they deserved to be rich right now. Prima donnas who flock to the "latest" hot language without being able to do fundamental problem analysis.

Aww, get off my lawn.

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[KingMotley]

The simple truth is that you need to line up a long term (9-12 month) freelance contract before you quit your day job. Take 50% of your paycheck and sock it away into a savings (or stock market) account. Then you are set. When you are between jobs, draw from that account. When you are working, then deposit into that account 50%. You'll be set with a 9-12 month cushion after your first gig. When you get down to the last 2-3 months, consider looking for a full time job again. Rinse, repeat as necessary (although, I haven't ever had to go back to full-time, yet).

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree completely. And once you prove to them you know what you're doing, YOU become their IT department and they call you constantly for new work, since whatever you do is still cheaper than hiring someone full time.

If you want to make it as a contractor, you need to know and convince people (honestly, not greedily) of what they need and how you can help them do it. You can't chasing jobs posted on guru.com, you need to meet business owners face to face, learn about their business, and help make them tons more money, so then they can pay you tons more money.

Re: The painful truth about freelancing

[cerberusss]

You say this as though freelancers don't have a steady paycheck and don't have a family. When in fact, I am a freelancer (in the sense of a contractor), have a family and a nice house.

The trick is to save a couple of months of expenses, start freelancing and then continue to save in your business account. From the business account, pay yourself a regular salary. I've continued saving into the business account until I had a year of living expenses. And I'll probably continue saving.

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[Anonymous Coward]

I should add, I have worked independently and also for very small shops (~5 total employees), and small shops kind of have it even better in that respect. Even if a business hired one IT person full time... that person is only trained in one skillset. If they instead farm out that $100k/year (pay+benefits for that employee) to your shop instead, they might be able to get IT, web developer, mobile developer, systems software developer, designer, project manager, etc. So we had several clients that were paying a few hundred thousand a year, but it was STILL cheaper for them than hiring new people, because we had such a diverse skillset and had proven we could do the work, whereas a new hire is a total crapshoot.

Teeny tiny businesses without much cash were the bread that kept us alive in between better jobs, and we were lucky to even make a net profit on them, but there's so much of it that it's good safe filler. Large businesses were the whales that we got once in a blue moon, and were often too risky just because they would take 50+ hours of proposal, background, and requirements work and only paid off [but big] one time out of 20 times. They're actually the web shop equivalent of a "resume filler" because having a Sony on your list of projects shows people you're capable. Small- to mid-sized family-owned businesses are the target market. They have cash, they can make important decisions quickly, they will listen to advice, and most importantly, they will remember and trust you if you do well.

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[Jason Levine]

The simple truth is that you need to line up a long term (9-12 month) freelance contract before you quit your day job.

And you've hit on one of my three top reasons why I would find the transition to full-time freelancer to be tricky. (Right after "I prefer the steady income of a salaried job" and "I'm horrible at selling myself.") Right now I freelance in my spare time. I can put in about 10 hours a week freelancing in addition to my full-time job. This gives me enough time to take on one or two clients without overbooking myself (or winding up with no life because I'm working 24 hours a day).

If I were to go full-time freelancer, I'd need more clients, but I can't take on more while also working at my day-job. So I'd need to rely on a greatly reduced income for a few months until I built up enough clients to match my current salary. Of course, this could take months and months during which we'd fall more and more behind financially.

This isn't to say that it couldn't be done. (If I were ever let go from my job and couldn't find a new one right away, full-time freelance might wind up being my new work-situation.) It's just that, at this point in my life, it is an unlikely and very risky path for me to take.

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[plopez]

I also saw myself as their advocate, helping them negotiate through the buzzwords and fending off marketroids to find something that would actually help them. Like I said, they do not have money to throw down a rat hole.

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[Karlt1]

So much of what you wrote does not mesh with your statement above. Lets say you make $100k per year, so your hourly rate is roughly $50 per hour. That puts the freelance rate at $150 per hour. Lets add in a great family insurance plan that would cost you $15k per year, the employer's portion of your taxes at $8000 per year, and an extra $2000 per year in hardware purchases since you can't use the company laptop anymore. Add in another $5k for good measure, and you would need $130k to make the same as your last job. That is 22 weeks of work, or roughly 5 months.

So let's see where to start, I work 1880 hours a year once you subtract the 10 paid holidays and 15 P.T,O days. You don't get paid for holidays or vacation when you freelance.

Then let's say you could work about 11 months out of the year, usually it takes me about a month once I hit the job market to get another job, That's another 160 hours. So now we are down to 1720 hours.

Let's use your cost for insurance and self employment taxes ($23000). Of course you don't get 401K matching (averages about 3% of salary or $3000). So you're about right that it would take $130,000.

So just to be equivalent you would have to make around $80 an hour.

Then there are fringe benefits to working at a salaried job. You don't have to come in being an expert at everything. My company is more than willing to let me spend some time getting up to speed on a framework/technology that I don't know because they see it as investment in future productivity. Would someone be willing to let me learn on the job as a contractor? If I'm not proficient at something as someone else, they don't have a problem with it taking 30% longer as long as I meet deadlines (working on weekends, or staying late). They wouldn't be willing to do that if they were paying me by the hour.

Re:The painful truth about freelancing

[ranton]

So just to be equivalent you would have to make around $80 an hour.

His statement was he could make 3x his current hourly rate as a freelancer, or $150 per hour (assuming he makes $50 per hour salaried). If this is the case, he could work 5 months out of the year and match his old salary. 7 months could be spent learning new frameworks or whatever else he wants. It gives plenty of buffer to be out of work and still pay the bills, along with keeping his skills up to date.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[AK Marc]

When they are too cheap to pay for a test environment, that's good justification for them to have admin to everything on the live environment?

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[Oligonicella]

IT workers shouldn't go freelance because they're just not competent enough to run their own business.

What on earth makes you equate the ability to program with the ability to run a business? That *is* the implication of your statement.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[Actually, I do RTFA]

It's a good justification for programmers testing their changes at 1am

Re:Dear Dice

[penguinoid]

You could say going freelance is a roll of the Dice.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[mwvdlee]

You mean the sysadmin guys failed to set up a separate test network?

Re: IT workers shouldn't freelance

[Redmancometh]

Test network? Restarting the application? Pfft my patches get injected at runtime, and are 100% reflection. Thats how you out-elite the elitists!

Actually I once had to patch a mission-critical piece of software with a java agent at runtime. Waiting to see if loadAgent() failed was a real nailbiter.

The life of the IT contractor

[jafiwam]

The life of the IT contractor is always intense.

Re:The life of the IT contractor

[plopez]

You probably did not see the movie. In fact, if I had a dollar for every time I chased after a car driven by mad scientist with aliens in the trunk, I'd probably have 3 dollars.

Re:The life of the IT contractor

[__aaclcg7560]

If you work at Google. Everywhere else, no so much.

Mostly FUD: Film at 11

[CaptainOfSpray]

Yes, those things listed in TFA are important but they are not that difficult to handle. The worst thing about TFA is that it mostly does not offer the obvious solutions.
1. Getting to work remotely is straightforward. Don't ask for it till you have done an onsite contract first. Prove that you deliver. Then you can be trusted.
2. NDA. Yes, insist on the "standard exceptions" or walk away. There are plenty of other fish in the sea.
3. Yes, you have to educate people you work with. Also true when an employee.
4. Riding out storms. It's not hard to build up reserve money in your business - simply park some of the profit. I always had 6 months worth. You have to park quite a lot anyway, so that you have it ready when tax payment day comes.
5. Keeping up to date. Yes, that's tricky - but you do NOT need to chase the Flavour-of-the-Month like employees do. I only needed to change direction once in 20 years - plenty of earning opportunities always there
6. Reconcile agile and fixed-bid? That's ridiculous FUD. No freelancer is so stupid they do fixed-bid with open-ended requirements, surely? Leastways they only do it once. Every freelancer I have ever worked with was on time and materials.
7. Communications gaps. This is not a threat, this is an opportunity! This is where the freelancer can shine, by doing the internal communicating that the customer is themselves is incapable of. I have done this on every project, and got kudos for being helpful.
8. Time management. Ho hum. Everybody, freelancer or employee, has to manage their time.

Time needed for handling getting requirements and doing proposals? You call that non-billable? No, Dorothy, you roll that into your daily rate.

Re:Mostly FUD: Film at 11

[tepples]

Getting to work remotely is straightforward. Don't ask for it till you have done an onsite contract first.

That depends on to what extent a client is willing to front the relocation costs for a fresh graduate's first onsite contract.

Re:Mostly FUD: Film at 11

[CaptainOfSpray]

Fresh graduate should not become a freelancer. Not enough solid experience of technology, business, weird companies, weird management, to be able to get work, complete contracts, withstand the psychological pressures. Much better to become a freelancer when made redundant later in career.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[Zontar The Mindless]

Obvious troll is obvious.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[plasm4]

It would have been less obvious if he hadn't mentioned SCO.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[Shortguy881]

This sounds like a failed Network Engineer who really wanted to be a programmer...

Re:A nice related article

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet you did Brennan. Brennan Dunn is a known shyster and con artist.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[__aaclcg7560]

As a software test intern, I found a crash bug with a new patch on the test server. I showed my programmer boss three times on how to crash the test server, but he was unable to reproduce the crash bug himself. Since the crash bug was only on the test server, he approved the patch for the production server and it crashed immediately. Software engineers took a look, decided that a long-term fix was needed, and took the production server offline for three days. This cost the company $250,000 in lost revenues. I wasn't hired after completing my internship and 1/3 of the division got laid off to make up for the lost revenue. My boss, however, kept his job.

Re:Plus the whole not having an income

[__aaclcg7560]

I did I.T. support contractor for ten years. Not by choice. Most of my contract jobs lasted one day to one year. I work a job as long as possible before I scramble to find the next job. I'm always asked in interviews why I do contract work and not a "permanent" job. Recruiters look at my resume, see what I've done in the last three jobs and/or three years, assume that I want to continue that kind of work, and offer more contract jobs.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[AK Marc]

The sysadmin guys didn't have budget to set up a separate network, so they told the programmers the cost. The programmers said they'd make their own test network, then took down production with their tests.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[AK Marc]

What, every idiot programmer is "no true programmer"?

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[AK Marc]

Yup. Welcome to Dilbert. It's the rest of your life.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[__aaclcg7560]

I worked at one company that was so inspired by Dilbert that the employees posted Dilbert cartoons on a bulletin board in a central hallway. Management banned the Dilbert cartoons and took them down. When someone posted the Dilbert cartoon of the PHB banning the posting of cartoons, one supervisor ripped it off the wall and went around asking who put it up. No one claimed responsibility. Management then put up a video camera to watch the bulletin board.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[AK Marc]

it is easily possible to do testing on live systems safely with proper coordination between the development and IT operations teams and a modicum of competence on both sides.

Go back and read the original. There was no coordination. Dev did what they wanted without notifying anyone they were doing anything, taking down the live environment. And that's what dev would do every time, as they hate ops asking them to not break everything else so they could do a test.

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[AK Marc]

Someone should have put on a Dilbert mask and put another up.

Hidden?

[mattwarden]

You know, before slashdot turned into a circle jerk of low level programmers complaining about how they could totally do their PHB's job a million times better than their PHB (yet strangely nobody else notices), this article would be laughed into oblivion. Hidden costs of going freelance? Could that sound more naive?

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[tengu1sd]

Chesapeake building in San Diego?

Re:IT workers shouldn't freelance

[__aaclcg7560]

Nope. Video game company in Silicon Valley.

Smuggling undocumented aliens

[tepples]

You probably did not see the movie.

Highly likely.

if I had a dollar for every time I chased after a car driven by mad scientist with aliens in the trunk, I'd probably have 3 dollars.

Do you work for border patrol? And what was the scientist so mad about?

No chance to take a self-promotion class

[tepples]

Why should the skill of self-promotion be any different?

For one thing, self-promotion appears not to be taught well in school. For another, somehow the tech field tends to attract people with disabilities that affect social skills.